Microbiology Lab Skills

Some tricks I've learned / re-learned over the last month:

Loading [agarose] gels: To minimize crossover, after fully ejecting sample, swish the tip around in the space in the well above the sample before moving the tip out (slowly). This'll keep the blue trail (assuming blue dye) following the tip out of the well to a minimum.

When eluting RNA/DNA with those spin columns (the last step), to minimize the amount of cap-flying-off (and thus transferring of sample from one tube to another), space the tubes apart in the centrifuge. [Edit 08.16.09] Oh, also turning the tubes so the open lid is right next to where the rotor (inner) lid will be seems to help too... I guess they spin outward during CF and when they hit the inner lid they sometimes come off

When reusing gloves (clean ones, of course), to "poke out' the fingers easily, swoosh the glove through the air and then squeeze the glove to force the air through the glove fingers.

Make sure to put the inner lid on the centrifuge... I think I have a phobia of CFs now, especially on the 1 min @ 14k spins >.< Just that revving-up-getting-worse noise, I don't like it.

NCBI Save Search quirks

Just a quick note, for NCBI searches, for the "Save Search" link next to the search box to work, you have to check off one of the results. When you pull it up again under "My NCBI > My Saved Data > Saved Searches," all the results will pull up, not just the ones you checked off.

(still working on a long post about Zephyr, Barnowl, screen, etc., I might give up on the joomla one. and still working with zencart)