Instruments can make our lives easier in the lab. Place your samples inside an instrument and let it do all the work—isolating nucleic acids or reading and analyzing a multiwell plate—while you walk away to read a new research paper or prepare for the next step in your experiment. However, with the array of machines now available to scientists worldwide, some confusion may result in the laboratory. Has this ever happened to you?
The Lighter Side of Science
Make Plans Now to View a Rare Astronomical Phenomenon
![Solar eclipse viewing. By Skoch3 (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A2012_May_20_Albuquerque_Open_Access_Eclipse_Viewing.JPG)
Next year on August 21, the United States will experience a total solar eclipse. While I will be able to see the solar eclipse in Wisconsin, I will not experience a total eclipse. In fact, I will need to head south and west to states like Nebraska, Kentucky and Missouri to reach part of the US where the moon will fully block the sun. Why is everyone talking about the 2017 Solar Eclipse in 2016? So you can plan your vacation of course!
Have a relative or friend you haven’t seen in a while conveniently located in the total eclipse zone? Ask if they would be willing to cohost a Solar Eclipse party. Alternatively, just ask to stay with friends or family and join up with any public observations of the solar eclipse. You need to plan a family vacation anyway, right? Why not conveniently plan to stay in a location where hey, there’s a total solar eclipse today. Let’s watch! Fun and educational for everyone.
Don’t forget your eclipse viewing glasses (so attractive in cardboard chic) or add filters to telescopes and binoculars for magnified viewing pleasure. Bonus to a total solar eclipse? You can gaze at the moon-blocked sun with your naked eyes for up to 2.5 minutes, depending on location. Just don’t look too long to preserve your retinas.
So if you need an excuse to plan a unique vacation (and maybe appease some rarely seen friends and relatives), consider placing yourself in the swath of the country where the moon will obliterate your view of the sun (for less than three minutes). And if these locations don’t appeal to you, just wait until 2024 when the eastern portion of the US will be treated to a total solar eclipse. Different cities in which to vacation and other relatives to visit!
The Science of Fireworks
Another Independence Day is in the books, and for many of us in the U.S. it included spending time with friends, family, food and the traditional holiday fireworks. Around the world, fireworks add to the enjoyment of many annual celebrations and events. Their colorful visual and audio display has the ability to thrill us, no matter what age we are. Despite growing older I never seem to tire of fireworks; I’ve also noticed that with each passing year the show seems to get more sophisticated. Whether it be a new color or shape or design of firework, pyrotechnic technology seems to improve at an impressive rate.
That got me thinking… how do fireworks actually “work”? Basic chemistry and physics are clearly at play, so in the spirit of a science-related blog I decided to look into this and share what I’ve learned. Continue reading “The Science of Fireworks”
Looking Back: Seeing the Science of My Childhood
Science is all around us— in everything we touch, smell, taste and see. It is in the flowers in our gardens, the molecules of pollen and oils that give those flowers scent, the crystals of sodium chloride that gives our food flavor and the way light is bent and changed to give our world color. There is science in the way we look like our great-great grandmother, and science in the way we are so different from each other. As the granddaughter of a forester and a botanist and the daughter of a science teacher, there has been science in my life for as long as I can remember. Recently my parents moved to a retirement home, and as I spent time helping them downsize, I took pictures of some of the ‘science’ that surrounded my as I grew up.
To start, there is “old brassy”, the first microscope I ever used. This microscope, and it’s slightly more modern cousin held places of honor on shelves in my father’s den.
Held in wooden boxes next to the microscopes were test tubes containing all sorts of mysterious things, including samples gathered by my grandfather while he was a forester in Louisiana. Continue reading “Looking Back: Seeing the Science of My Childhood”
Summer Friday Fun Blog: Science Humor
It is the start of summer here in Wisconsin, so it’s time for some Friday Fun (#FridayFun) blog posts on Promega Connections. To kick us off, I have scraped the internet for a few good and groaner, G-rated science jokes.
So, here it goes, a few jokes to send you smiling (or shaking your head) into your weekend.
Thank a Tech or Assistant
Today’s #FridayFeeling is one of gratitude for all of those people who do the things that make our lives easier: lab techs, work-study students, undergraduate assistants. They put up with our requests and changes of mind and help keep our laboratory glassware clean, solutions sterile and experiments running. Do you have someone who helps you keep your experiments up and running?
In the Moment with Promega Software Designer, Dave Romanin
When Dave Romanin came to work for Promega he was fresh out of school with a degree in bacteriology. His plan was to work for a year in manufacturing and then go back to graduate school. But in the end, he didn’t go. There was no incentive, he explains, for him to spend five years in graduate school making little to no money. He didn’t want to write grants or run his own lab, and he enjoyed what he was doing.
