Putting the science in fiction - Dan Koboldt, Chuck Wendig 2018
Proper lab technique
Research labs, hospitals, and really bad ways to die
By Rebecca Enzor
Whether it’s the first semester of chemistry class in high school, any laboratory course in college, or the first day at a new job, every lab experience starts with a class on proper lab technique and safety. Which means, if you have a character who works in a lab, she’s gone through at least three lab safety courses to get there.
At the environmental testing lab where I work, we have an entire week of safety courses before we ever step foot in the lab. My job is to test water, soil, and tissue samples for radioactivity, pesticides, herbicides, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). There are a lot of steps in this process—a lot of places where it can go dangerously wrong—and we have to have defensible data in court (sometimes needed by our clients), so I have to be very careful when I’m working. Which is why it bugs me so much when scientists in books and movies have a laissez-faire attitude toward how they use their equipment.
What are some of the things you need to keep in mind when writing about lab work? Let’s start with proper protective equipment (PPE).
Proper protective equipment (PPE)
Most books and movies get at least the basics of PPE right. After all, what’s a scientist without the white lab coat and oversized safety glasses? And gloves, because no self-respecting scientist is going to touch anything in a lab without gloves on.
But did you know that you can’t wear tennis shoes in some labs? My lab requires shoes with leather on top, preferably slip-on, so if you spill something on them you can quickly slip them off. You wouldn’t want to have to untie your shoes when there’s hot acid all over the laces. Not to mention the hot acid will seep through the cloth quicker than you can slip the shoe off, even if you don’t have laces. And if you spill hot acid anywhere on your clothing, trust me, the first thing you’re going to do is strip it off as fast as you can.
Does your character have long hair? She’ll have to put it in a ponytail. Long necklace? Leave it at home. Deep V-neck shirt? She should wear something else. Expose as little skin as possible. Speaking of exposing as little skin as possible: Never wear a thong in the lab. It’s really embarrassing when you spill something dangerous on your pants and have to rip them off, only to leave your butt cheeks flapping in the breeze for all to see.
Just trust me on that one.
Lab equipment
Once you’re properly clothed you can get to work, but depending on what you’re doing, you might need some special equipment. Working with chemicals? You’re going to need a fumigation hood. (Unless you’re isolating radium-228, which they’ll let you do on a counter with no hood, even though the acetic acid will give you a headache.)
The most important thing to know if you’re working with a fume hood is don’t stick your head inside. The whole point of the fume hood is to capture the dangerous fumes, and if you stick your head in there your nose will capture the fumes instead. There’s also usually a glass or plastic moveable “door” on the hood that you want to keep closed as often as possible, not only because fumes will escape but because it’s a great barrier to all those dangerous chemicals you’re working with. When you add chemicals to other chemicals, they often splash—sometimes they explode. If you don’t want them to explode all over you, there needs to be a barrier.
Other things you might be working with?
· ACID DISPENSERS: These are pumps that fit on top of 1.5-liter acid containers and are used to squirt the same amount of acid with each pump (anywhere from one to ten milliliters at a time). Definitely use these inside the hood with the barrier between you. Most acid containers are glass and can shatter if dropped (the exception being hydrofluoric acid, which eats through glass and is stored in plastic containers).
· CENTRIFUGES: These spinning machines are used to separate sediment from liquid by drawing the sediment to the bottom of the centrifuge tube. Make sure they’ve stopped before you go sticking your fingers in there.
· SYRINGES: I’m pretty sure you can figure this one out on your own. Don’t stab yourself (or anyone else) with the needle.
· GLASSWARE: From beakers to flasks to graduated cylinders, these are easy to break and cut yourself. Bonus points if there’s acid, radioactive contamination, or other nasty things on the glassware to infect your cut! They also make an excellent amount of noise when your character gets fed up with everything and throws them on the ground.
· VACUUM FLASKS: These cone-shaped glass flasks are used to separate two liquid layers, or a layer of liquid from sediment that’s too large to fit in the centrifuge. When these explode they make an awful noise and an even more awful mess! Never mix acids and bases in a vacuum flask and always make sure the flow is good before you start using them. You can usually tell if the flow is good by the sound: if there’s a blockage there will be a higher pitch than usual. Unfortunately that’s something you have to learn through practice.
And then we get to pipettes, which is the whole reason I wrote this article on proper lab technique.
How not to use an eppendorf pipette
I’m sure most of you have seen, or at least heard of, James Cameron’s Avatar (as opposed to the Avatar TV show where the characters can control the elements). That movie came out in 2009—almost ten years ago—and there’s a scene in it that to this day bugs me. Sigourney Weaver is using a pipette, which is a tool we use in the lab to transfer a specifically measured amount of liquid from one container to another.
You hold the pipette upright, depress the plunger, stick it in the liquid you want to transfer, and release the plunger. It sucks the exact same amount of liquid up each time (we calibrate the pipettes daily so we know that they are, in fact, sucking the exact same amount of liquid up each time). You then place the pipette tip over the container you want to put the liquid into and depress the plunger again so all the liquid exits. It’s a super easy and mostly fail-proof way to get the exact same amount of liquid into each sample. You could do the same with a syringe, but there’s a lot more human error involved in a syringe and it takes much longer.
So Sigourney Weaver is using a pipette, gets the appropriate amount of liquid into it, and then turns it upside down. Friends, I have done this exact same thing by accident, and do you know what happens when you turn a pipette full of liquid upside down? The liquid goes into the pipette’s mechanism and you can’t use it anymore because it’s contaminated. Part of the liquid can squirt out, too, which is very dangerous if you’re using it to transfer radioactive sources or acids. I’ve done this—by accident—more times than I’d like to admit. And pipettes are expensive. My boss probably hates me.
I can tell you I’m not the only one who’s noticed this, either. If you Google “Sigourney Weaver, pipette, Avatar” the first hit is a YouTube video entitled “How Not to Use an Eppendorf Pipette” and then pages and pages of scientists like myself gasping in utter horror over her misuse of said pipette. It would be funny if I wasn’t still horrified all these years after watching a science fiction/fantasy film. Obviously this one stuck with me.
Respect for science
The last thing you need to know about writing a scientist in a lab? We care about what we’re doing. We check constantly to make sure we’re safe and the people around us are safe. We make sure we’re doing every step correctly, because a misstep could lead to bad data … or an explosion. So never, ever, ever write this sentence: “Scientists have their heads in the clouds and don’t bother with maintenance.”
Because I will throw your book across the room.