It’s Friday in many parts of the world, so I feel compelled to report the results of a very important experiment just performed by Rohn and colleagues. I don’t know about your institute, but our building manager occasionally distributes freebies from sales reps and asks people to provide feedback. This information is in turn transmitted to the folks responsible for stocking our in-house shop with various basic consumable goods.
Normally I don’t feel I have time to troubleshoot yet another brand of microfuge tube or pipette tip, but today one of the post-docs – after a celebratory lunch with friends – decided it might be fun to have a thorough crack at new type of glove that had been distributed complete with its own helpful quantitative questionnaire:
OK, it was a pretty slow day at the bench, and the monthly departmental cocktail session was a mere hour away.
My colleague got into the spirit by persuading us to wear a normal glove (“Control”) on our left hands and a test glove (“Sample 1”) on our right. Glove fit was pretty self-explanatory, as was comfort during use. Tactile sensitivity proved a bit more amorphous, but I can report faithfully that my iPhone touch screen preferred the Control glove…hands down, as it were. Grip, we decided, would be satisfactorily covered by applying the famous ‘wet glass beaker test’. But how to assess the more illusive qualities of durability and strength?
There was only one thing for it: the application of excessive stretch strain and tortional forces. We even designed an informative readout – the fingers snapping off – and used it to come up with quantitative scale called LF (the ‘Leprosy Factor’). Sadly, the interlopers were resoundingly trounced by the Control gloves in nearly every category – which is a pity, because their color was unusually beautiful, the lavender of a summer evening sky just cooling to dusk, and they would have been easier to coordinate with my wardrobe than the ugly dark purple ones.
Well, I guess you have to have your priorities straight.
“Fingers too short to fit properly”? Is that what it says? I resigned to all S gloves being that way. I was the only one in my lab that wore S anyway. Other female lab members didn’t have bigger hands, but they preferred the baggy M gloves. So “fit” and “comfort” are highly subjective.
…and that is why I left the lab. Stupid gloves!
Sorry, Eva: I didn’t meant to ignite any repressed former trauma.
In the Netherlands, they had the same brand of glove as what we use now but the Small was massive. (Similar problem in the clothes shops — “klein” was about a size 14 of my Earth units.) I think it’s possible that bio supply companies tailor relative sizes to the nationalities of their customers.
Oddly, in Germany the Small gloves were chokingly tight (and of course, the Mediums were too loose).
In Australia ‘L’ was obviously short for ‘Laughingly too small for Richard’.
How were the Extra-LTSFRs?
Couldn’t get them. Obviously I had the biggest hands in Australia.
I’m disappointed at the lack of smutty remarks here. All this talk of rubber and large sizes.
I am so not going to make the obvious quip here.
Nope.
All I’m getting is something about Wellington boots.
Sorry.
Frank, please don’t let me stop you!
Librarians have lovely gloves. Those white cotton jobs that presenters on television history documentaries always have to put on when flipping through some ancient book while behind them, the archivist is trying not to look anxious.
p.s. the gloves aren’t made of rubber any more, but nitrile.
Nitrile boots?
Nope, still nothing.
Glove size might be inversely proportional to surface area of the frontal lobe.
Histologists also have lovely white gloves, when they have to wear latex for budget reasons, to keep the rubber off their sensitive skin. I still have a pair in the back of a drawer somewhere.
Along the lines of nitrile, there is nitrile and then there is nitrile. The latter are really rather fabulous.
“A Revolution in Glove Technology”: Blimey. Where do I sign?
Do histologists have sensitive skin? I’d have thought it’d be all formaldehyded and tough, like Henry’s chickens.
When I first moved to the UK, I used to get H&E confused with A&E.
giggle
@Richard: I’d have thought it’d be all formaldehyded and tough, like Henry’s chickens.
My chickens have hides as pure and soft as a baby’s bottom, I’ll have you know.
@Jenny: When I first moved to the UK, I used to get H&E confused with A&E
When I first joined Nature my father thought it was H&E.
I was just talking to my friend Alom about the philosophy of gloves. Are you protecting yourself from your experimental materials, or your experimental materials from you? It all depends on the experiment.
Rather deep for a Saturday.
Are you protecting yourself from your experimental materials, or your experimental materials from you?
Well, this is the crux of the matter. I’m more worried about the experiments than I am about me.
If you ever go back to the lab, you might want to avoid research topics like Ebola virus.
Boooring.
I have this thing about LB broth. Not the fresh lovely sterile LB broth, but the stinking substance that LB broth becomes after bacteria have been growing in it overnight. Gloves, big time.
I wash my hands a lot.
I am forever grateful for the only thing I remember learning in undergraduate microbiology classes – the ability to hold and manipulate about five different things at once, simultaneously, together and at the same time, without any of them touching either one another or the table.
I am forever grateful for the only thing I remember learning in undergraduate microbiology classes – the ability to hold and manipulate about five different things at once, simultaneously, together and at the same time, without any of them touching either one another or the table.
I bet you’re popular at parties.
Many biology lab skills definitely come in handy when cooking.
I bet you’re popular at parties
I don’t get invited of that kind of party.
Many biology lab skills definitely come in handy when cooking
Indeed.
Shame. Do you want to?
Shouldn’t you be architecting some information, Grant?
It’s a monstrous carbuncle on the face of an old friend, Gee.
Keep saying ‘monstrous carbuncle’ loudly enough and they’ll reduce your tax bill.