Twenty‐four years later, Dave is still here. He’s moved around a bit, first manufacturing, then dispensing, kit packaging and then on to software development with Lou Mezei. Their first software project was a quality control software to capture data from the scales weighing bottles to ensure they were filled correctly. His experience in manufacturing helped him understand what the program needed to do and helped him define the specifications for the software for the programmer. He has been designing software for the last 10 years, and has worked on projects for everyone from marketing to manufacturing.
He describes his job, in part, as a game of cat and mouse. Dave spends hours testing the software, trying to find the weaknesses the developer didn’t anticipate—in essence, trying to break it. When he finds something that throws the software off or causes it to crash, he and the programmer decide on the next steps. Sometimes it is an easy fix, and sometimes they have to decide if it is worth what it would take to fix it. Would a user be likely to ever do what Dave did? Continue reading “In the Moment with Promega Software Designer, Dave Romanin”
Helix® Personified
Have you ever thought about life from the point of view of a Helix® On-Site Smart Inventory Unit? We did, and this is what we imagined…
Wow! There were a lot of people in and out of here today.
The post doc who never goes anywhere without her earbuds in. I wonder what her research playlist is, she’s always dancing her way in and out of the hall. The new grad student in the virology lab next door. He’s looking a little lost right now.
And of course there’s the PI with the big boots. Never looks where he’s going and constantly almost plowing people down. It’s kind of funny actually, the near misses I’ve seen between him and grad students running out of here with that key reagent they need to finish those last few reaction tubes.
There was a big-name speaker today for the lunch time journal club, so there was a lot of activity on the hall this afternoon. Lots of talking about the presentation. Everyone sounded pretty excited about what they heard.
But now it’s quiet. Most people have gone home for the evening.
Except for the security lighting, the hall is dark.
Oh wait, I hear footsteps heading my way. Apparently, not everyone has stopped work for the day, apparently.
Oh, it’s you. One of my favorite after-hour scientists.
You open the door to the common room, and check the product list on your phone: 100bp DNA ladder … there’s one left. Drawer D.
You pull the pass out of your pocket. I scan it. Click. The door unlocks. You grab your package and let the door close.
I’ll take it from here so that you can get back to work.
Your pass tells me that you’re a post doc in a lab upstairs. After you close the door, I check to see what you took. My scan reads the tag on each reagent. G2101: 100bp DNA ladder. Drawer D.
That was the last one. I update the inventory list. More will arrive in the next resupply shipment.
I send you an email with the details.
Time to check my systems.
Power? Check.
Connection to Promega? Check.
Door closed and locked? Check.
Storage temperature holding steady? Check.
All reagents present? Check.
The lights go dark as I transmit the report back home.
There and Back Again: Part IV (South Island, New Zealand)
In 2014, Promega created a special incentive to reward field science consultants who help the scientific community take advantage of our on-site stocking program. The winners had to meet ambitious criteria to receive 2 round-trip tickets to anywhere in the world, a week of paid vacation and spending money. Our four winners from 2014 will share photos and stories about their journeys in a semi-regular Friday feature on the Promega Connections Blog.
Today’s travelogue is Part IV and the final installment of the adventures of Mica Zaragoza, a senior client rep in Chicago, IL, who used his award to travel to Australia and New Zealand.
Queenstown, New Zealand
Walking out of our room into the open air, Queenstown instantly provided a lasting impression. Nestled along Lake Wakatipu, watched over by the Remarkable Mountains, the city feels like Aspen on steroids—it’s no wonder there’s such an international pull for young travelers and skiers.
We jumped right into exploring with a gondola ride. This photo is my best attempt at capturing Queenstown from high above. Continue reading “There and Back Again: Part IV (South Island, New Zealand)”
A Walk Around the Promega Campus: Honoring Some of the Greats of Science
The Promega campus in Madison, Wisconsin has been fortunate to welcome several new buildings in recent years. While some of the older buildings are fondly known by their acronyms – BTC for BioPharmaceutical Technology Center and RDC for Research & Development Center – other names are more descriptive. Notice a particular theme to these buildings’ names: Faraday, Franklin, da Vinci, Feynman, Kepler? Legendary scientists all, with visionary minds, they serve to inspire and remind us of the possibilities that Promega employees can achieve.
Given the impressive pool of Nobel Prize recipients, inventors and innovators to consider as namesakes of Promega buildings, why were these particular individuals chosen? And, who exactly were they? Continue reading “A Walk Around the Promega Campus: Honoring Some of the Greats of Science”
