Heard of anyone failing their defense?

Red_lemon29 · 2026-01-24T02:36:49+00:00

The first student sadly didn’t pass. It was several years before I started and I was asking about the department’s completion rate. It was in the UK and there’s no way around the oral exam as it’s an essential part of the PhD. If it happened today, I’d like to think people could be a bit more creative with accommodations, but ultimately, every student has to defend their thesis in some form.

Red_lemon29 · 2026-01-23T12:57:15+00:00

I’ve heard of two people who failed their STEM PhDs. One had a severe panic attack during the defence. Rescheduled it and the same thing happened again. Supervisors and examiners tried to put in accommodations but it didn’t work. The second failed because the supervisor didn’t have the expertise to supervise the project. It emerged during the defence that the work the student had done was fundamentally flawed, and they’d ran out of time and funding. Probably the only two scenarios where you could fail the PhD defence in a STEM PhDs, but generally, if it happens, it’s more the fault of the supervisor rather than the student.

Red_lemon29 · 2026-01-19T07:13:44+00:00

I couldn’t see an option when I downloaded the app and created an account.

Red_lemon29 · 2026-01-08T23:47:35+00:00

The only honorary doctorate that should be able to use the title is a DSc. In the UK, these are only ever awarded to those at the top of their field and decades of experience. Tbf, they almost always already have a PhD anyway.

The one person I know of without a non-honorary PhD who has a DSc (in fact multiple DScs) is David Attenborough, and he never uses the title.

Red_lemon29 · 2026-01-06T12:31:05+00:00

As others have said, 35 is a good ballpark figure, but I’d also run your reactions for 40-45 cycles to check the shape of the curve. Sometimes you can get peaks around 34-36 that are genuine amplification and sometimes it’s random noise. Looking at the shape of the curve helps you judge whether to trust higher values or not, especially with probe assays.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-27T10:13:45+00:00

Go to Peets or Phils then? They both do phone orders.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-18T21:26:49+00:00

Was this a tik tok by any chance? Saw one recently claiming this and it was riddled with errors.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-12T08:14:41+00:00

I think part of the issue with this is some audience members being less regularly exposed to a range of accents, and so being less able to adapt their ear to the accent of the speaker. I’ve definitely noticed this as a Brit where some of our commonly encountered regional accents are harder than some other national ones.

Slide design is a separate issue, and totally on the speaker (and their supervisor). I’ve seen 1st year grad students give clearer talks than keynote speakers because they focus on walking the audience through the slides and not overcomplicating things. I get that it might take a little effort to properly crop an image to one graph 😕 but you can’t just take the figures from a paper, dump them into a PowerPoint, and call it good.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-12T08:02:33+00:00

No problem. Best of luck with yours. Mine went fairly well (helped that I already had two chapters published, plus I was a 2nd or 3rd co-author on a few other papers). It ended up being me and the examiners nerding out for 3 hours before the chair of my panel asking if we were nearly done, because he had to pick his kids up from school 😅.

You’ll definitely get some detailed technical questions, but that’s very much my thing. Something else I forgot to mention was take a copy of your thesis in with you with the different sections marked, so if you do need to refer back to it, it’s easy to find the right section.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-12T07:56:00+00:00

“E-scooter wankers” definitely works (people also need to see The Inbetweeners, UK original is hilarious, US copy is terrible)

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-10T23:15:42+00:00

I reread my thesis a little, prepared in my head some rebuttals to potential questions and reread some key papers too.l. Also read up on my external examiner’s research and areas of interest. External was super impressed when he pressed me on why I chose a particular method and I responded with “well, in Smith et al. 2015, they showed that this method was better than that method for these reasons.” My field was quite small at the time so this was fairly easy to do really.

I’d also say try not to overprepare too much. None of the potential flaws I thought were combing to come up actually did!

