this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2024
355 points (98.9% liked)

Science Memes

11217 readers
2727 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Godort@lemm.ee 85 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Top is correct. The number matches to a document that has all the relevant info.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 50 points 2 months ago (1 children)

one small integer is not enough, two small integers are better (lab journal initials/number and sample number, like AC7-295. something like AC7-295A, then AC7-295B and so on if needed. that's how i do it anyway) this way there's no possibility of mixup with other people's samples and samples described in old lab journals

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Some way to identify the person who wrote it is also helpful. Different cultures write numbers differently.

The French person reads the top one as 1 , 2, 3.

The American reads it as 7, 2, 3.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 months ago

speaking of, at least it's using latin alphabet. Good luck making sense of Thai handwriting smudged by acetone especially if you're not a speaker

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 21 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Yea but 2 keeps people from throwing it away during clean outs.

[–] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)

If you're not there for the clean out then it's time for them to go anyway.

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 8 points 2 months ago
[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 months ago

damn i wish. some samples will have to be archived for years after i'm gone

[–] EvacuateSoul@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Could you use masking tape and label the tray?

[–] criticon@lemmy.ca 20 points 2 months ago
[–] ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 18 points 2 months ago

And people say pointers are hard.

[–] Wrufieotnak@feddit.org 13 points 2 months ago

Nearly, some identifier who it's from is also good. Without one? You can't complain if I throw it away at the end of the week cleaning.

[–] oo1@lemmings.world 5 points 2 months ago

But if they do get jumbled, sorting them back out into different experiments, batches or subjects or time periods might make you prefer some extra info accesible by eye.

If you've got a robot sorter maybe a qr code - but you'd have to be pretty large scale for that to be cheaper than a human.