It's that time of year again...

You can tell that the Honours year is almost over... look what just got installed in our lab...

I wish I had one when I was desperately trying to finish my thesis on time!

Peanut Butter DISPROVES Evolution

Sent round via the Maze Social listing:

Given by a man who is clearly more intelligent than you because he's an
engineer AND an author.

http://www.glumbert.com/media/peanutbutter

*bangs head on table*

The Label is there for a REASON PEOPLE!

Over recent summer holidays my lab received an inducible expression system kit which I ordered before I went off to enjoy the sunshine. Unfortunately, who ever recieved it stored it in the normal freezer ... which would of been fine if there wasn't a GLYCEROL stock of the host strain required for transformations! So of course, by the time I went to thaw it out they were DEAD, and now I have to order new ones, which have to come in from o/s... so now I have to waste my time waiting for them to come in. Argh! Not Happy Jan!

Mysterious taps...

So... still finding interesting things around The Maze. Was down in the level 2 toilets this afternoon when I noticed 2 mysterious taps. One in the toilets and one on the other side of the wall...

Why mysterious you ask? Well.. it's cause I'm not really sure what they turn on or off!

This is the first tap I noticed - it's actually in the toilet. It seems to be a cold water tap (has a blue cap) and looks a little like a shower tap... BUT as you can see there is NOTHING above it!! On the other side we have what looks like a hot water tap (has red cap!). Now as you can see from the photo it's up bloody high and again there's NOTHING ABOVE IT!

What are the function of these mysterious taps? We may never know... however this does remind me suspiciously of the DO NOT PRESS button on the centrifuge! Has the maze been turned into one big psychology experiment?!

I shall fight the urge to turn the taps... just in case is floods the entire building or something like that!

Brennan, Serial Cell Killer

So... its my third practical week into my PhD, and I've hit my first snag (already!). Unfortunately for me, my HEK-CaR cells have decided mysteriously to up and die on me. I'm not sure why... normally when there is a contamination you can work out which one it is by just having a look under the microscope.

Fungal contamination is normally the easiest to see, as in advanced cases it can be seen with the naked eye. They normally look kinda whitish/yellowish and fluffy.

Bacterial contamination is a little harder, but can be seen under a high powered microscope as little black dots that move around the cells. Not a good sign. They also cause a sudden change to the pH of cell growth medium (and therefore the colour!) from redish/pink to yellow

Yeast contamination is also visible under high powered microscopy. Must admit I've never seen yeast contamination myself, however they look like small ovals that bud of from each other.

The hardest contamination to detect is mycoplasma, mainly because it cannot be detected by light microscopy. In fact, we dont even test for this in the lab! Thought it normally has to come from an infected cell source (which we dont have, so I doubt this will affect us!)

Argh! I am trying deperately to save my cells, I'm hoping tomorrow they'll be looking better... But i doubt it. And if they die I'll have to thaw out a new crop!

Darn I hate cell culture!

Water CRISIS!!

Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone...

Water is sometimes called the elixir of life, however for scientists water is the most important reagent in the lab. Most of your reagents are made up in water and alot of your experiments are even carried out in water. Water is our liquid gold.

However, water isn't just water. No! No! No! That stuff that comes out of your tap... well shock horror, it's not pure water and therefore not good enough for our experimental use. In the lab, there are three grades of water.

1. Normal tap water - good to wash your hands in... and maybe wash up some equipment... that's about it
2. RO/de-ionized water - good for growing bacteria and running gels
3. Milli-Q - Pure "2 hydrogens to every oxygen" water

Milli-Q water is very important to me, a lot of my experiments require me to perfuse liquids across the surfaces of cells. These solutions are generally differing concentrations of certain activators in 'physiological saline' which I make up out of Milli-Q water... no Milli-Q water... No EXPERIMENTS!! *baum baum*

Now, the system in the maze turns Sydney Tap Water into Ro water which is then feed into the Milli-Q filtering systems to become Milli-Q water. The cartridges that filter water to Milli-Q standard require the water coming in to be relatively pure or they clog up quite easily... and unfortunately for us, seems that the system filter tap water to RO water wasn't doing its job, therefore our Milli-Q water has been crap as the filters are too clogged up... fun fun fun...

Luckily for us... it has been fixed at least temporarily. The system is so old it need to be replaced entirely... and who know when that'll happen!

Though it does mean I have no more excuses for not doing my work... DARN!

To Press or Not To Press

Noticed this piece of madness while using the centrifuge the other day..

Now I want to PUSH THE BUTTON! However i also fear the consequences of:
a) breaking a $10,000 piece of equipment OR
b) blowing up the building (you never know it could happen!!)

Maybe it's some kinda of warped psychology experiment... turning the maze occupants into LABRATS... wouldnt put it past em!

Who Knew?

I just saw this poster up in the maze (aka BCHM building)! It's just your average DO NOT SIGN AN AWA poster....

Or is it.... I noticed down in the IT MAY CAUSE section, someone put an additional terrible consequence of signing an AWA... and you thought that decreased safety standards were bad... !

BUT NO! Signing an AWA may cause CANCER IN PREGNANT RATS!!

SO DONT SIGN AN AWA.. or the RSPCA MAY GET YOU!!