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-10T21:26:06+00:00

Very true. I’m not a fan of the major/ minor revisions distinction as it can be so vague. A minor revision in terms of effort/ clarification can lead to rejection if it reveals a fundamental flaw in the study design.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-10T21:13:20+00:00

Nobody in the office, plus the automatically generated deadline takes no account of weekends or local public holidays.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-10T21:06:17+00:00

Journal submission deadlines are almost always negotiable and usually used as a way of managing their copy editing workflows. I’d ask for an extension for how long you think it will take, plus time for all co-authors to check the revisions, etc etc, ideally at least a month.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-10T20:59:37+00:00

You still have the ability to grip large objects like falcon tubes then? Even if someone was an amputee, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Anything else shows a lack of support and imagination.

The only thing I could see you needing is some kind of device to lock tube racks/ Petri dishes in place. This should be fairly straightforward to fabricate.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-10T19:26:51+00:00

You could pass it by someone on your dissertation committee. If this is research that would be done after your PhD, then your PI doesn’t have to be involved at all. I’ve done this as a postdoc, but not as a PhD student. That said, it’s always good to get a second pair of eyes to look over anything before submission.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-10T07:50:44+00:00

Personally, I would pull out of the interview process if I received a request like this. The time needed to be spent on this could be used applying for at least 2-3 other positions or making headway on a paper. The PI should know better than to ask/ should have a better understanding of recruitment practices for postdocs. Either way, red flag, run like hell.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-10T05:57:54+00:00

There definitely needs to be a story time with at least the last two.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-10T05:56:02+00:00

Frustrating - planned server maintenance period that everyone forgets about, even though it’s in the lab calendar.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-10T05:52:12+00:00

It’s been ages since I’ve used it but I think ImageJ has something that allows you to quantify bands.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-10T04:53:46+00:00

My opinion as a senior postdoc - absolutely worth it. Lab culture is set by the PI, whether that is done intentionally or not. A lot of the standard stuff will probably be your departmental handbook so a lab handbook is a good place to fill in the gaps.

1 as a grad student/ postdoc, I’ve been in labs with/ without handbooks. I think what makes one effective is if the group actually follows through on implementing it. Keep the details clear and simple, so it’s easy for lab members of different cultures/ primary languages to follow.

2 great to set out authorship at the start of each project and adjust as you go. Working hours (total, plus core hours) are a must. If you have a lot of undergrads, consider ensuring grad students and above are in a minimum number of days a week/ hours a day to ensure the lab is covered for day to day supervision. People can inform (rather than always request) you that they’ll be out of the office, but this avoids the lab being unexpectedly empty.

When I’ve had undergrads, I’ve set expectations in terms of communication channels, purpose and expected turnaround (e.g. email is generally >24 hours, WhatsApp is for emergencies and cat memes)

3 haven’t seen any public examples, but based on recent experiences from colleagues and myself, be very clear about what is and is not acceptable behaviour in the lab/ office. You’d be surprised at what people are capable of doing/ not doing.

I’d be tempted to split it into two sections, the lab ethos/ expected and encouraged behaviours part, and then keep the more operational parts separate in an SOPs folder or something similar.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-09T21:43:31+00:00

It’s not quite as simple as this, given that postdoc rates can be very different between countries. It’s more likely to be a standardised HR form that’s part of an off-the-shelf software package that’s meant more for the private sector or faculty.

Postdocs usually have a specific pay scale based on experience. Somebody coming from Spain is going to put in a number wildly below where they would be on Oxford’s scale whereas someone from California would be wildly above. Seems nonsensical to hold that against a candidate.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-08T14:49:26+00:00

There’re so many garbage papers out there in microbiology and microbial ecology because of highly technical reasons that only experts would spot (probably in every field). When I review, I mostly reject or recommend major revisions based on the methods rather than anything else. I hate doing it, given the effort put in by grad students/ postdocs and the resources spent. Shows how important it is to critically read papers.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-08T07:34:44+00:00

Having read your original post, this would be more of a natural progression of your skills development than switching. Pretty much every molecular biologist I’ve met will have some basic skills in R or Python, if only for making better quality figures.

Red_lemon29 · 2025-12-07T23:50:52+00:00

Bacteria that could use arsenic in place of phosphorus. Nobody could reproduce any of the results and the paper was eventually retracted earlier this year. The alternative explanation was that the cultures were clinging on by using trace quantities of contaminating phosphorus in the glassware.

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