At the end of 2019, PhD student Alex Dreyer was on track to finish grad school early, and they had just gotten engaged to their partner and met a fun new group of friends. They considered all of this to be enough evidence to confidently formulate a hypothesis and publish it on Twitter; “2020 will totally be my year!”. In 7 months of data-collection, Alex has not found any evidence to support this hypothesis. Below they share their results.

Figure 1. PhD completion will be delayed

Alex was set to finish their PhD ahead of schedule as long as they had a few productive months at the bench. One week after finally having their mice approved for testing, the lab shut down due to COVID-19. One mouse, not sure what to do without Alex’s helicopter parenting, ate several of its cage mates, leaving them without a viable amount of animals for their experiment. 

Figure 2a. Engagement fell apart

Chronic stress (like the kind that people might feel during a global health crisis) negatively impacts relationships in any context, let alone when people are unable to blow off steam away from their partners. The isolation became too much for Alex and their partner, who split up and are now stuck living together post-breakup. One surprising finding was that something as small as “improper use of the toaster” could kick off the fight that would spiral into the untimely death of their love. They recorded in their notebook that young lovers should be warned to NEVER try the toaster grilled cheese trick. Alex now has to deal with the end of a relationship, living with an ex, and cancelling a wedding. 

Figure 2b. 82-year-old COVID-denying grandma lives in Florida

Alex was especially happy to be getting married soon because their beloved grandmother is in her 80s and Alex always wanted for her to be able to attend their wedding. Unfortunately, on so many levels, Alex’s easily influenced grandmother has been convinced by her atrocious Facebook feed that COVID-19 is a government conspiracy, so she is refusing to take appropriate measures to stay safe. She was last seen on Facebook, posing maskless with her fellow faded Floridians in a crowded restaurant. 

Figure 3. Cool new friends turned out to be not so cool about this whole pandemic thing 

Alex wasn’t keen on going out much until they met a fun and seemingly smart group of friends last year who helped them break out of their shell. Unfortunately, their levels of social and physical distancing were not reduced in the midst of a global pandemic. Analysis of their Instagram pages showed no statistical difference between drink-clinking brunch boomerangs between 2019 and 2020. 

Figure 4. Their scientific research hypothesis may also be, unsurprisingly, wrong 

Now that they are finally back in the lab and had a few weeks to get their mouse experiments up and running again, Alex has been rigorously testing their cell-culture-based findings in the animals. Thus far, they have not been able to find any evidence to support their hypothesis outside of those flasks with little hyper-mutated completely-biologically-non-representative cells in them. Their whole thesis was completely refuted by an inability to reproduce their findings in the animal model, even when using the most cherry-picked statistics. Go figure!

Discussion and Conclusion

The results speak for themselves, no discussion necessary. 2020 sucks! Alex does report, however, that the COVID-19 pandemic was perhaps the greatest confounding variable to ever impact the investigation of a hypothesis.

The post Bold Hypothesis of “This Will Totally Be My Year!” Not Supported By The Data appeared first on dnatured journal.

It’s happened. You’ve grown tired of wild nights in the lab, gathering data with reckless abandon, and you have finally written a manuscript that is ready to settle down with a nice, respectable journal. You think you’ve found the perfect match; modest impact factor, specific to your discipline, but not too specific, your colleagues say they can totally see you two hitting it off! 

And unlike those predatory journals, this one isn’t just into you for your submission fees. This journal would never send late night, typo-ridden, booty-call emails to other researchers, begging for material to publish. It even has reliable peer review! But how do you get them to notice you? Follow these tips for getting the mid-tier journal of your dreams to publish your work.

Grossly exaggerate clinical relevance

Journals love a science hero! Always link your research to common diseases people hate, and no matter how much of a stretch it is, remember, your findings are a potential treatment. Slam dunk if you mention cancer!

Get those P-values down

Are your P-values for key treatment conditions pushing 0.05? While society is changing, many journals are still superficial and won’t be interested in your manuscript unless that number drops. Trim down your P-values with rigorous sets of additional trials at least 2-3 times per week. In the meantime, try using a flattering statistical filter over your current data. 

Show off your best (not-so-representative) images

We all know what it’s like to acquire hundreds of images and have most of them not turn out as expected or hoped. But never fear, you’re bound to find at least one image per sample that makes your hypothesis look great. Doesn’t matter what the majority of your images look like – be sure to show off your best angles!

Catfish them with a review

Having an unsuccessful run of trying to get your own research published? Great news; your dream journal doesn’t have to recognize your own research as worthy of publication in order to get your name on a paper. All you have to do is give a coherent recap of other work in your field.

If all else fails, there’s always more fish in the sea! You’ll find another journal that accepts you as you are, questionable data analysis and all.

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Upon joining a new lab, many junior scientists are eager to hit the ground running and get to work on their projects as soon as possible. In order to transform this initial excitement into the dull throb of obligation, institutions dedicate the first few weeks of a student’s life to hours and hours of biosafety training. 

