Author of Hunted, The Relics of War, The Caein Legacy, & The Mage War Chronicles
Tales from the Lab #12: The Unicorn Once upon a time, in a chemistry lab not so far away… Two of my colleagues were struggling with analytical equipment behaving badly. The instrument in question was the oldest in the lab, and in its twilight years had begun to decline. In the stubbornness of its old […]
Tales from the Lab #11: The Cookie Exchange As we’re nearing the holidays, I always wind up with the urge to bake. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a household where cookies, pies, pastries, and bread were a staple during this time of year, but I still love to bake. A few years ago, […]
Tales from the Lab #10: Elleronne Hatchet Interviews A.J. Calvin on Laboratory Horrors Good morning. This is Elleronne Hatchet from the Interdimensional/Time-Traveling News Agency, reporting live from an undisclosed microbiology lab. It is the workplace of scientist and author A.J. Calvin. Today I am interviewing A.J. as part of her Tales from the Lab series, […]
Tales from the Lab #9: How to Clear a Micro Lab (Part Two) – Management Edition I’m calling this post management edition because it involves myself, my manager, and an anaerobic box filled with Clostridium. (My microbiologist friends can probably see where this is going already.) For those not in the know, Clostridium is a […]
Tales from the Lab #8: The Lab Mascot Sports teams have mascots, fast food restaurants have mascots, even cereals have mascots. Why can’t scientists have a mascot? At one of my previous workplaces, we set out to find one. When you work in a microbiology lab, there are many potential candidates for the proper mascot, […]
Tales from the Lab #7: A Microbiologist on Vacation As much as I didn’t seem to know what I was getting into when I decided to pursue a degree in microbiology, I did learn along the way that I have a strange fascination with fungus. Most of my education focused on bacteria and viruses (the […]
Tales from the Lab #6: The Thing from the Tea In all the labs I’ve worked in, there has been one major constant when it comes to people who aren’t microbiologists: They are both fascinated and repulsed by the work we do. We grow bacterial and fungal cultures on a regular basis, and some of […]
Tales from the Lab #5: An April Fools’ Joke Note: The names of those involved have been changed for privacy. Also, I do not take credit for this prank, but was only present to witness the plotting and hear about the results. I still maintain it was one of the more entertaining (and harmless) pranks […]
Tales from the Lab #4: More About Mold I had intended to post a blog yesterday, but my plans got a bit derailed by a little thing called fungus. In other words, work was very busy and by the time I got home, I was too drained to do much more than order a pizza. […]
Tales from the Lab #3: A Tale of Three Keyboards This month’s installment of Tales from the Lab features a couple of my coworkers from many years ago (names changed for privacy). To preface the story, it’s been a recurring theme throughout my career that chemists innately believe their work areas, lab spaces, computers, etc. […]
