Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Wednesday Donut Reception

Now that I’m a married man, and therefore can talk guff with relative impunity (since I don’t have to impress women anymore), I can share with you my opinion that Wednesday Donuts is a lot like a wedding reception. First, the food is good (and it’s usually provided by someone else). Second, you’re surrounded by friends (and sometimes attractive strangers, for the singles). Finally, it goes by way too fast (and doesn’t happen often enough).
If you haven’t been to a reception in a while, or if you have, you should come out to Wednesday Donuts tomorrow and see the reunited cast of “The Alberto Lab featuring Sara Schaal and Friends”.
-MLJ


PS->Donuts provided by Nelson Coelho. Nelson loves lab work. He also loves donuts. And that’s it. He doesn’t love anything else. Except his grandmother, and Portuguese bread. But that’s it. Serious.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Duct Tape, WD-40, and Donuts

Well, I’ve only been back in the lab for two days, doing *gasp* lab work(!), and I’ve already destroyed the lab. Shhhhhh don’t tell Nelson… or Mattias… or Filipe…

I followed all the right procedures and protocols, even yelling, “Stand back! I’m about to do science!!” to  everyone in the lab, which happens to be nobody at the moment (apparently I come back, so everyone leaves). Ok, really, all I’m doing right now is extracting DNA from my kelp samples I collected this summer. It’s pretty neat stuff. While I was out there, I took a small piece from each kelp blade, put that piece in a 2mL test tube, and added a bunch of silica gel to the tube, which rapidly dries out the sample, basically mummifying the tissue and preserving the DNA in it.

In order to extract the DNA from these dried samples, I have to physically break down the tissue. I could chew each sample up, but that wouldn’t taste very good plus there would be too much spit involved. So I use this massive vibrator we have down in the basement to pulverize the tissue. It works really well. Well, today, I went to go use the vibrator, and I blew the fuse (it’s a big vibrator). Not an ideal situation. I need to extract DNA!!

Well, I’m not an electrician, but I remember my daddy telling me anything can be fixed with a little duct tape and WD-40. So I did what any respectable, budding graduate student would do, and duct taped the hell out of the fuse box and the vibrator, and sprayed it down with WD-40. That didn’t work… So I thought, “Hmm… what else might work? Well, Mattias always says donuts are the answer to everything, so I must try donuts next”. I’m not really sure how to apply donuts to electrical stuff… maybe I’ll squish a jelly donut into the outlets… that might work…


-Heidi


PS Donuts this week are brought to you by Dr. Hutz. Dr. Hutz is from Salzburg, Austria. Before he came over to the US, and became an extremely accomplished biologist, he was a mountain yodeler. He holds the recorded for the most mountains yodeled on in Austria (all of them), he can out yodel Julie Andrews, and he once saved a small Austrian village by scaring away a herd of trolls with his mighty yodel.

Indiana Donut

Comrades!! Friends!! Beloved Colleagues!!

As some of you may have noticed, I've been gone awhile, due to my second job working as my alter ego alias, Indiana Donut. This summer, I embarked on an adventure to the distant land of central California to study the elusive and mysterious donuts of the west coast. My goal was to study and learn from these exotic donuts, and bring them back to the donut museum, where others could enjoy and delight in their sugary sweet wonder. My journey was treacherous, fraught with danger and gangs of donut-mongering nazis trying to eat what donuts they could and destroy those they could not, those jerks. Anyways... After many weeks of solo, undercover work, I was reunited with my faithful companions, Short Bread and Dr. Boston Cream, for a short time. Rejuvenated from my companions' visit, I was able to single handedly rescue every single donut from the California Donut Nazis, and even a fair maiden or two from their greasy donut dungeons. Want to know how I did it? Well, you'll have to come to donuts tomorrow to hear the epic conclusion!

Wednesday Donuts. I'll be there. So should you.

Yours Truly,
Indiana Donut


PS Donuts this week are brought to you by Dr. Colin Scanes. Dr. Scanes is a world traveler with a secret alter ego as well. When he's not in the lab injecting chickens with various growth hormones, he's 'oot and aboot' masquerading under the cover of darkness as Sir Super-Awesome-English-Donut-Justice-Dude, fighting for justice, and battling donut haters in donut shoppes everywhere.

Lonely Donuts

With Mattias gone that leaves me very much alone in the lab so I decided to write a song…

Lonely… I’m Ms. Lonely …
I have no labmates for my own…
I am so lonely… I’m Ms. Lonely…
I have all these donuts, but no labmates to share them with …

Now I’m a researcher… a lonely researcher ..
That only wants to have donuts all day long… So come join me for some donuts… Otherwise I’ll eat them all alone and sing this song…

So to avoid breaking any eardrums of hallway passersby please join me at Wednesday donuts this week! Lapham S185 10AM.

-Sara


P.S. --> Donuts this week courtesy of Elizabeth Muslin! Ever catch yourself wondering how your biology lab is set up with such perfection and superiority compared to all other labs… well all thanks goes to Elizabeth Muslin! She’s had to change her email 6 times because other departments send her daily emails trying to recruit her...I heard a rumor that the donuts keep her here :)