Obvious lab advice ??

Hi everyone!

Here's some obvious lab advice.

No explanation needed.

1. Not everyone loves to go fishing. So don’t leave the scoop for the ice machine in the ice.?
2. If it’s socially acceptable and you’ve got shared speakers, music can be a fantastic way to liven up your lab atmosphere—though you’ll need to find the musical common ground. Avoid divisive artists, like Coldplay, Taylor Swift, and Kanye. If you’re struggling, agree on a decade or a radio station. And if all else fails, you may hum quietly to yourself until someone tells you to be quiet.
3. Biology is hard. Recognize your wins, no matter the size—whether it’s a publication, a successful experiment, or a breakthrough in understanding.
4. Passive aggressive post-it notes—if you’re going to leave these around the lab, please make them funny.
5. When making conversation in the lab, read the room. That person in the pipetting “zone” probably won’t appreciate you telling them what you ate for lunch. The interruption will make them completely forget whether they’ve just added their reagent to well A22 or B22, and you’ll risk ruining their experiment.?
6. Back up your data. Then back it up again. The only thing worse than an experiment failing is not having proof that it happened in the first place.?
7. When it comes to lab housekeeping, always go above and beyond. That means cleaning up common areas, putting things back where they belong, taking out overflowing bins, and following the lab housekeeping rota without your lab manager chasing you up about it first.?
8. Don't take pipette tips out from the middle of a fully filled box instead of starting from the first row. Please, don't.?
9. Gamifying your lab work can be fun and helps you get stuff done. Try racing a labmate to see who can discard supernatant from their centrifuged tubes first. Just be careful not to accidentally discard your cells in the process (been there, done that).
10. If gloves are part of the PPE in your lab, wear them. You don’t want to be the daredevil who goes gloveless when handling hazardous materials.
11. No matter how excited you are to show off those new sandals, premier them after that 8-hour experiment in the lab. Protect your toes.?
12. Label your reagents properly—concentration, sterility, the date it was made, and your initials. There’s nothing worse than finding a bottle of an unidentified liquid and accidentally drinking it.?
13. Some days, science just doesn’t work. Try not to be disheartened and try again tomorrow. ?

Catch you next time,

—Fatima, Research Scientist I, Synthace

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