Stupid Lab Mistakes: A Constant Across All Levels Of Experience
Stupid Lab Mistakes: a Constant Across All Levels of Experience
So today was day one of a tyrosinase lab. We had to centrifuge our organic matter sample (homogenized mushroom gills) to separate the soluble proteins from the rest of the tissue, and we counterbalanced our sample with an identical centrifuge tube of equal weight filled with water. We did all of this under the supervision of a TA and our professor.
My lab partners and I have used centrifuges many times before, but what we (and the instructors) failed to notice was that these particular tubes required an adapter for this particular centrifuge. We were spinning it up to about 7000 rcf when we heard a muffled “bang,” then the centrifuge slowed to a stop. When we opened it up, we discovered that the water tube had EXPLODED, shattering into a hundred little plastic pieces. the tube containing our organic sample slurry was thankfully intact, but it was badly warped and cracked. We spent the next 20 minutes or so carefully wiping water off every nook and cranny of the centrifuge interior, thanking our lucky stars that it wasn’t mushroom gloop.
I keep thinking that gaining more practical lab experience will save me from this kind of thing, but if the three different generations of chemists present couldn’t keep it from happening then there is no hope. These incidents are the things that add unexpected excitement to my life, though, so I suppose it’s not all bad.
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SEED MONEY
After the price of gold dropped in the 1980s, Fred Libby left the mines of Arizona, where he worked with precious metals, and started Treehouse Silver Inc. with his wife, Connie. The Libbys now grow small crystals of copper, gold, silver, and other minerals and sell them to more than 250 gift shops around the country. They grew this crystal by dissolving copper wire in a hot mixture of water and nitric acid. Then they dipped two copper plates into the solution, one of which had pennies attached to it. The plates are hooked up to opposite ends of a low-voltage power source with the pennies plate connected to the power source’s negative end. After about a day, copper in the solution gets reduced to copper metal and crystallizes in long, thin structures on the pennies.
Credit: Treehouse Silver Inc.
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