Nanotech just could NOT get any cuter! Meet this team of tiny lil researchers, who are all so itty bitty that they got automatic acceptance into the Nanotechnology program!

Kendra, 4’11.75”

Just shy of five feet tall (even after her mother made the doctor measure again), this adorable little researcher needs to sit on a phone book to reach the microscope!

Ainsley, 4’8”

Ainsley, a stickler for safety, always wears custom cement boots while working in the fume hood, saying the ventilation is surprisingly powerful! 

Taylor, 5’0”

Fiercely independent, when they run out of sodium hydroxide Taylor simply rock climbs to the reagent shelf with a spool of parafilm!

Tzipporah, 4’10”

After someone permanently “borrowed” the lab’s step stool, Tzipporah’s lab mates chipped in and bought her a mini submarine scope so she can see over the bench again! 

Joe, 5’1”

Ever resourceful, thirsty Joe sometimes drinks water out of PCR tubes because he can’t reach the water fountain! 

Emma, 6 inches

Emma has to be extra careful around her clumsy undergrad students; when they spill a sample on the lab bench, Emma risks drowning! 

The post Nanotechnology? These Researchers Are Under 5’2” appeared first on dnatured journal.

Graduate students at Harlon University were overjoyed after receiving an email that they would finally be getting more mental health coverage, but were quickly disappointed to learn that it was simply a free subscription to a therapy app and that dental care coverage would drop to 0%.

“Thanks to the hard work of students, staff, and professors, Harlon University jumped 7 points in the U.S. News and World Report rankings this week,” said president Barry Trainor. “Naturally, this success necessitated a 3-fold increase in the salaries of myself and the board of trustees, meaning we unfortunately had to make cuts elsewhere.”

President Trainor explained that the cost-cutting decision made sense considering the 80% decline in usage over the past 3 years. “If the coronavirus taught us anything, it’s that graduate students don’t need to go to the dentist.” 

Despite some budget cuts, the university appears to be listening to student demands for better mental health services: “We are proud to announce our very exciting partnership with FitBit Therapist!” said Eliza Lee, director for student health services. 

“Data driven students can now enjoy the premium mental health features that typically retail for $9.99 per month in the popular app!” said Lee, who explained that the service also provides numerous visualization and tracking tools to prevent burnout.

“It categorizes my panic attacks by root cause and time of day. You can even log the weight of hair clumps you’ve lost in the shower” noted one enthusiastic review. “They give you personalized suggestions for fueling your self-loathing too, so you can predict your next breakdown and get it out of the way!” commented another.

However, the roll out has had a few bumps. One master’s student complained that you weren’t allowed to log all your childhood traumas unless you paid for FitBit premium. “They cap the number of stories you can flair as “mom” every month but that’s like my main category!” protested one disgruntled user. There have also been complaints about the unintuitive interface such as “how do I sync my therapist’s notes to FitBit?”, “how do I log my anxiety attack as a cardio workout?”, and “where can I see which walks by the river are my saddest?”

In response, graduate students are striking – way to get those heart zone minutes guys!

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In an attempt to improve “efficiency” and pivot towards a “consumer-centric” approach, several scientific journals have begun outsourcing the peer review to the anonymous users of Goodreads. Editors have been impressed with the devastating harshness of the reviews. 

“They’re absolutely brutal,” delighted Dr. Francis Woolman, one of the first editors to allow random Goodreads users review scientific manuscripts. “I never knew papers needed likable protagonists!” 

While scientists have widely derided the approach as “a goddamn free for all” and “the end of peer review and the American empire,” they are pleasantly surprised at how many more views their papers are getting. 

“My paper from a few months ago already has 200 reviews,” said PhD candidate Calvin Hu. “Unfortunately pretty much all of them hurt my feelings.” 

Critiques by the Goodreads users include, “this experiment was boring to read,” and “too detail oriented.” One reviewer even commented, “Worst cookbook ever, I was sick for a week,” sparking serious conversation into how to best communicate cutting-edge science to those who may not know how to read.

While some comments were just plain hurtful — Hu’s paper received one saying “methods section was just a citation of their past paper. Bitch, I didn’t download that!” — others were more constructive.  

“Someone said that my write-up was strong, but that “all the experiments were fundamentally stupid,’” says Evan Ino, one of the first to be published on Goodreads Science. “The worst part is that I think they’re right.” 

Discussion into the artistic value of scientific papers lead many to note the didactic nature of the methods section. “Dry, factual, and uncompelling,” wrote ☾EtherealMoonstone2284, best known for their reviews of romantic poetry. “A challenging but rewarding take on the ‘Slow-growth crystallization of hemi-functionalized carbon nanowires’ as a metaphor for grief,” commented h-u-b-e-r-t. 

Despite the backlash, Goodreads has been looking to move some of its top reviewed papers to Audible. Now you can do the journal club reading during your morning run, shower, meal, or shit. No excuses!

The post Sick Of Reviewer 2’s Harsh Critiques? Wait Til You See What the Users Of Goodreads Think Of Your Manuscript! appeared first on dnatured journal.

It’s 2021. You’ve been locked down with randos from Craigslist for almost a year. The dishes pile has finally taken over your entire kitchen. Despite months of their denials, you are still pretty sure that at least one roommate hasn’t done a single dish since March 2020. Here’s how to prove it.

Random Forest Models: Gather 14 of your closet roommates for a classic whodunit approach to a slovely sink. Let the wild accusations fly and boom! Whomever the most people randomly accuse is the culprit. Pick up a sponge Debbie! 

