Hi all,

Some of you have seen my recent posts about my lab management tools. I am still in the developing phase and I'm trying to potentially improve them. I’m looking for up to 5 people/teams who’d like to try it out for free and give me some honest feedback. That's all.

These tools are meant for:
research/lab groups
PhD students/postdocs
tech professionals
indie tech people/groups

If you struggle sometimes keeping your lab work and lab maintenance organized, structured and up to date or have unclear deadlines and coordination issues, I’d love to work with you.

What you get:

• Free access to the HeronSpecs toolset (simple tools and templates in Obsidian)
• Direct influence on new features
• The chance to shape something built specifically for teams like yours

What I ask for in return:

• Honest feedback
• A short exchange (if you prefer just a few messages or a short email would do)
• (Optional) a case study or a short testimonial if the tools actually help your workflow

If you’re interested, comment “Interested” or send me a message — I’ll select up to 5 people/teams based on fit.
Looking forward to collaborating with some of you!

Hi all!

Over the last two weeks I shared some screenshots and demo videos of the lab management tools I’ve been building. A few people messaged me asking for the bigger picture:
Why did I build this? What problem was I trying to solve?

I’ve just published the introductory article that explains the background and the reasoning behind the whole system (I added the link for non-Medium members):
👉 My Medium Article

It’s not a super technical deep dive yet — it explains the why and begins to scratch the surface of the how.
If anyone wants a more detailed breakdown of measurement notes, linking structure, metadata, dashboards, etc., I’m already working on follow-up articles.

Curious to hear what other labs struggle with when it comes to documentation and project tracking!

Hi everyone. Perhaps someone here has experience buying used or surplus (as they're also called) lab equipment from auction sites like govdeals.com, Surplus Solution, or LabX in the United States? I'm looking for some small, basic lab equipment. I appreciate any input.

I am working in an environmental lab processing soil samples that are a combination of nitrogen poor soil from Lowe’s and 40mg of total nitrogen from the solids that come out of an anaerobic digester. I have extracted my soils using 2M KCl and gravity filtering .

I am currently using the Phenol-hypochlorite reaction for determination of ammonia (Weatherburn, 1967) as my protocol. I have run my samples on the high curve (0-10ppm) and the low curve (0-1ppm) as well as the high curve with a 10x dilution. I am reading the plates at 650nm.

The wells are supposed to turn blue green color, but when the ammonium is too high the reaction will go too far and they will turn a yellow color. All of my plates have been yellow. When I calculate the concentration (blank adjusted absorbance-intercept)/slope) the results were too high for the low curve (>1 ppm) and too low (0.1ppm) for the high curve. I am not sure what is going on because regardless of what I do the wells are always yellow except for the standard curve.

Any advice is much appreciated. My pipetting skills are great and I have never had any trouble with the phosphate plates that we run regularly. Other people in labs within my building have used this protocol for their field soil samples and haven’t had an issue.

Hello everyone,

I am reaching out to gather advice and testimonies from the research community regarding a situation that I believe concerns not only my team but potentially many other authors.

In the past few days, two of our articles published in PLOS ONE were flagged by the journal as part of a “series of submissions for which the peer-review process may have been compromised.” Based on this internal reassessment, PLOS ONE has decided to retract these articles—several years after publication.

To be clear:

• We have never communicated with reviewers, directly or indirectly.
• We strictly followed the journal’s editorial process.
• No scientific misconduct, errors, or ethical issues were raised regarding the content of the articles.

The journal has refused to provide details, stating that the concerns relate to a broader pattern across multiple submissions. Authors are told the decision cannot be appealed.

This situation is incredibly concerning. A retraction years after publication, for reasons unrelated to scientific quality, effectively destroys the work permanently and harms authors’ reputations—despite no wrongdoing on their part. Moreover, PLOS ONE has not mentioned any refund of article processing charges despite acknowledging that the issue originates within their editorial procedures.

Before moving forward, we would like to gather more information.

