Your screwups in the research lab..Sharee to make us feel better

[DaisyBuchanan]

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Ah sorry! Somehow completely skimmed over that sentence.

Haha and I should have assumed that someone with your SDN handle would know exactly which chemical I was talking about 😛

 

[Danlee07]

How many mistakes are you guys making? My lab has 3 students in there. 1 is a researcher (me) while the 2 other two do the autoclaving, platewashing, and media making. I get to do the actual stuff, but I get constantly told that "If you're not up to it, then we will train someone else."

I've broken glasses platewashing already, accidentally had OP50 E-coli run up into the vacuum too far, and then autoclaved 12 L of media instead of just waitin for 4 and ended up wasting 4L since it solidified...got ratted out for each time by the lab technician and the PI..

 

[wolverinepwns]

I didn't, but another undergrad broke a sensor on the Electron microscope that cost something over 80K to fix, that was the last time any undergrad was allowed in that room!

 

[DancinSarah]

Tried to impress someone by touching a metal rack in liquid nitrogen bare-handed for period of time. Left some ugly bruises on my palm and fingers, which peeled out after two weeks. Really ugly but admittedly AWESOME!

 

[loveoforganic]

I didn't, but another undergrad broke a sensor on the Electron microscope that cost something over 80K to fix, that was the last time any undergrad was allowed in that room!

Someone at my uni dropped the entire depth gauge into the NMR spectrometer. I think they got lucky and didn't break the sensor.

 

[Spleenic]

I was involved in a very progressive brain trasplant. My PI asked me to head over to the brain depository to get the brain. Well, I kind of dropped the brain he wanted, so I took the brain from a person who, at the time, I thought was named Abby Normal.

 

[Plasticup]

edit: deleted

 

[Siggy]

Broken glassware. However, not just any broken glassware, a $300 hemocytometer slide.

My grad thesis project involved measuring RBC parasitemia and after spending all day staining the damn cells, I ended up dropping it.

Oh, and accidentally trying to run a FACS machine without the coolant loop turned on. Thankfully, I didn't destroy the sucker.

I disposed of dry ice in the industrial lab sink and tried to melt it with water.

I had to bail out the carbon dioxide with an ice bucket.

I loved when we got PCR Taq because it was "Play with dry ice" day.

 

[bagelbird]

A few days before a national presentation, I mixed up the labels of my products (I work in an ochem lab) and cross contaminated my products. I had been synthesizing and purifying these compounds for the past year. FAIL.

 

[andrewnwi]

Set the lab on fire.

 

[Kaustikos]

Tried to impress someone by touching a metal rack in liquid nitrogen bare-handed for period of time. Left some ugly bruises on my palm and fingers, which peeled out after two weeks. Really ugly but admittedly AWESOME!

I stupidly caught a metal rack holding cell vials that a summer intern dropped while pulling from container 😡 I don't know why I did that, since the vials would've been alright if they hit the floor, I guess. THAT hurt

 

[crixx]

A guy in the lab next to ours dumped his dry ice down the drain. Well, the pipes ended up shattering and caused flooding on the floor below. oops

 

[Medwell]

Two summers ago, the lab I worked at had this little instrument that you could use to clean test tubes... I forget what it was called but it was basically a little metal vibrating bath that you poured ethanol in, shut the door, and let the magic happen. Well I accidentally confused ethanol and chloroform and poured the latter in. When I opened it after the cycle I had to sit down and clear my head for 15 minutes or so due to the cloud of vapor that came out at me... 😛

 

[Medwell]

Also, nobody's fault, but at that same school, a cylinder of some gas exploded a couple weeks before I got there and shot through the roof, through the wall of the room on the floor above, and then got stuck in the roof of the NEXT floor.

 

[echolalia16]

I was involved in a very progressive brain trasplant. My PI asked me to head over to the brain depository to get the brain. Well, I kind of dropped the brain he wanted, so I took the brain from a person who, at the time, I thought was named Abby Normal.

i love you

edit: i just remembered a good one

I'm involved with clinical research, so one of the perks of the job is sitting in on our treatment being done in the clinic. One week I was battling a pretty good cold and my loving mother offered some generic brand dayquil to power me through the day (except I later found out it was generic brand nyquil). I took her up on the offer and the entire morning I felt like a zombie. I recall one part of the day where I needed to centrifuge something for some prolonged period of time (15+ minutes), and I totally zoned out watching the machine count down the entire time, kind of creeping out my PI.
Anyway, in the afternoon it was time to head over to main campus to watch the operation. Its nothing that bad: we work with prostate cancer, so our treatment plan is viral administration rectally. The patients don't need any sort of anesthetic or anything too severe. Well the combination of being sick, drugged up, wearing a hot labcoat, and watching the operation was enough to drop my bp below "get fresh blood to the brain" capacity and I started blacking out. Everyone in the room totally forgot about the operation (probe in the poor guy's rectum) and caught me mid-air as I headed toward the floor.
I never actually passed out but it was pretty trippy. Tunnel vision and people sounding like they were miles away. The worst part, though, was when the nurse asked me whether I had breakfast that morning and I said 'no' (college has pushed a bad habit of sleeping in as late as possible then running late to class without food). She tore into me so hard right there in the hallway everyone in the operating rooms had to have heard. I was still lying on the floor dizzy. She has that aggressive-mother personality that nobody has the guts to cross, doctors included. Its kind of fun to watch when you're on the sidelines, but since that incident I've avoided her when I see her walking in the halls.

