Repurposing with purpose

Abstract

Sharing science hacks Many scientists will go out of their way to save a few bucks, especially when it comes to improvising with makeshift lab equipment. So when Jacquelyn Gill, an associate professor of paleoecology and plant ecology at the University of Maine, asked on Twitter what everyday household items scientists use for research, she got hundreds of responses. “When I was a student we used to use a salad strainer to centrifuge crystallization capillaries,” tweeted Tamir Gonen, a professor of biological chemistry and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Tom Rivas, a graduate student in biochemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder, could identify with that, tweeting that he uses a salad spinner to pulse down his quantitative polymerase chain reaction plates before running them. “Nail salon lamps for photochemical reactions and cat litter buckets for base baths,” offered Lisa McElwee-White, a chemistry professor at the University