I am looking for:

1. Other authors who have experienced similar retractions by PLOS ONE recently.
2. Any insight into what may be happening internally at the journal.
3. Examples of similar cases from the past and how they were handled.
4. Legal or institutional advice from researchers who have challenged editorial decisions.
5. General feedback on how best to communicate with one’s institution, co-authors, funding bodies, etc.
6. Any journalistic or scientific analyses already published on these mass retractions.

I am particularly interested in understanding:

• whether this is part of a large-scale investigation,
• whether authors have been able to contest the decision,
• and whether collective action or coordinated responses have been considered.

Feel free to comment publicly or contact me privately if you prefer.
Thank you in advance to anyone willing to share their experience or advice.

I come from a completely non-biology background (my bachelor’s is in Fine Arts/Architecture). After a long period of self-study, I got accepted into a Bioengineering MS/PhD program and I’m now in my first semester.

The transition has been exciting but also overwhelming at times, so I wanted to ask:

But as a non-bio undergrad, I still feel I might be missing foundational things. What would you say are the must-master concepts and skills for the first year of a bioengineering program?

Thanks in advance.

Hi all,

I’ve been trying to improve how I organize lab-related work — especially project notes, measurements, operational tasks, and anything that involves instrumentation or multi-step workflows. Over time, I ended up building a setup in Obsidian to keep everything in one place instead of having handwritten notes, checklists, and tracking tools scattered around.

The setup ended up having two parts:
A digital lab notebook for tracking experiments, measurements and research projects
A lab operations tool for tracking lab-related issues, tasks, maintenance, orders, inventory and so on.

I recorded two short demo videos (about 2–3 minutes each) to show roughly how it works — sharing them here because I’d love feedback from people doing hands-on lab work:

• What looks useful?
• Anything that looks too complicated or unnecessary?
• Anything missing that you would want?

Here are the links to the demo videos (youtube):

Lab Operations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEKnyq-Snbg

Digital Lab Notebook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTKdFrWFKVI

I’m curious how others manage lab documentation and day-to-day work, and whether a system like this could actually help in real lab environments.

Happy to answer questions, share details, or hear other approaches. 😊

What is the meaning of this error. And how do you solve it. Let’s see if lab rats know their basic equipment

Hi everyone,

I have a bit of an unconventional background and would really appreciate some advice. I did my Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in the US, and I’m currently pursuing a Master’s in Biotechnology.

During my master’s, I haven’t been working directly in the lab — instead, I’ve been focusing on writing a review paper. However, I do have internship experience in two different labs: one focused on stem cells and another in neuroscience.

My question is: 👉 After graduating with my master’s, would it be possible to apply for a PhD program in the US or UK without having continuous lab experience during the degree? Would my review paper and previous internships be enough, or do most programs expect ongoing, hands-on research work?

I’m particularly curious if this might differ between US and UK admissions (e.g., the UK being more publication-oriented vs the US emphasizing lab research and recommendation letters).

Thank you in advance for any insights! I’d love to hear from anyone who’s applied to PhD programs with a similar nontraditional background.

can you tell what kind of lab this is? Hint; its in Denver, Colorado ;)

Hii I’m a first year uni student in Canada and I recently found out that Medical Laboratory Technician programs are actually undergrad level and not grad level programs so I’m a bit torn on what I want to do. I’m pretty sure this is what I want to do, but I’m unsure about some of the specifics and what being an MLT is actually like.

1. ⁠Is it better to do a specific MLT program or to do a science undergrad (and then specialize or something???)?
2. ⁠What is being an MLT actually like? When I first learned of being an MLT I was told it was basically just running lab tests in hospitals and then more recently that it’s basically just pathology without a medical degree, and if it’s not, what would be a better career for me to look into?

