Conchord, F. et al.
As scientists, we have all found ourselves in that awkward situation where an experiment goes horribly awry, and the only recourse is to break down in the middle of the lab.
While bawling can be a cathartic experience, the laboratory is, of course, no place for human emotions. So the next time you find yourself trying to control your endless sobs in the sterile halls of your department, make your life easier by applying these time tested techniques mentioned below in order from least to most tears (ranked volumetrically):
- Work in zero-gravity so tears don’t leave any track marks on your face
- Alter your PPE glasses with wipers on the inside
- Pipette each tear back into your tear duct
- Use pH paper to absorb the wretched smoking gun of your human nature causing this inevitable breakdown
- Collect your tears in a biohazard bag
- Repurpose the salts from your tears into useful buffers
- If you have sufficient volume, dissolve agarose powder in a puddle of your tears to make a very usable agarose gel (this also works well with polyacrylamide!)
If all else fails, just say you were testing the eye wash station to make sure it was working.