 

[jcmcems]

I have:
1) Broken glassware

2) Set my hand on fire multiple times with ethanol

3) Dumped completed maxi-preps down the drain

4) Gotten rat amniotic fluid in my mouth

5) Nicked a rat's colon during an expensive surgery (so it had to be sacc'ed despite the rest of the Sx going perfect)

Oh yeah...and don't dump concentrated HCl on aluminum foil.....the fumes get bad....lol

Ah, the joys of research. 🙂

 

[ponyo]

This wasn't really my fault, but my PI and the grad kid I work with insisted on keeping a 1000ml graduated cylinder on one of those plastic drying racks with springy sticks at about 45degs. It was always precariously balanced and despite my worries everyone still kept it there.

One day we were all doing our own stuff... I think I was doing immunohistochem and deparaffinising some slides when this giant graduated cylinder just shot into the air, hit a wall, and shattered on the floor.

Had to try REALLY hard not to say "I told you so".

PS: the grad student is still using it--only now for 600ml and below -___-


Echolalia16: I know exactly what you are talking about unfortunately...

 

[masterwares]

I didnt' break anything but all the staff kept blaming us interns for everything that was broken.

 

[Dr Sushi]

first time 2d cell culture

forgetting to loosen cap before putting my t75 flask with newly passaged cells into the incubator = dead cells

 

[loveoforganic]

Two summers ago, the lab I worked at had this little instrument that you could use to clean test tubes... I forget what it was called but it was basically a little metal vibrating bath that you poured ethanol in, shut the door, and let the magic happen. Well I accidentally confused ethanol and chloroform and poured the latter in. When I opened it after the cycle I had to sit down and clear my head for 15 minutes or so due to the cloud of vapor that came out at me... 😛

sonnicator?

 

[medicafutura]

Hmmm, let's see...set my bench on fire. On another occasion, almost had centrifuge rotor bust through the top of centrifuge...

Take comfort in knowing it's bound to happen

 

[Kaustikos]

first time 2d cell culture

forgetting to loosen cap before putting my t75 flask with newly passaged cells into the incubator = dead cells

They have vented flasks...

 

[kak9699]

My worst moment in research lab: I had just finished the final spinning down of ~65 samples of DNA all ready for sequencing, had placed them into the tube racks to transfer to the school's sequencer, and then proceeded to trip over a chair sticking ever so slightly out from the bench. This resulted in ~150 test tubes flying across the lab. *shakes head* Those darn chairs...so sneaky. 😛

 

[DancinSarah]

first time 2d cell culture

forgetting to loosen cap before putting my t75 flask with newly passaged cells into the incubator = dead cells

I'd yell at your PI for not using vented flasks What is this 1985?

 

[captainnerd]

omg dry ice 1.7 ml eppendorfs..

**** is SO cash

Dry ice in 1.7mL eppendorfs, then put it with cap side down in a graduated cylinder that is narrow enough so it remains inverted.

 

[hiyaman]

I was blamed for losing a chemical because I was seen as having used it last. I still maintain my innocence to this day.

My advisor was angry because it delayed several experiments by several weeks because our lab manager didn't order more before it ran out.

So i got blamed.

 

[hiyaman]

This wasn't really my fault, but my PI and the grad kid I work with insisted on keeping a 1000ml graduated cylinder on one of those plastic drying racks with springy sticks at about 45degs. It was always precariously balanced and despite my worries everyone still kept it there.

One day we were all doing our own stuff... I think I was doing immunohistochem and deparaffinising some slides when this giant graduated cylinder just shot into the air, hit a wall, and shattered on the floor.

Had to try REALLY hard not to say "I told you so".

PS: the grad student is still using it--only now for 600ml and below -___-


Echolalia16: I know exactly what you are talking about unfortunately...

LOL wtf? so it's still good for 600 ml and below and he's still using it? Lol funny, and I thought the people in my lab were stingy.

