Life Science Tools of the Trade

Some in the lab got into the spirit of Halloween and dressed up.  Who/what did they dress up as?  Not scientists!  We had an alien, Princess Leia, a nurse, a clown, an angel, Borat, a smart cookie… nothing that remotely looked like a scientist.

This title jumped out at me as I was scanning the science headlines this weekend - Weight Gain of U.S. Drivers has Increased Nation’s Fuel Consumption.

The study looked at the effect of being overweight has had on fuel consumption.  Somehow, through mathematical computations (not my area of expertise) the scientists concluded “that each extra pound of body weight in all of today’s vehicles results in the need for more than 39 million gallons of extra gasoline usage each year.”

They determined, this summer when gas was around $3/gallon, the bill for overweight people in a vehicle amounted to ~$7.7 million a day, or $2.8 billion a year.
Considering current politics, I’m wondering…  what happens if Americans go on diets and the demand for gas is less?

time for the annual Halloween vendor show.  It all happens tomorrow!  Sales reps in costumes…  always interesting.

There have been some pretty bad costumes in previous years.  The rep that went as a pipet tip always comes to mind.  I guarantee Hbogerd hasn’t forgotten that one!

I think we might have to have a contest for best and worst costume.  And the winners are…

Duke University’s Continuing Studies (not connected with Duke University Medical Center) will host Dr. Masaru Emoto on November 13th, 2006.  Dr Emo will present his “groundbreaking research” (never published in a peer-reviewed journal) on how water crystals will be beautiful or ugly depending upon whether the thoughts directed at them were positive or negative.

I haven’t paid to see a scientist give a seminar and don’t think I’ll pay $22 to get in the door to hear this snake-oil salesman present his new age nonsense. Apparently this mystical mumbo jumbo can be achieved through prayer, music or by attaching written words to a container of water.

My personal lab situation:

Prayer: I’ve got that covered with my collection of authentic Mexican religious candles (from Superiora Taqueria #2) which hover above my bottle of water on the mini-shrine. All systems go!

Music: Hopefully, my water likes “16 Great Truck Drivin’ Hits” and other twangy Americana music. Good vibrations here!

Taped messages: Wow! I haven’t tried that approach, but I’m thinking about a two-fold method using both positivity and negativity. I’ll label my bottle of water “Lucky Water” and send out plasmid requests to competitors diluted in “Unlucky Water”!

I know the initial tone of this blog probably sounded very cynical but upon further reflection I think Dr. Emote may be on to something! It just isn’t science.

just keeps growing and growing. So, I’d heard that Fisher and Thermo Electron had merged. The new company, Thermo Fisher Sci, is suppose to dominate the life science industries. The projected revenue is staggering.

I guess what I didn’t know was how many companies Fisher owned even before this merger. ABgene… Fisher owns it. Cellomics… Fisher owns it. HyClone, Dharmacon and Pierce. Yup, Fisher owns all of them.

If Fisher keeps merging with and buying other companies, they’ll own everyone!

I understand the $10 shipping charge from Covance on a recent reagent order. I don’t understand how they can get away with charging $29.50 for four mini-freezer “Cold Ice” packs on the last order we received. I took the time to contact coldice.com to find out the pricing. A case of 72 (item # 8cc) costs $14.18.  Nice profit if you can sell $.80 worth of product for $29.50! I would think the high prices Covance charge for their products would “buy” you four ColdIce packs, a recycled foam box and pay somebody minimum wage to toss it in a box.

The latest scare on SAB has been the previously generally ignored problem of the generation of toxins in tissue culture media due to exposure to light.  Appaarently, this is a most serious problem that was well documented, ignored and then finally forgotten.

I propose that the unintentional introduction of mercury fillings into tissue culture media may be a problem of even greater importance and yet totally ignored (until this post!).  The toxicity of mercury is not debatable. Unfortunately, I have been unable to unearth statistics but I find it hard to believe that not once has a technician, grad student or post-doc lost an amalgam (mercury) filling while mouth breathing with their head inside a laminar airflow hood poised over a bottle of media left (unwisely) uncapped. Kerplunk!

That evening the scientist’s tongue finds a rough spot on a tooth. Hmmmm…That feels strange….Did I chip a tooth? Maybe I lost a filling? At that very moment toxic mercury is leeching from the filling unwittingly deposited in the foil wrapped bottle of media. Days later the cells begin to die? Why? Too much glutamine? Too low pH? Too confluent? TOO MUCH MERCURY!!!!

“Occam’s Razor” and “The Sword of Damacles” can be combined to creat a new problem solving model defined as “a dangerous event that is the least likely explanation for a problem”.

Although I have never seen this problem documented, using Douglas Adam’s ”infinite improbability drive” one can calculate that it clearly is a possible event, if highly unlikely. The next time your cells die unexpectedly, peel off that light protecting layer of aluminum foil and look for the mercury filling at the bottom of your bottle of DMEM or RPMI. Of course, if no silver colored piece of filling is visible you should then immediately assume that the vendor sent you a bad batch of expired media!