Being a scientist myself... well somewhat... I'm a science postgrad in full research mode... no? Okaymeme.jpeg
Anyway, I find these so hilarious that I want to share with you guys.... and to whoever who reads my blog posts :)
Have fun laughing your heads off... I might just add a few of my own... but please don't tell my supervisor :P
When I run experiments perfectly, it fails. But I drop my cells, run out of media and use incorrect materials, it works #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) May 2, 2014
Someone should publish a paper on how many times must an experiment fail in order to realize that it will not work #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) May 22, 2014
The coffee machine and the centrifuge both broke today. You can guess which one we prioritized first. #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) April 16, 2014
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result....oh wait, that's Research... #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) March 10, 2014
Data for Days 1, 3, 4, and 5 were perfect. Day 2 was weird. The paper will show Day 1, 3, and 5. PI agreed. Science. #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) April 17, 2014
Eliminated 2 timepoints b/c without them, the graph of the remaining timepoints actually makes enough sense to publish #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) February 16, 2014
We took a sample every 20 minutes because we didn't have enough solution for every 10. #overlyhonestmethods
— Dorothea Erxleben (@quotidiandoro) February 10, 2014
----- I was forced to do that.... once. But the usual case is I created a master mix and I have some leftovers - I try to put the leftovers equally into all my sample tubes because magnetic streptavidin beads are hella expensive.
"Learning is more important than publishing" said no PI ever. #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) February 5, 2014
----- Yup!
3 experiments gave me good data. Good thing editors don't see the 19 failed experiments that yielded contradicting data #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) January 9, 2014
The only factor which decides the timepoints of experiments is making sure nobody has to come in over the weekend. #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) December 11, 2013
Asked PI if I could skip work b/c I'm sick. he said "that's fine only because I don't want you contaminating the cells" #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) April 5, 2013
I ended my experiment 2 hours earlier than reported because apparently deadlines are more important than actual science #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) May 2, 2013
The Scientist Diet: Plan an experiment to finish at dinner time. Something will go wrong and you'll have to skip dinner #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) March 1, 2013
--- lol, in this case, I'll be like 'Fck the experiment, my stomach is more important' and then you'll develop a guilty conscience and go 'nah, I'll just repeat this one more time... it might just take a pity on me and work if I'm hungry'
"I chose this job because of easy hours, high pay, little stress, and the glamour of the job" said no scientist ever #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) February 28, 2013
---- and in fact, lab rats (the actual rats) are treated better than the people in the labs.
if you editors really expect me to read 150+ papers just to write 1 review paper, you guys are dumber than I thought... #overlyhonesmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) February 15, 2013
----- Just the abstract of those papers ;)
the words "exactly" and "precisely" are two words that are always written in my protocols, but rarely enforced #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) February 13, 2013
----- super agree... it's more like approximately... but it's a very rough type of approximation. And since I measure the powder by directly using the Scott bottle as the 'weighing boat', it's not like I can take the powder out.
If a scientist says "I'm doing literature research today", they actually meant to say "I don't feel like working today" #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) February 11, 2013
----- I used to actually read lots of papers in a day (from front to back)... then I realised that it is absolutely useless. You won't remember any of them by the time you are writing your thesis or academic paper.
What does Las Vegas and a science lab have in common? Everything is dependent on luck and you almost never win #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) February 9, 2013
----- yup, enuf said!
told labmate i didnt understand his paper. he said "hope it's too confusing for people to ask questions I can't answer" #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) February 1, 2013
---- ahahaha! I'm going to aim for this achievement in my discussion for my thesis.
undergrads: can perform all experiments perfectly, but always find a way to use the wrong reagents on the wrong samples #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) January 28, 2013
---- this is exactly what my BF experienced... or something like that. And in the end, dunno how many days' worth of work goes down the drain.
i say "i know what i'm doing" aloud. but in my head, i actually said "i have no f***ing clue what i'm doing" #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) January 25, 2013
----- always! well, almost always!
"sample was incubated overnight" is another way of saying "sample was incubated until I felt like getting out of bed" #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) January 19, 2013
---- yuppp!
i only used 4 timepoints because if i used 5 timepoints, i wouldn't have a straight line or p<0.05 #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) January 17, 2013
----- I just did this for one of my graphs in my thesis and there are still 2 more graphs that needs repeating... sigh. My co-supervisor told me that this is 'normal practice' and that I should do it if I want to ever graduate... I was hooked on the graduate part.
whenever i give someone my protocol, i write at the bottom "Good luck reproducing the results." #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) January 15, 2013
----- protein expression and purification can be a total biatch. Seriously...