 

[hiyaman]

During my second week in an immunology lab, I harvested T cells from the spleen of a mouse. The mice were part of a vaccination study and were vaccinated twice in the preceding 2 weeks. I was too slow in doing the harvest, so the grad student who I was working with told me to keep the cells in the fridge and resume the experiment the next morning.

Instead of the 4 deg C fridge I placed the cells in the -20 deg freezer (they looked the same lol). All the cells froze to death. Two weeks of vaccination study down the drain. I wanted to cry :cry:. Thankfully my PI and the grad student were cool about it. They told me repeat the experiment and to be more careful next time.

Not to mentioned you killed a poor mice 🙁. btw don't your freezers have a digital temperature on the front?

 

[Siggy]

Not to mentioned you killed a poor mice 🙁. btw don't your freezers have a digital temperature on the front?

What's worse, dying or living your life in the equivalent of a small bedroom with 3-4 of your brothers and sisters?

 

[Kaustikos]

Not to mentioned you killed a poor mice 🙁. btw don't your freezers have a digital temperature on the front?

... I killed 2-3 rats/week and didn't always yield great results

 

[echolalia16]

... I killed 2-3 rats/week and didn't always yield great results

We kill hamsters at my lab, and when the new grant goes through we're moving on to guinea pigs.

The first animal I witnessed get sacked for the sake of research was a little Beagle puppy, though. That was tough to go through as a virgin researcher. His name was Schrodinger 🙁

 

[tartrate]

I accidentally killed my PI

😱😱😱

I think this takes the cake, if it were true.

 

[erikreinertsen]

😱😱😱

I think this takes the cake, if it were true.

yes we have a winner haha

 

[DM3]

Not much has happened in my research lab, but during a lab for my immunodiagnostics class we were supposed to prick our fingers with those little disposable lancets. My partner volunteered but did not want to use the lancet on herself. It took me six cuts to draw enough blood... when she told me I would never be a surgeon I asked her to pass me the scalpel lol

 

[broken tibula]

The other lab kid and I were transferring worms to new plates, which involves Bunsen burners to sterilize the worm picks, and I look over...

Me: Hey. Uh. Your hair's on fire.

Her: Mm.

Me: Did you hear me? I said your hair's on fire.

Her: My ha--OH MY GOD MY HAIR'S ON FIRE.

Also, at the end of a three-week orgo lab, I forgot to weigh my final product. Measured the flask before I put it in, did my GC, but apparently thought that a percent yield wasn't going to be on the lab report... *sigh*

 

[Tsukiyo]

And I thought you guys were perfect and that I was the only one to make mistakes. I feel better now. 😀 *sends free hugs to all*



My mistakes:
Intro to Bio Lab (Yay for the CC not having Majors Bio x_X)


1) Broke scalpel while dissecting a frog. Apparently they can't cut bone. 😵 (I had no high school bio lab so I had no idea.)

2) Didn't know what the "black stuff" in that same frog was. Turned out those were eggs. Why did I have to be the one to loo stupid and ask?


Gen. Chem.:

1) Almost broke one of those giant burettes. Almost.

O-Chem (First time at a Uni, I thought they would fail me for mistakes, thus being super-nervous):

1) Forgot to lock drawer with my glassware/lab stuffs the first day even though I really thought I did. TA didn't take points off (yay!)

2) Left thermometer in drawer when I was supposed to turn it back in. TA had to get it after I left and was not pleased.

3) Dropped some benzil I had made, and all I had left to do to get the rest of my next lab day off was take the IR and MP. Had to redo full 2.5h synthesis over and I won't know until Thursday if I have enough for the next reaction. (If not I lose 1pt for every 50mg of benzil I need. Lab 100% = 20 points.)

4) Didn't pre-read lab before doing a TLC on some unknowns and kept using the wrong solvent. By a miracle, I was still able to get both solutes right, though.

5) During a reaction with a water condenser, I put copper wire around the water condenser as the lecture/lab papers said. Instead of those tubes flying out and spilling water, it was the one attached to the sink that detached. So the water that was in the condenser and the tubes at the time went all over my side of the hood. (Took forever to dry with paper towels.)


Other people (either in my lab or something I've heard at the uni or CC):

1) Somebody set one of the labs on fire in the chem building. Don't know how.

2) Someone left dried acid at the CC on the bench and some girl sat on it. She refused to drop her pants when they were burning and ran to bathroom instead. I heard she got some bad burns.

3) Someone dropped a water condenser - it cost $27 to replace.


4) My lab partner keeps losing her stuff. She still owes me $6.94 for me paying for a 5mL conical vial for her.

 

[DaTruMD]

lololol ivedone that too!

except all i needed to do was check for an insert, and even the water/agarose gel was able to show that >.>

FML. Me too.

 

[Frazier]

I once mistook a Bayes factor to be the Bayes estimator.

Like totally omgzzz