New Year Resolution in 2013

Finish my PhD dissertation and submission by July.

Plagiarism solution

Plagiarism is nasty. It cheats, but it's also becoming unavoidable too if we don't invent new words (vocabulary) to fill in the "deficit". Judging from the rate of depleting alternative words and used-up paraphrasing, we are now at very dangerous threshold of being picked up by ever efficient anti-plagiarizing software as suspected plagiarist.

Access denied can go home

My institute has all the places locked and in order to gain access to the building, I am required to constantly tap my RFID card (or identification card). It is cool to be working in this place because it gives a sense of exclusivity. It is also safe, I guess.

At times, I wished that the whole place wouldn't be locked.

For example, it is so inconvenient to move from one floor level to the next because I would need to tap on the card reader for at least three different occasions in order to reach my destination. It is still okay if I am traveling light, but imagine me carrying a tray of stuff with both hands not free.

Today, I forgot to bring my access card to work. Got trapped outside while waiting for help. At times like this, I just wish I can go home.

Fortunately, there are several places that are free from being locked, e.g. toilet, library and canteen. In addition, the vending machines with food and drink are not locked.

P.s. I have been to EMBL Heidelberg and I almost went crazy over sight of installed card reader on the vending machines there. There was no coin slot for purchase and I can only scream at the oversight of having to exclude visitors like me who are on the verge of hunger and unable to purchase the food and drink displayed there. I felt so left out. Fortunately, kind souls there helped me pay for the food and drink by using their cards.

Not all hog mentality are bad

It would be unfair to categorize all hogs (or hog mentality) as bad or obnoxious. Some hogging is required for survival in some lab. I guess all of us are susceptible to adopting this useful skill sometimes.

I can think of several reasons we transform to hogs. They are as follow:

1. After having prepared all solutions, stocks, plates, slides etc. and when the time comes to use them, you find out someone had used them and didn't have the common sense to replace these for you.
2. Sharing is not a problem to you until someone carelessly contaminated your buffers, stock reagents, enzymes, antibodies etc. by not aliquoting (with filtered tip). Worst, they might forget to place these reagents back to proper temperature.
3. You assumed that it is safe to place your instruments, pipettes, slides, etc. out in the open until you find out one morning that they are untraceable.
4. The concept of borrowing to some people is akin to taking without return and you find yourself reluctant to lend.
5. It is disheartening to find your work place have been messed up by someone who used your bench without permission. The junk and spillage disgusted you. You started pasting all these notes reminding people to keep clear of your area.

I believe there are plenty of reasons for a decent person to resort to adopting a hog mentality. It's not at all difficult to distinguish real hogs to "semi-hogs". Semi-hogs tend to form an equilibrium between hog vs non-hog, whereas real hogs go all the way to being a hog :)

In some occasions, real hogs do transform into a decent person, but infrequently.

Squirrel mentality in the lab

I'm guilty of this as well, i.e. having squirrel mentality (or could be worst, a hog). A squirrel, during impending winter, will store nuts and whatever food it can find in many places (crevices and underground) in the hope that all these will be of use during winter. In reality, having able to find half of the stored food when-need-be would be amazing...

As for me (and probably some of you), I would keep all samples, DNAs, RNAs, plasmids, proteins, lysates, slides, cell pellets, bacterial plates, solutions, media, etc for a long time with the hope that I will have better use of them in the future. But in reality, most of the stored stuff in the fridge and freezer ends up as "junks". For having kept them for so long now that it would be impossible to keep tab of what they are or were-meant-for; and losing them wouldn't affect a thing...

In order to prevent this from happening, I think the best way would be to keep what is needed and throw them once they are useless.Never ever procrastinate and never keep works for future because chances are, they will end up as junk.

Well, a squirrel is still better than hogs. Being a hog is obnoxious, and they impede the flow of productivity in the lab. A hog will waste, buy things in abundant (or redundant) and waste them afterwards when these things are expired. Hogs like to hide stuff, move them unannounced, work at wee hours to avoid detection. Hogs are dirty, they don't tidy their work benches (and others'), and they leave junks for others to clean. Hogs don't help prepare common buffers or solutions once they finished using etc... In other words, hogs are nasty. Never end up as one if you need friends and help....

Anyway, my problem is not of a hog, but a squirrel. With this entry, I hope I will be able to organize, clean and manage my stuff efficiently.

De-cluttered some posts

De-cluttered some posts today. Wish I could say the same with the stuff that bulking in the fridge...

Ban sweeping the floor in the lab

Sweeping the lab with a broom is not a good idea because fine dust particle will linger in the air and settle onto benches and equipments. In addition, if the sweep happens at the same time when someone in the lab is plating/inoculating bacterial culture, chances of contamination is increased.
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Apart from fine dust particle, the floor is rich with microbes and light-weight spores.
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Fungi contamination is very likely if we are preparing solution, culture, or other work on the bench.
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Also, dust particle will travel into machines or lab equipments having ventilation system, and will clog the fan rendering the ventilation less efficient. An inspection on electrophoresis power pack (or computers) will prove my point.
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Normally, lab cleaning is done by cleaners. They are given the tools by management and what they use is thus dictated by management.
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If their client, e.g. researchers or principal investigators (PIs) starts giving feedback about the improper use of broom, it will be possible to move the management of cleaning crew to invest in other alternatives, e.g. electrostatic cloth or material on a mop/sweeper.
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Other problem associated with disturbed fine particle (includes spores) on the floor that lingers in the air would be mold formation in the air ventilation and conditioning unit.
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Without proper filters and frequent maintenance, air quality in confined places such as laboratory will deteriorate. In humid places, it exacerbate this condition.
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Inexplicable sneezes only while in the lab would indicate allergy to the air in our work place.
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In regular office, laying the floor with carpet would minimize disturbing dirt/dust particle on the floor. However, carpets in a laboratory is not safe as spilt media would attract colonies of microbes. Such spill is difficult to clean.
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The use of vacuum cleaner is proper only when the exhaust is sufficiently filtered (or washed as in the liquid-containing vacuum cleaner) because the strong jet of exhaust will release fine particle into the air quicker than the act of sweeping.
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All in all, we should try to minimize disturbing dirt on the floor, especially in laboratory dealing with sensitive material such as microarray chip printing.