the paper was fully written using 3 citations. after finalized, 30 citations were randomly added throughout the paper #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) January 15, 2013
----- LOL! Like my currently under-review review paper... the reviewer wanted new information (and it's not like I didn't include 2014 papers, but he wanted more), so I just searched a list of recent papers up on PubMed using the keyword and viola! xxx new papers cited in my review... lol...
most of the data requested by editors is data I excluded on purpose because it contradicted my paper #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) January 12, 2013
----- although this did not apply to me, but it's still pretty funny :P
i told the undergrad not to tell me if he screws up the samples so that i can have "plausible deniability" with the PI #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) January 11, 2013
----- well, the results won't turn up right and the PI will still blame you for being the 'lousy teacher'
sometimes work is based on what can be published with the materials in lab, not trying to make scientific breakthroughs #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) January 11, 2013
---- like my current crappy project...
an undergrad forgot to label two of my samples, so i thought like a scientist...i guessed. #overlyhonestmethods
— overlyhonestmethods (@overlyhnstmthds) January 10, 2013
---- okay, this is a mistake that almost every fed-up beginner in postgrad does... but most of the time, it's mislabelled. You can ask my BF how he fared when he wasted months of work due to mislabelled forward and reverse primers...
Last 2 authors contributed equally...because their egos are equally f*cking big #overlyhonestmethods
— TheFlexLex (@TheFlexLex) January 9, 2013
----- ah... just the typical PI ego.
The enzyme was dialysed overnight in 2L buffer at 4C for 16h. It might have been 18h or more if I slept late.. #overlyhonestmethods
— Jane (@delarivier) January 9, 2013
"Experiment was repeated until we had three statistically significant similar results and could discard the outliers" #overlyhonestmethods
— David C Logan (@angerstusson) January 7, 2013
Scientific real talk. #overlyhonestmethods Read more: http://t.co/JLog5gPheJ via @22Words pic.twitter.com/s0lGk7JPHc
— ScienceAlert (@ScienceAlert) August 20, 2014
#overlyhonestmethods The results of the study were presented in third person passive voice to maximize the "sciencyness" of the paper.
— Kritika Rao (@KritikaRao_) September 12, 2013
Because of "our unfamiliarity with UNIX commands, we found ourselves unable to use it" http://t.co/7WFFuOzKXd #overlyhonestmethods
— Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra (@jrossibarra) September 18, 2013
----- and some of these OHMs made it into academic papers as well xD
Gloves: for when your lab notebook is MIA and you really need to write something down #overlyhonestmethods pic.twitter.com/DVeiJ7hIIO
— Dr Elizabeth Sargent (@esargent184) April 5, 2013
------ I'm famous for doing this in my lab lol. And I'll keep 'used' gloves around because all my data or any impromptu protocol modifications are on them :P
#overlyhonestmethods in action: "Sample dropped", "Samples mixed", "Tube broke" see Table 2 in http://t.co/Z1WF04mu pic.twitter.com/6YYgbHwo
— Casey Bergman (@caseybergman) January 23, 2013
“@DrMomMTBC: No one in graduate school ever mentions how much paperwork is involved in being a scientist. @OverlyHonestly”
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) June 10, 2014
---- yeah, like the load of quotation work or if your PI is aiming for the professor position, his professorship application forms and documents...
"If at first you don't succeed, try and fail two more times so your failure is statistically significant." #overlyhonestmethods
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) March 1, 2014
----- I've failed so many times that I've lost count, so even though my negative results are 'statistically significant', I cannot explain them lol
“@dmorneau1: @OverlyHonestly did my reactions at pH 7.5 because I didn't want to make new buffer.”
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) February 28, 2014
------- yes, yes and yes! It's just 0.2 or 0.5 anyways, it'll work. xD I did that plenty of times... any pH buffer can be a pain in the ass to adjust the pH.
“@vdulabic: :-)) // Who to thank when your paper gets accepted? pic.twitter.com/69h6iUMldt via @LGTummers @OverlyHonestly”
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) January 9, 2014
----- I should do this to my second reviewer who said my paper is a load of trash lol... (Unlike the first, third and fourth reviewers who recommended my paper :P) If only I knew his/her name... lol
Adding more chapters into the lot review to increase my total # of pages. Hmm what shall I write about next...
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) April 16, 2013
----- like my 25 paged introduction and lit review as compared to my possibly less than 10 pages of results and discussions... oh well, time to enlarge the font size and narrow down the margins
Sing along to Luke Bryan and forget which well you just added bacteria to. #OverlyHonestMethods
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) February 15, 2013
------- try that with adding samples to a whole bunch of PCR tubes or microtiter wells and you'll cry... nah I'll just make an educated guess as to where I've stopped and proceed as usual
Healthy donor blood was taken from a donor with written consent. I know they were informed bc it was me. #OverlyHonestMethods
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) February 2, 2013
---- like me needing to get ethical approval for using my own urine sample in a spiking experiment...
