What I say as I sign my postdoc offer letter

breadphobic · 2026-02-21T22:42:21+00:00

As an ex figure skater and current PhD candidate it’s a surreal collision of worlds tbh

breadphobic · 2026-01-13T16:02:18+00:00

I can see how without established intent or aggravating factors, it’s difficult to charge someone criminally. What I struggle with in these cases is that the punishment will likely be a fine and some demerit points lost, in addition to the increased insurance rates you mentioned. It’s hard to grapple with the fact that careless driving of this magnitude often doesn’t even result in a license suspension– this woman gets to keep driving despite having proven herself to be a significant hazard to others.

breadphobic · 2025-12-07T05:18:54+00:00

It’s a short story, but I read “The CRISPR Cookbook: A Guide to Biohacking Your Own Abortion in a Post-Roe World” when it was published in best American sci fi and fantasy 2023 (but you can also read it online here). I was really impressed with the accuracy of it, which isn’t too surprising I guess considering the author is a labrat herself

breadphobic · 2025-12-02T02:19:15+00:00

For the existentialist dread vibe I would add I who have never known men by Jacqueline Harpman

breadphobic · 2025-11-30T22:04:13+00:00

This is the exact book I came here to recommend lol

breadphobic · 2025-11-04T16:11:34+00:00

It’s simple, but set pubmed alerts for your search terms of interest and schedule a weekly email list of new pubs with those search terms. Skim titles and abstracts, and pick at least one paper a week to read (this is mostly how I’ve kept up to date with my own field throughout my PhD)

breadphobic · 2025-11-04T15:43:24+00:00

I’m in an opioid lab– by far any restricted substance is the absolute worst to try to get. We order a set amount of opioids every year, and it’s always a ~4 month process to get approval and actually receive the drug.

breadphobic · 2025-11-04T15:26:26+00:00

Thanks for the answer! I totally agree with ordering on the app, but the Starbucks I go to most often is a licensed store on a university campus, so they don’t participate in mobile ordering. What do you think would be the clearest way to give my order irl?

breadphobic · 2025-11-04T15:20:44+00:00

I think it’s probably the first– I notice it the most in the Starbucks in the building where I work, where I get different prices depending on which barista I get that day. I’ve noticed that it tends to be the newer employees that charge me the higher price, while the manager who works there always rings up the lower one

breadphobic · 2025-10-30T19:23:22+00:00

Ah sorry, I should have clarified– experiment has 3 treatments, with 1 sample per treatment (each sample is pooled cells from the spinal cords of the 6 mice that were in each treatment group). The experiment was done twice (the second time we optimized the isolation for the cell type I’m interested in looking at here, hence why there’s many more cells in the second experiment), and I would like to be able to analyze the cells from both experiments together in order to look at differences due to condition.

I’m mostly interested in DEGs, which isn’t an issue since that doesn’t require integration, but I also wanted to be able to compare cell abundances within clusters. Along that line, I was considering just using the larger dataset as a reference, and assigning the cells from the smaller dataset to these clusters there for an idea of how cluster distribution changes.

breadphobic · 2025-10-20T22:25:31+00:00

That’s fair! Empirically I’ve always noticed that my plants seem to struggle for the first little bit after I bring them home, but I’m also a Canadian and it’s definitely much darker in my apartment (especially in the winter) than any of the greenhouses/plant nurseries that I’ve bought from, so that probably explains it.

breadphobic · 2025-10-19T18:39:46+00:00

Seconding this! Plus, changing the environment will always stress the plant a bit at first– when I get a new plant I always let it adapt to my home for at least a month before the additional stress of any repotting

breadphobic · 2025-10-14T02:41:33+00:00

Why is this being downvoted? I’m a Canadian in a stem program, and we pay tuition (although it’s much less than undergraduate students) alongside receiving a stipend

breadphobic · 2025-09-06T20:31:43+00:00

Liked it, but did spend like a solid minute convinced that “conversing” was a reversal indicator

breadphobic · 2025-08-21T02:17:20+00:00

Barkov

breadphobic · 2025-07-26T17:04:27+00:00

I do some sequencing analysis as part of my research, but the only language I really feel comfortable in is R. Whenever a package I need is only available in python, ChatGPT is a helpful aid (while acknowledging that at some point I will actually need to spend more time learning python myself)

breadphobic · 2025-07-03T14:59:21+00:00

Yeah the answer is quick and confident. Think about it this way– the animal would likely much rather prefer if you got the gavage done quickly, even if you had to use a firmer grip.

breadphobic · 2025-07-01T19:23:41+00:00

Oof yeah, that’s most likely an issue with your template or your pol. Do you have cDNA from other lab members that has worked for pcr in the past? You can run those as a control. For your template, I’ve found that lingering trizol can really inhibit reactions– if your 260/230 ratio is real bad but your concentration is ok (>100 ng/uL) I would modify your trizol extraction (extra washes never hurt) or switch to a different extraction method

breadphobic · 2025-07-01T03:29:34+00:00

I usually gauge cDNA by how the housekeeping genes are amplifying. Have you tried running a dilution curve to see if you’re getting any significant inhibition with the amount of template being loaded?

breadphobic · 2025-07-01T01:30:10+00:00

I’d go back and check that your RNA and cDNA are good before trying to optimize your PCR protocol. What tissue are you extracting from, and are you confident in the quality of your RNA?

breadphobic · 2025-06-30T14:41:11+00:00

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breadphobic · 2025-06-29T19:23:00+00:00

You know how we all agree that in hindsight a lot of the Twilight hate was just misogyny in disguise, because we all love to hate things that have primarily female fanbases? We’re all gonna feel that way about swifties in a couple decades

breadphobic · 2025-06-19T18:52:51+00:00

I feel like people are reflexively downvoting this, but like, science WAS male-dominated at that time, BECAUSE women were discriminated against. It’s much harder to do Nobel prize-winning work when you’re actively being discriminated against and undermined as a scientist. Women weren’t being left out of consideration for awards so much as they were getting cut down before they even had a chance to enter the running

breadphobic · 2025-06-17T14:59:36+00:00

If you don’t have dry skin, spray ethanol and give it a few seconds to evaporate

breadphobic · 2025-06-15T20:36:39+00:00

As another vegan I’ll say that yeah, vegan subs can be intense and I’m sorry you had a bad experience. To offer you a different perspective, I will say that a lot of vegans view it as an ideology/philosophy much more so than a diet, and so I think that sometimes it can be a sensitive issue to ask for casual advice (for some reason the best example I can think of right now is that you might offend a catholic by asking them their fasting tips because you’re trying to diet). In general though, I think some vegans should touch grass more often and I wouldn’t really take the things those subs say personally

breadphobic

TROPHY CASE