Why are people afraid of money?

Let me ask you a question. Would you like to be super rich, let's say 200 million dollars rich?
I bet you would probably say "YES" without hesitating. What I am about to tell you may change your mind.

Imagine your best friend comes up to you and ask for $100,000 investment because she wants to start a company. You say yes without even setting any interest payment or a written contract for repayment since you think she is your best friend you want to help unconditionally. Then she comes back to you and ask for another $200,000. This time you say no and she starts screaming at you and call you cheap, not supportive, and a worst friend she has ever had.

Let's say you want to share your fortune with your family members and give them 5 million dollar each. Guess, what. They call you cheap and they think 20 millions would be more appropriate instead. Imagine what they would say or do if you refuse? Would they still love you then? Would they call you a bastard or a bitch because you have 200 million and only share 2.5% of your fortune to each of them?

Now, imagien you do a donation to the organization that you have been donating for years and years. You decided to increase the donation to 50 time more than what you used to donate (for argument sake let's say 500,000). Then one day you hear a rumor that the head of the organization calls you cheap condiering you have 200 millions in your bank.

What do you think now? I think "What the F@$#" would be a correct answer.

It doesn't matter how nice you try to be, probably at least one of these episode will happen.

Do you still want to be rich?

Depressed and Scared

Not good news. I should have known better.......

I thought I did a good job doing market research to start this venture but as it turned out, the market research was not good enough

I just found out there are zillions of competitors in the industry that I am in….even though my idea is unique, in order to make it work, I need to put more time and capital. Otherwise, the website will simply just look the same as those other zillions of websites.

The industry that I am in is restaurant industry. The product I am providing is a marketing platform. I am not going to provide details at this point and I am sure the details will be revealed by itself eventually.

So, I have already sunk in 1 year of time and plenty of money. Even though I am doing this part-time, the venture has substantially ate away countless weekends and sleep time.

Yes, I am doing this part-time. I have a full time job working in the lab and I am depressed and scared. I am not sure if I am doing the right thing, even though I have been doing this for almost a year.

My scientific career is pretty much stacked. Without a PhD, there is no hope (or should I say "improbable but not impossible") for me to have my own lab, or getting a grant to do whatever research I want to do.

so, here I am. Trying to be an Internet entrepreneur....depressed and scared.

Sell, Sell, Sell, Sell

As I approach to finish the part time MBA program, it becomes clearer that running a lab is not much difference than running a small business. It requires substantial entrepreneurial skills and mentalities to become successful in running a lab.

For example, there are 4 key skills that anyone who wants to start a business needs to have. You don’t need to born with them, but rather acquiring these skills and/or knowing how to get the same results without having these skills will be the key to success.

1) be able to sell
2) be able to push to sell
3) be able to innovate / create product to sell
4) be able to organize

We can apply these skills to Science.

1) No matter what your research topic is, communicating to audiences is a key. You need to be able to sell your research ideas, results, grant proposals etc.
Selling good presentation = more recognition
Selling research ideas, results = more papers = easier to get grants
Selling grant proposals = more money

2) You need to be the driver to achieve the sales.
What do you need to do to be able to make the sales? That is the key question.

3) Now that you have sold the research idea, find ways to get more research ideas.

4) Once 1)-3) is in motions, you need to organize and keep track on all these activities.

This is just an example. You can modify/apply in anyways you like.
The backbone is
1) Sell,
2) Push to Sell
3) Make more product
4) Organize

In other words, Selling = More Money = More research

Science Revolution

I came across to epMotion the other day. Apparently it is an automated pipetting machine made by Eppendorf. I guess it was inevitable fate for any industry to have some kind of revolution. Just like Industrial revolution, eventually “Science Revolution” will be here to replace Lab techs like me. We will need to get a completely new set of training to manage all these machines instead of pieptting 1ul samples ourselves.
Should we embrace the revolution? or reject it? I guess we don’t have a choice but rather need to prepare and accept the fact.

How to dissolve a high molar urea without getting precipitation? part 2

At last I figured out how to dissolve a high molar urea without getting precipitation for a long time.

The reason I need a high molar urea is to strip a nitrocellulose membrane over night but the high concentration urea kept precipitating after couple of hours.

I think the answer was air. As long as the high concentration urea (I tried 9 M) do not get in contact with air, it is ok even in a low temperature for a long time. I left it overnight and there is still no precipitation as I am typing. (Almost 24 hours by now)

Take a look at the picture below. I sealed it in a bag and let it rocking on a platform. No precipitation what so ever!!

How to dissolve a high molar Urea without getting precipitated?

I have been trying different methods to dissolve a high concentration of urea (9M-12M), but keep getting precipitation.

I think I have found a method to make the urea solution that will not precipitate for at least several hours or even couple of days.

1) Warm up H2O (microwave or hot plate) to substantial degree so that whatever amount of urea is added will be dissolved
2) Add urea and dissolve (make sure it is completely dissolved)
3) Let it cool down slowly and gradually to room temperature

I have also tried different combinations without success

Variation1
1) Start with cold water
2) Add urea and dissolve it as the water gets warmed up on hot plate
3) Let it cool down slowly and gradually to room temperature

Comment: Probably the cold water is not a good idea.

Variation2
1) Start with hot water (microwaved)
2) Add urea and stir
3) The water temperature is not hot enough so microwaved the whole thing (did not use hot plate so could not maintain the same water temperature)
4) Dissolve it completely this time and let it cool down slowly and gradually to room temperature

Comment: Probably some urea particles are not dissolved completely the first time and re-warming does not help. Even though it dissolves urea completely, the solution precipitate very fast with 1 hour after cool down.
In other words, you need to dissolve urea completely the first time. For whatever reason (most likely low water temperature), if it does not dissolve the first time it will not work.

Variation3
1) Start with hot water (microwaved or hot plate)
2) Add urea and stir, completely dissolved
3) Cool it down with ice (monitor it so that it does not drop beyond room temperature) then leave it on the bench to cool down to room temperature.

Comment: cooling it down with ice is not a good idea. Even if you take it out from ice around 50 degree C and let it sit on a bench until it cools down to room temperature, it still precipitates pretty fast after complete cool down.

I wonder if someone out there have/had a same/similar problem making high concentration urea solution.

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Sep 2012 Follow up: 
I have actually found a perfect solution to this problem.

1) Warm up water in microwave

2) Add urea (solid)

3) COVER THE BEAKER (or any other types of container you are using) so it won't get in contact with air then place the beaker on a heat stirrer. Keep the water hot but not boiling and keep stirring the solution until urea is dissolved.

4) Keep the solution in air tight container so the solution won't come in contact with air.

The way to cool down the solution was not the issue after all. The secret is to avoid contact with air.


My new personal blog

Life goes on....

So how is everyone surviving in this financial crisis? Anyone got laid off or see someone got laid off? Well, it is happening in real time everywhere even in Science business.

If you are the only lab tech in the lab then you probably already knows you are OK until your boss's grant money runs out. Unfortunately for those Post-Docs, they are the first ones to go. This saddens me as they are probably the ones work harder and longer hours and yet, they are the first ones to go.

I remember someone told me once that Science job is a relatively stable job than other jobs. It probably is true to some degree (since we don’t get paid as much to start with compare to other fields considering the qualifications that we need to get to go into Science field), but I guess this financial crisis have created a once in a life time opportunity for us to witness “No body is safe” situation.

Well, stay warm and let’s hope to hear a good news sooner than later.