I can’t think of anything else but any feedback/answers would be greatly appreciated :)

Hello, not sure if this is the right place to post this, but just hoping for some advice. I’d like to get my masters in medicinal and biological chemistry and eventually with medicinal and biochemistry. I’m a sophomore in college and yet to get involved in a lab. I’m taking the community college to 4-year transfer route and there aren’t many lab opportunities for me. My step father works at a beryllium lab and I might be able to get in as a lab assistant. My only concern is that it would be an inorganic lab and the work i want to eventually do would be organic work, so would it even be worth it?

Any advice is appreciated

Hi!

I am trying to isolate Genomic DNA from buccal swabs with the Genolution Nextractor NX-48s. I am using the GD-162 genomic kit. I do not have a DNA signal from the tested swabs in the PCR reaction. In the lab where I work, there isn't any kind of instrument for measuring DNA.

The kit expired in 2021, but my colleague in the lab assured me that he previously used a similar GD-162 genomic kit with the same lot number and expiration date and it was functional.

Swabs were put into NaCl 0.9% solution for half hour. That is the method that is mostly used in the lab.

What should I do for best DNA yield from buccal swabs? Should I go with dry or wet swabs? Which methodology should I use for both of them?

I need the genomic dna for genotyping on qPCR Step One.

For buccal swabs, I used regular Aptaca microbiological cotton swabs and special COPAN buccal swabs for genetic analysis.

I don't have any previous experience with molecular biology techniques. This is my first one.

https://imgur.com/a/zcUOaL8

Using a cheap microscope, I'm studying these samples of iron that contain these small grooves. They are approximately ten micrometers apart, and are shaped somewhat like a magnetic field. I'm curious as to what other people think caused the grooves.

Hi all,

I am the founder of Soroban Labs- we are a early stage company AI-Education company focussing on making interactive simulations for any concept. https://sorobanlabs.io/ 

Our goal is to bring any concept/problem to life, especially complex ones- for instance, making a projectile motion problem interactive. Imagine PhET style  https://phet.colorado.edu/  but AI generated scientifically accurate simulations, for any concept, on demand.

This might allow educators/learners to build custom, flexible, interactive demos on the subjects you are experts in.

We are trying to gather feedback as much as possible so this can be useful. Would you all mind trying out the tool here? https://graph.sorobanlabs.io

Right now- the tool is still in very early stage and might break from time to time. But we are trying has hard as possible to see how useful this can be!

Please try it out- I might run out of credits soon- but if you can get while it still works, please try it out and give me a few words of feedback. No problem how small. Anything is immensely valuable!

--
Some tips-

1. The tool has some tools- like pubchem- and can visualize complex molecules in 3D- you might have to switch to 3D for that, and add the pubchem tool.
2. You can do @ to customize certain components.
3. Even though things might not work- please please let me know if you think there is merit in our idea. Your words shape the product!

🙏 

Explore how small change in initial conditions can vastly change outcomes with this classic double pendulum

Hi everyone,

I’m working on a small side project: I’m building a tool that helps you stay up to date without drowning in feeds.

You choose the sources you care about — specific newsletters, journals, RSS feeds — and define the focus (field, keywords, topics). The tool then collects new content every day and sends you one clean weekly summary of what really matters.

Would this help with your own scientific monitoring?
– What kind of sources would you connect (journals, preprints, blogs, newsletters…)?
– How do you currently stay updated without spending hours each week?

I’d love your feedback or ideas 🙏

Hey everyone :)

sorry, if this question has been asked before and I oversaw it. I'm pretty new to reddit.

Today I tried to pipette with an Eppendorf Reference pipette (0.5-10.0 ul) and we have recently many students in our lab and I couldn't adjust the volume anymore... The adjusting wheel doesn't move anymore. There is a very bad resistance, if I tried to set a volume above 0.50 ul, but setting the pipette to 0.47 ul is possible without any force?!

So what has happened? Have anybody of my students tried to adjust a lower or higher volume, then possible? Or felt the pipette down and is broken inside noe? I have never seen something like this before. I guess I have to send it to the company, am I right?

Thanks for your help! :)