#lab mistakes

[bme-girl]

My last lab report, the longest of them all and biggest percentage of my grade!!

You’ll never guess what happened in this hecking lab. So we were dealing with air-tight glassware and liquid nitrogen and a heater (lots of safety precautions necessary lol). So it took about an hour of prep, and then finally we could start our runs. In sum, we were measuring the nitrogen pressure in the tubes, so it was v important that we opened and closed the right valves at ALL times. After about the 6th run, I’m in a groove, double checking every valve as I go, and boom I close the valve to take the next reading and it skyrockets. Basically, each pressure equilibriates off of the last, so if you screw up, you have to start over from the very beginning, including re-prepping. I felt so incompetent, assuming that I had screwed up somewhere even though I truly remember closing everything correctly. So I get the demonstrator, he takes a look, agrees that it’s skewed. He was like it’s okay, it happens. He shuts everything off, except the pressure is still fluctuating like crazy! Turns out, there was a fricking LEAK in the glass somewhere. We had to start the whole thing over and it took 5 hours total, but AT LEAST it wasn’t my fault :-) lmao

[theshatteredempire]

Lab Mistakes

@xx-marvex-and-paradox-xx Optimus typically enjoyed traveling the multiverse. It satisfies his curiousity, and allowed him to see new sights. And, on occasion, led him to worthy battle. He had stumbled onto the Decepticon lab by mistake. The idiots had opened full fire... and Optimus had called his army. No one suspected these new-colored Autobots to be just as ruthless and insane as they. Optimus had conquered the lab easily. Now the troops were separating everyone. Enemies that were too dangerous to be kept around, weakling enemies that could be taken to Polyhex and Iacon Dungeons, and scientists. One in particular caught Optimus' optic. He seemed to have no alt mode, but Optimus knew too well that could make him more dangerous. For some reason, there was an aura around this one...

[whatamicrobiallife]

Always use proper equipment

I kept my 2 mL tubes with all my chemicals and bacteria added to it in a water bath holder and used that to try and add another chemical to it. Those crocodile 2 mL tubes are tough to close and I ended up flipping the holder and spilled out half of my sample's contents. So, just stick those tubes in the proper (won't flip) holders and do your business. I also almost inoculated my bacteria into LB agar instead of broth. Aaaand I melted the autoclave tub when I forgot it and left it in overnight in the autoclave. Yep... I'm making a name for myself. In other news, I'm going to a pub for the first time in my life. After being almost friendless in my pre-med program, I got friends now~! Yay~! Thank You God!

[passthechloroform]

When I forget that hot glass looks like cold glass

[radioactivepigeons]

ALWAYS BALANCE!

Discovered I'm a blind idiot today. I was centrifuging sheep's blood. We have a big centrifuge for 50 ml conicals and 15 ml conicals (seperate buckets). I balanced my 15 mls of blood down to 0.01 g, and started them going at 500xg. The centrifuge was shaking like an unbalanced washer. I started and stopped it a few times before I realized the 50 ml water balance was left inside. I feel like an idiot. The first lesson I teach my students is "ALWAYS BALANCE THE CENTRIFUGE. IF YOU DON'T, I WILL KILL YOUR GRADE."

I guess I deserve to have my grade killed, today.