These compounds are medicinally important if you are a genetically modified mouse with an obscure form of cancer. #OverlyHonestMethods
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) January 30, 2013
PCR conditions are detailed in supp table 1, including optimized underwear color and superstitious ritual #OverlyHonestMethods
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) January 30, 2013
RT “@Tillythepink: The literature review was conducted by reading wikipedia entry and quoting its references #overlyhonestmethods”
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) January 23, 2013
------ lol! exactly what I did for my thesis lit review... dayum~
The spectrometer was made by a company which no longer exists, in a country which also, no longer exists. #OverlyHonestMethods
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) January 22, 2013
We used jargon instead of plain English to prove that a decade of grad school and postdoc made us smart. #OverlyHonestMethods
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) January 22, 2013
----- so don't test me on molecular bio jargons, I'll out-jargon you xD but I'm not taking on people who have more experience than I do in this field btw.
This experiment only works if you use the TBAF that's been sitting in our cabinet for eight years. #OverlyHonestMethods
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) January 21, 2013
I didn't label the tubes, but after looking at the results, I'm pretty sure this one is the control. #OverlyHonestMethods
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) January 19, 2013
Samples were incubated overnight (5pm - 10am on weekdays, 7pm - 7pm on weekends). #OverlyHonestMethods
— Overly Honest Method (@OverlyHonestly) January 18, 2013
------- and sometimes even later because I wanted to sleep in
DNA purification was done with Macherey-Nagel kits because we get a huge box of haribo gummy bears with our kit order. #overlyhonestmethods
— Brad (@BradBraderson) January 11, 2013
-------- it all boils down to the free gifts. Like the time I ordered a kit and some other unnecessary stuff (but they are reagents anyway, so I will use them.... one day) from a supplier just so I can get a chance to get free movie tickets...... I didn't get them
Source: A fake Los Angeles Times news site.
My personal experiences or other people's experiences that I've witnessed first hand
... or maybe I've just made them up ;)
The fact that I incubated my samples in -20C overnight rather than in -80C freezer just so I could go home.
Or that I incubated my samples in the drying oven instead of the water bath or the heating cube because they were already occupied.
Or that time I was sick on a Friday and my blot was destained over the weekend... and it worked. Since then, I've destained every blot over the weekends...
Or the countless hours of 'over-incubating' my samples because I went out for a long lunch and then forgot about the time.
Or the time I copy and pasted my proposal literature review into my academic paper, my conference abstract, scholarship application AND my thesis. Recycling and reusing ftw! (Just the 2-3 pages on aptamers and the figures lol)
Or using weight balances which were not calibrated (coz some stupid idiot moved the stupid machine and didn't recalibrated it) just because there is no way in hell I'm picking up someone else's sht. I've done it plenty of times in the past but no longer!
Or using weight balances which were not calibrated (coz some stupid idiot moved the stupid machine and didn't recalibrated it) just because there is no way in hell I'm picking up someone else's sht. I've done it plenty of times in the past but no longer!
Or the time when the waste pile is so high, that once autoclaved, a horde of drosophila spewed from the autoclave machine. Don't blame me though, it's not my turn!
Or you've forgotten to put the autoclaved Scott bottle of agar into the oven? Don't worry, put the solidified agar into the microwave oven and hope for the best!
Or my experiment involved spiking because I've tried with real samples and it didn't work.
Did you know what happens when the common lab computer has so many files on the desktop that it no longer has any space to display anymore? You probably don't, but I do. :P
Here's a quick anecdote - There was a time when I used PowerPoint to draw a gel image to provide the audience an image of the expected result of my experiment and one of the audience said to me, 'Wow, nice gel image! How did you get that?' I was like.... 'Didn't you listen to me when I was presenting? It is just the expected results...'
And some academic papers are exaggerated possibilities based on a very little not-really-accurate data. Like have you ever imagine why there are so many papers on cancer cure discoveries or 'possibilities' but none of them actually discovered the actual cure?
For more funny and overly honest methods, check these out:
- http://adf.ly/rKwpy (How to determine the order of authorship in an academic paper)
- http://adf.ly/rKpvo
- http://adf.ly/rKvH5
- http://adf.ly/rKvcq
- http://adf.ly/rKw0l (for social sciences)
- http://adf.ly/rKyhB (An article interviewing the first person to start the hashtag 'Overly Honest Methods')
- http://adf.ly/rKyqV (A list of 75 OHMs by Beckie Port)
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