The Hub

The Community of Minds

  • The Hub
  • About TheCOM™
    • Testimonials
    • About The Founder: Bethany Huot
  • TheCOM Center for Educative Research™
    • Educative Research™
    • The BIOME Project
  • FAQ
  • The Whiteboard
  • Strategic Career Management (SCM)
    • SCM: Identify
    • SCM: Defining The Void
    • SCM: Commit
    • SCM: Community Perspectives
  • The Resources
    • Digital Identity Management
    • Networking & Science Communication (#SciComm)
    • Writing & Peer Review
    • Bioinformatics & Statistics
    • Methods & Technologies
    • Teaching & Learning (T&L)
      • T & L Communities
      • T & L Training Programs/Fellowships
      • T & L Career Path Prep
      • T & L Tools & Resources
    • Career Prep
    • Job Hunting
  • The Vault (Archive)
    • The File Cabinet
      • The Pub Club Files:
        • The News
        • The Pub Club
          • The Mission
          • The People
          • The Mug Club
            • The Coaster Club
          • The Python Group
          • The Publications
            • Favorite Pubs
            • Papers of Interest…
            • Scoop.it
        • 2017 Summer – Summaries & Docs
        • 2017 Spring – Summaries & Docs
        • 2016 Fall – Summaries & Docs
        • 2016 Summer – Summaries & Docs
        • 2016 Spring – Summaries & Docs
        • 2015 Fall – Summaries & Docs
        • 2015 Summer – Summaries & Docs
        • 2015 Spring – Summaries & Docs
        • 2014 Fall – Summaries & Docs

#SciTricks

  • The COM (The COM)
  • The Void (The COM)

By Bethany Huot

While at ICAR 2017, Adam Seroka and I were talking with Jacqueline Monaghan, who is an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University. She shared that, as a new professor, one of her favorite things to do when visiting other labs is looking for ideas to better organize her lab or new lab tricks she can adopt.

Tip #1: Use foil rather than twist ties or twine to tie Arabidopsis inflorescence for bulking seed. It is much faster and a bit gentler on the inflorescence stems.

  • JacqueMon_AdamSer_BHuot_ICAR2017
  • At_foiled

We decided to share our conversation and the tip on Twitter in case anyone else might find it helpful. This gave us the idea that #LabTricks might be a great way for the science community to share clever ways of saving time or overcoming obstacles in the lab. Because we at The COM are all about using our Community to help us develop our skills both at and away from the bench, I wanted to share this idea with you in hopes it will gain traction. Want to participate? Here’s what you do.

UPDATE: I got a bit excited about this idea and forgot the first rule regarding choosing a hashtag – Make sure it is unique! In searching the #LabTricks, I discovered that dog lovers, specifically of the Labrador retriever type, are also using #LabTricks! So, let’s go with #SciTricks instead. This one has only been used twice, and is on topic, so we are safe for now!

Have a simple, clever method that saves you a lot of time in the lab or just makes life easier? Snap a picture and Tweet the tip & the picture to #SciTricks. Include The Pub Club’s handle (@ThePubClub) and we will retweet it! If you learned the trick from someone else, be sure to give them credit! Here are a couple more examples.

Tip #2: I often collect and flash freeze plant tissue in liquid nitrogen. Thanks to Payam Mehrshahi (@payammehrshahi), I can keep my samples nice and organized (and use less liquid nitrogen) by using a cardboard sample box inside a small Styrofoam container.

Samples in 1.5 ml Eppendorf tubes sitting nicely in liquid nitrogen thanks to cardboard box sitting in small Styrofoam box.

Tip #3: In the He lab we do a lot of disease assays, which requires collecting equivalent leaf tissue (based on leaf area) from all plants sampled. The Day lab (@MSUDayLab) got us hooked on these biopsy punches, which enable sampling from small leaves (useful when working with mutants!) or sampling for several assays from the same leaves. They are disposable, but we usually reuse them several times before discarding.