We’ve all been there – online modules, in-class training sessions, lab walkthroughs with notebooks and checklists. With institutions relying on such a mandatory snoozefest, we had to ask, does anyone actually retain the information they learn about lab safety during these unbearable mandatory sessions? We surveyed new hires at labs across the country to find out.

Natalie Katz, beginning her first year in grad school, had worked in labs during undergrad and co-op, but joined a new institution for graduate studies. She has completed biosafety training fourteen times in the last four years and yet the one thing she can remember?

“Don’t pipette by mouth,” said Katz. “Whenever they get to that one, I get distracted from all the hazardous waste stuff cuz I’m just picturing a man slurping up E. Coli.”

She says it doesn’t help that they put all the new hires in a dark, dusty auditorium while the biosafety officer read off slides in a monotone voice. 

“It couldn’t have been more mind numbing,” said Katz. “And everyone has the same cringey demonstration videos from the mid 90s that showed everyone’s uggo lab coats.”

Clearly the biosafety training could be a little more engaging, but is it at least effective? Also no. Out of 1000 grad students surveyed from 16 institutions, only one student was able to correctly dispose of hazardous waste without assistance from an annoyed post-doc. 

First-year grad student Justin Yip perfectly illustrated this sobering statistic, as he was unable to properly dispose of anything that was more dangerous than a saline solution. “Can paraformaldehyde go down the sink?” he pondered to a nearby 5th year PhD student. “I also don’t know how long I have to bleach my pathogenic Salmonella culture. And check this out, we have FIVE different colour-coded chemical waste bins. How could anyone possibly keep up with this shit!?”

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It appears that interest in the lysosome is skyrocketing as Gen Z students entering university are heavily relating to the so-called “trashcan” of the cell. While some professors proclaim the spike in interest is due to new methods that are making this easier than ever to investigate, young lysosome enthusiasts would like to set the record straight.

“We really just vibe with this particular organelle,” said undergraduate Amy Kim, “it’s heroic af, making space for pathogen degradation and recycling cellular material.”

Instagram user @LysoZ_rule_69, another self-identified “lysosomer,” has even curated a feed full of gorgeous fluorescent images of her favourite organelle. She first learned about the lysosome in her second year Cell Biology class, which initially did not pique her interest. “When people think of cell biology, particularly organelle biology, they usually think of the mitochondria, the powerhouse. It was so alienating, I’m the farthest thing from a powerhouse, I’m trash! I never thought I’d care about organelle biology because all we ever hear about is the damn mitochondria.” 

However, things took a turn when @LysoZ_rule_69 learned about her beloved trash can organelle. She describes how learning about lysosome function, and its bleak pet name, meant she had finally found a topic that she wanted to research. 

“My classmates and I are pretty self deprecating, ever since starting undergrad we have always said, “Wow I’m trash, I’m literally a trash can” every time we do poorly on a test or mess up an experiment. Then one day our prof lovingly referred to the lysosome as the “trash can of the cell”, and it sparked a new interest in me! Turns out the lysosome is kind of a baddie! It is really acidic, its super low pH allows it to break down bacteria, cellular debris, all kinds of stuff. She isn’t a basic bitch! She inspires me every day. We had to stan.” 

With these fresh-minded lysosome stans contributing to cutting edge research, we expect to learn a lot more about these microscopic trash cans over the next few decades. Buckle up, boomer biologists. 

The post Biology Students Identifies Most With Lysosome, The Trash Can Of The Cell appeared first on dnatured journal.

Studying genetic code is a key component of research in many branches of science, and while some scientists are content spending hours analyzing endless sequences, one genetic analyst has taken this to another level and can only write using A, C, G, and T. 

Cat Tagat (formerly known as Andrea Porter), a genomic variant analyst, spends her days scanning sequences day in and day out, looking for disease-causing variants in genetic sequences, and avoiding contact with other people at all costs. 

In recent years, Tagat’s unique expertise in analyzing genomes has given her a pass on completely neglecting any written components of her job. When we asked who writes up the reports of her findings, she pointed to her lab director, Dr. Alex Tran. “She just sends me an email with the sequences highlighted in the right places,” he explained.

Dr. Tran adds that they’re lucky his name starts with a T so that it pops up in her emails’ “To:” field. 

“It’s impressive that someone with multiple degrees is able to become this specifically illiterate,” says linguistics expert Prisha Bhatti. “She can still speak English, but when she tries to write, she genuinely forgets that there are letters other than A, C, G, and T.”

Though Bhatti worries that Tagat will encounter future professional barriers if she doesn’t relearn the other 85% of the alphabet, she says it’s promising that Tagat can still communicate orally despite her limited interactions with other human beings.

“It’s ridiculous that our languages require so many units. People usually aren’t using all those frivolous letters to say anything of substance anyway,” said Tagat, startling her colleagues who hadn’t heard her speak for several months.

After her statement, Tagat promptly shooed us from her in-lab desk so that she could return her attention to Patient #37’s genetic code. 

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