As it’s Friday pretty much everywhere at the moment, I thought I’d share a little revelation I had this morning.
Every time I work down in the yeast lab, I get the nagging, uneasy sensation that someone is watching me. It doesn’t make any sense, because the lab is bright, cheerful, infused with music and laughter and banter – not even remotely sinister. But even when I’m alone, I feel those cool, dispassionate eyes boring into the back of my neck, prickling at the tiny hairs on my skin.
This morning, I finally worked it out: there is an undercover Dalek in the room, just waiting for the best moment to make his move. Can you spot him in this picture?
Brilliant! We had exactly the same model in my old lab, but I’d never seen it that way before.
I think every lab should have an extra-terrestrial autoclave.
Yes, I thought ‘Dalek’ even before reading to the end of the post 🙂
What’s the Dalek’s name? I see the waterbath is a relation.
I don’t know what he’s called – let’s have some suggestions.
But I do believe that his battle cry is “Ster-ILL-i-zate! Ster-ILL-i-zate!”
It looks like it says “Bidididi” at random times.
“Bidididi” as in old-skool Battlestar Galactica? Nah, this guy is far cooler.
Reminds me of these happy fellows
Richard, we need to take care. He’s sitting next to either you or me. Seeing you’re in England and I’m not, it must be you.
(Spot the Dalek and track to the left… yes, there’s a Grant-bot in there too.)
Not to pour cold water over your theory, but I’ve heard the Grant-bot is rather…wet.
/ducks
Mike, that’s a great link – thanks!
Speaking as a middle-aged sci-fi bore, I would have said your little friend resembled the mutant offspring of this chap:
….rather than Dr Who’s Daleks…
Talking of sci-fi, did anyone spot the story in yesterday’s Guardian about how Annakin Skywalker/Darth Vader has been retrospectively diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder?
PS Ditto the thanks to Mike F for the link to the brilliant Smash ad – probably my favourite ad ever.
Hmmm…I don’t know, Austin. The autoclave-bot is exuding evil, don’t you think? Whereas Artoo is a chirping, twirling, whirring cylinder o’ love.
I didn’t see that Guardian piece – inspired! But are they going to diagnose the cause of his son’s general gormlessness?
Jennifer,
Touché.
In that case it’s definitely Richard and not me! 🙂
(Although all humans are dominantly water, I deny being ‘wet’.)
I hear that the Grant-bot can sometimes boil over – so don’t be fooled by the mild-mannered exterior.
Glad the ad found an appreciative audience. One of my favourites as a kid as well.
I tried to embed it, but MT4 isn’t as user friendly as textile was for that. Vive la devolution.
Haha. Very clever. Nice come back.
Well, we have to hope it’s not the research grant bot, in which case we’re in trouble.
Associative memories and all that: It reminds me of Richard saying that his off-the-cuff rants were his most popular posts (or was it about what got into Open Lab.?) Something like that anyway.
BTW, I wrote a follow-on of sorts to your previous post.
I would feel very sorry for today’s ResearchGrantBot – bits falling off left, right and center. Plus only the Elite can have one!
What a lovely post on notebooks, Grant – here’s the link, do check it out:
http://sciblogs.co.nz/code-for-life/2010/06/11/notebooks-capturing-your-thoughts-and-plans/
I can assure you that this ResearchGrantBot has all his parts present, correct and intact.
Well, let’s wait til the Emergency Budget is announced. Meanwhile, I can report at least one more vote for R2 vs Dalek (via Twitter).
Checks frantically
Yes, I think I have all my bits still attached.
(And blushes at the unnecessary praise. Bet ResearchGrantBot can’t do that… Perhaps that’s an advantage…)
Sigh Must look up the HTML character entities for asterisk, so that that they don’t get interpreted as emboldening text. (You’ll laugh, I’m forever spelling asterisk, asterix. I spent way too much time reading the cartoon books as a kid…)
But asterisks were meant to be an old-fashioned stand-in for bold-face, no? Have they evolved a separate meaning while I wasn’t looking?
Have we at last found out the fate of Dalek Jast…
“The Doctor opened the Void, which sucked in all the Daleks and Cybermen that were battling each other. While Dalek Sec was able to escape through a temporal shift, it is unclear if Daleks Jast, Caan, or Thay were sucked into the Void. Both Dalek Thay and Dalek Caan survived but Dalek Jast’s fate is unknown.”
I recently encountered these two giant daleks in the Abbey Mills sewerage pumping station (East London):
Gulp. My goodness, those are terrifying specimens – though I fancy Amelia Pond could take them on with one sultry look. Is their master plan to poison the human race by fiddling with our water purification?
Careful when you mention water purification, Jenny. next thing you know it’ll be fluoridation and we’ll be into General Jack D. Ripper territory.
Point taken! Goodness knows the British wouldn’t want to have lovely healthy teeth like us Yanks. It would be against the natural order of things.
Yes, we Brits like to keep our dentists busy filling cavities… otherwise all the dentists have to switch to doing cosmetic stuff and everyone ends up with the unnervingly identical white US teeth Jenny alludes to…
Nothing unnerving about having 32 intact ones.
But we’re off topic. Anyone have any more Daleks lurking around their labs, shiny-toothed or otherwise?
You know, you’ve been so distracted by the Dalek that you’re not noticing the dodgy-looking red chap with the wiggly legs sitting to the right. He looks downright dangerous.
a) definitely R2 – that was my first thought when I saw the photo!
b) second thought was “cute!”. Not evil.
c) Grant, I once sent my PhD supervisor an email with a word document attached. I wrote in the email “the section that needs the most input is marked with an asterix”. The reply said that he “would Getafix for it soon”.
Good spot. It reminds me somehow of the character Zippy, from an old children’s TV show called Rainbow.
If you’ve never heard of this, I recommend that you don’t investigate, because your autoclave will start to freak you out even more…
So you reckon red wonky guy is actually in league with the extra-terrestrial autoclave and the Grant-bot? Maybe it’s time to step AWAY from the yeast lab.
But red wonky guy is leaning away from them, in an “I’m not with these guys” way. Unless it’s a bluff…
It’s the old good-bot, bad-bot routine. Gets the naive PhD students every time.
Actually, it looks like R2/Dalek is on a bus telling a very boring or TMI anecdote, while wonky red guy in the adjacent seat tries to disappear behind the protective shield of his iPod earbuds. (Guess how I got to work this morning?)
Either that or it’s a robot re-enactment of the Monty Python “nudge nudge wink wink” sketch.
SUbmit it to this site of faces in inanimate objects!
Can you spot him in this picture?
Will not be Mr. Grant, behind the Grant Jennifer.
I say this because from here I see those little eyes bright and roguish of Richard behind the Grant machine.
Ok, this is when I am glad I am only surrounded by paper and references and piles of stats data. Scariest thing in our building is the lime green and orange walls.
Whatever evil they’re planning is bound to be messy, to judge by the dozens of boxes of nitrile gloves they’ve stocked up behind them.
Ooooops, those little eyes shining and infernal.
Your website is really cool and this is a great inspiring article. Thank you so much.