  • biopsy_punch
  • biopsy_punched_plant

Of course, if you are looking for a better way to do something, you can also Tweet the problem you would like solved to #SciTricks and see what clever strategies The COM is able to share with you! 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Share on Tumblr
#LabTricks Diverse Skills Lab Bench the COM Twitter
June 27, 2017 Bethany Huot

Post navigation

Conference Prep Series: Storify your Science → ← An Inside Scoop on Interviewing to be an Assistant Professor

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Pages

  • The Hub
  • About TheCOM™
    • Testimonials
    • About The Founder: Bethany Huot
  • TheCOM Center for Educative Research™
    • Educative Research™
    • The BIOME Project
  • FAQ
  • The Whiteboard
  • Strategic Career Management (SCM)
    • SCM: Identify
    • SCM: Defining The Void
    • SCM: Commit
    • SCM: Community Perspectives
  • The Resources
    • Digital Identity Management
    • Networking & Science Communication (#SciComm)
    • Writing & Peer Review
    • Bioinformatics & Statistics
    • Methods & Technologies
    • Teaching & Learning (T&L)
      • T & L Communities
      • T & L Training Programs/Fellowships
      • T & L Career Path Prep
      • T & L Tools & Resources
    • Career Prep
    • Job Hunting
  • The Vault (Archive)
    • The File Cabinet
      • The Pub Club Files:
        • The News
        • The Pub Club
          • The Mission
          • The People
          • The Mug Club
            • The Coaster Club
          • The Python Group
          • The Publications
            • Favorite Pubs
            • Papers of Interest…
            • Scoop.it
        • 2017 Summer – Summaries & Docs
        • 2017 Spring – Summaries & Docs
        • 2016 Fall – Summaries & Docs
        • 2016 Summer – Summaries & Docs
        • 2016 Spring – Summaries & Docs
        • 2015 Fall – Summaries & Docs
        • 2015 Summer – Summaries & Docs
        • 2015 Spring – Summaries & Docs
        • 2014 Fall – Summaries & Docs

Academic Jobs Online / Job Feed

Simons Bootstrap Collaboration
14 December 2019 - Simons Bootstrap Collaboration

The Simons Collaboration on the Nonperturbative Bootstrap invites applications for several postdocto [...]

TENURE-TRACK PROFESSOR IN THEORETICAL QUANTUM INFORMATION
13 December 2019 - Harvard University, Department of Physics

TENURE-TRACK PROFESSOR IN THEORETICAL QUANTUM INFORMATION Harvard University Harvard Quantum Initiat [...]

Civics Initiative Postdoctoral Fellowship
13 December 2019 - Stanford University, Political Science

Call for applications: Stanford University Civics Initiative Postdoctoral Fellowship Review of appli [...]

Lecturer in Business (Non-tenure track)
13 December 2019 - Georgia State University

GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY J. Mack Robinson College of Business Dean’s Office The Dean’s Office of the [...]

Assistant Research Professor
13 December 2019 - Duke University, Evolutionary Anthropology

Duke University Evolutionary Anthropology Post-Doctoral Teaching and Research Position: ============ [...]

Science / Careers Articles

Why I stopped turning a blind eye to the ethics of my research—and personal life
12 December 2019

Why I stopped turning a blind eye to the ethics of my research—and personal lifeThis Ph.D. student recalibrated her view on ethics after accidentally killing a bird [...]

A scientist’s hierarchy of free food
11 December 2019

A scientist’s hierarchy of free foodOur Experimental Error columnist is a self-professed free food connoisseur [...]

Ten tips for negotiating job offers
10 December 2019

Ten tips for negotiating job offersOur Letters to Young Scientists columnists say that researchers should learn negotiation skills [...]

How I let go of my guilt as a mother in grad school
5 December 2019

How I let go of my guilt as a mother in grad schoolThis Ph.D. student writes that her daughters have benefited from her pursuit of higher education [...]

Tips for fruitful networking over the holidays
4 December 2019

Tips for fruitful networking over the holidaysIn this installment of Your Unicorn Career, our columnist discusses why the holiday season is a grea [...]

Benchfly / Career Development

The Trifecta: STEM, 3D Learning, and ART
22 December 2017 - Tricia Shelton

Equal opportunity, preparation for college and career, innovations to improve people’s lives, and a [...]

A Changing Focus in Education
11 December 2017 - Tricia Shelton

We are changemakers. We are learners. We are educators. A changing focus in education American educa [...]

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News Chooses BenchFly
9 December 2014 - Alan Marnett

We’re very excited to announce our new partnership with Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News [...]

New Trend Alert: Using Video to Introduce Data
3 September 2014 - Emily Poulin

Here at BenchFly, we’re always looking for new ways to use video to improve scientific research. Dur [...]

The ART of Video Funded by the Gates Foundation
22 August 2014 - Alan Marnett

When we started BenchFly five years ago, in 2009, our mission was to make research a better career f [...]

copyright 2019 Bethany Huot/TheCOM,LLC / Powered by WordPress | theme SG Double
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.