Naive Bayes Classifier: Maybe you naively assumed your roommate wasn’t raised in a barn, but hopefully this classifier can tell you that, given the absurd number of dishes covered in “hot-Cheeto flavored cheesy pasta,” they’re all probably hers.

Gaussian Mixture Models: Implementation is easy and vengeance swift with this handy technique! Pick a plate you know is your roommate’s and work your way out. On the off chance you left plates in the sink group dishes next to yours in your own ‘cluster.’ The closer to the center of a pile an item is the greater chance it belongs to that cluster. WOW look at that, the enormous frying pan your roommate left blocking the drain is the only centroid and these are all theirs! 

Principal Component Analysis: Oh come on! These plates are covered in tuna and gelatinous, two-week old, peanut-butter oatmeal — something only your roommate who eats “nutty fish oats” would enjoy. To prove it, gather data on what flavor profiles your roommate typically likes and then characterize the dish residue similarly. If you aren’t going to rinse your plate it can and will be used against you.

Partial Least Squares Regression (PLS): The most simplistic method, try it out by regressing to third grade and kindly asking your roommate to do their fair share “pretty pls.” Note the limitations: rarely effective in more complicated situations and overlooks the root cause of your roommate’s selfishness. 

Fuzzy Clustering: Are you looking down at the growing carpet of mold in your sink and wondering where one dish begins and the other ends? You may be interested in using a Fuzzy Clustering analysis tool to prove your roommate’s “soaking dishes” are not your problem. 

Density Based Clustering: Is your slob abroad? With dirty dishes everywhere but the sink? Then this is the technique for you. Find one of your roommates dirty dishes by the TV, take a step, find the fork they left on the couch, then the glass on the table, and keep going until you’re out of hands and worked into a frenzy. If it’s within arm reach you can blame it on them! 

Mean Shift Clustering: Get a few housemates on your side to provoke the village layabout into action. Hit them with a good-roommate/bad-roommate routine and watch how the dramatic tone shifts inspire them to rinse a few plates. Sure you shouldn’t have to stoop to being the mean one in the house, but are you here to make friends or to see the bottom of the sink? That’s what I thought. 

Blind Signal Separation: You’ve had it up to here and by here you mean the foot of water in the clogged sink. Find out what your roommate did now by using BSS to fish around in the murky waters and pull out the clog of diced tomatoes, orzo, and… hair? Careful! Even algorithms on the cutting edge of signal separation can’t see the rusty knife hiding in the deep.

‘Kay Nearest Neighbor! Use proximity to prove your roommate’s guilt. Yeah right that isn’t your dish, you’re standing right next to it! 

The post Protocol: How To Use Data Science To Prove Your Roommate Is Slacking On Dishes appeared first on dnatured journal.

In the wake of a tumultuous summer of racial reckoning, patrons of the department coffee lounge were shocked to discover a damning Post-It note inflaming tensions in these divisive times. The “friendly reminder” made clear that K-Cups and other fancy coffees were for “FACULTY ONLY” and students and staff using the lounge should consider getting tenure before touching them. Graduate students conceded that the note, though somewhat aggressive, was concise, impactful, and all-around better written than the department’s recently circulated anti-racism statement. 

The note — which also, rightfully, declared that cleanliness is paramount to a culture of shared responsibility– had wonderful use of the asyndeton that “really drove the point home.” Still, while the author masterfully brought light to their frustrations through use of classical emphasis techniques including bolding and underlines, many of the academics noted the author’s failure to consider the sociocultural impact of their hostile tone on the dusty, departmental lounge. 

By contrast, the department’s anti-racism statement was full of lip service and empty platitudes, and did little to acknowledge the institution’s long history of facilitating and profiting off of racial inequality. Scholars noted that while the anti-racism statement was vague, alluding to “continued conversations,” the Post-It note detailed clear actionable items such as a rotating chore schedule, and held the department accountable for their failings.

Later that week the writer of the Post-It note, realizing that the elitist message might be seen as insensitive, added a smiley face. The department, noting how the smiley face alleviated tensions between faculty and grad students, later added it to their statement on upcoming budget cuts.

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After realizing she spends most of her day waiting for samples to centrifuge, postdoctoral researcher Lourdes Alvarez had a breakthrough about balancing her lab duties with any sort of fitness routine. “What if I could make working in the lab work for me?” considered Alvarez, forgetting she had been down this road before. 

Confronting a pie-chart of her day, Alvarez buckled down on maximizing “me-time” within the constraints of her grueling lab schedule. With 24 hours in a day and 5 hours of sleep per night, factoring in at least 1-2 hours of staring blankly at a wall wishing she could just feel something at all, the only way to “have it all” was to make the lab feel like home. 

Calculations in hand, Lourdes embarked on her plan to shake up her life like her samples on the Vortex mixer. Already wearing threadbare leggings and orthopedic shoes into the lab every day, she reasoned that she could easily bring in some yoga techniques from that one class she took in undergrad. Now, as the sun rises every morning, Lourdes performs sun-salutations by the fume hood while her samples cure. “This is going to be the year of me!” avows Lourdes who is learning to meditate while maintaining sterile technique. 

“I can even get a couple of crunches in while Windows force installs updates” says Alvarez, seen slumped over the desk in ‘savasana’ as the 15-year-old lab computer struggled to restart. A foot over, her newest succulent “to brighten up the place” is already dropping leaves.

Lourdes insists these lifestyle changes are in no way related to the mounting pile of edits to her most recent manuscript.  “I’m just practicing mindfulness, you know?” she said, actively ignoring her PI’s criticism in favor of instead continuing an inherently flawed experiment — while working her glutes, of course.

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