International Journal of Goof ups

International Journal of Goof ups :crazy_face:

CUBE is launching a journal of goof ups, to highlight what are most common goof ups in biology.

Some of best goof ups can be awarded. :grin:

On the serious note, it could be an exercise to know which topics or concepts are most difficult to understand as well to handle in practice, while doing hands-on research .

Please list down which are most difficult concepts
according to you.

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This is good opportunity to display the goof up done by the nematode group that is-

1.how to handle microscope, specially the dissecting one and we should be aware of the temperature as well when working with nutrient agar plates

  1. We always talk of feeding the Nematodes with the culture of e coli op50 but we should standardize the amount we are feeding them and moreover the correct reason of why we are using e coli op50 needs a proper explanation rather than typical rote learning

(This are the main goof ups done by Nematode group):sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

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Is it not that Goof-up happens when one attempts
to do something; especially, something New!
There can be Design Goof-ups. There are
goof ups due to oversight, negligence,
procrastination…and because of sheer laziness…

So, then how can goof-ups explain conceptual gaps…
? @jaikishan

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Goof-ups!

Goof-ups or simply mistakes are an important part of a CUBist’s life or any layman’s life.
These may seem simple mistakes to everyone but not as simple as they seem.
For me, any goof-up made by me can change the whole design of my experiment.

The first thing to be done when any goof-up happens from us should be reporting it on the groups as well as during the Causerie or discussion!
This is where most of the people feel afraid of!
Reporting it!
Why?
There is a fear of getting scolded for our mistake. But, in CUBE, we hunt for goof-ups because who knows that behind these goof-ups there may be hidden some unknown thing which we all were unaware of!
This is how the CUBE works!

The goof-up may be anything starting from taking a wrong measurement in measuring the components of the Medium, adding extra drops of milk in the Moina culture medium :grimacing: and things like that.
But out of fear, we don’t report it and try to bring back things to normal by starting it all over or discarding the goof-up.

I will tell you a short (originally long) story.
A few years back, a school student added a few extra drops of milk in the Moina (a freshwater crustacean maintained in CUBE) culture bottle instead of a single drop of milk and did not report it to everyone. After a couple of days, it was observed that the Moinas appeared to be Red (which are initially colourless or white) in colour!
When all observed, they were surprised to observe this and asked who is maintaining this and what actually happened.
The school student didn’t actually convey this goof-up.
It didn’t make a difference as later everyone saw that.
So after referencing, it came out that the Red colour was due to production of extra Hb (an oxygen-carrying protein) in the tiny animal!
And this wasn’t known earlier.

This is the most important goof-up I must say because it gave rise to a whole new research question on which I am working which is an adaptation of Moina to less oxygen or hypoxia and the changes regulated by it.
It is a great thing for me.
The 2019 Nobel-Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to the same field - HYPOXIA!

Goof-ups = Nobel Prizes!
Beauty of Collaboratively Understanding Biology Education!

So you see, whether we report it or not, the goof-up will be highlighted anyways while the discussion would be taking place but it is better, to be honest🤭 as it may open a whole new plethora of unanswered questions which may remain unanswered!

So yesterday, while concluding the webinar we emphasised on dedicating a chapter to GOOF-UPS in the Fruitfly E-Book!
As the one who will be reading it should be knowing everything right from the start, the importance of everything which we are using and many other things and also it should make them understand the working and importance of GOOF-UPS and REPORTING IT!

This also makes me think that we make so many mistakes every day but do we ponder on them?
Like what if I would’ve done this and not that? Who knows that the consequence of it must be something which we weren’t aware of!

So to conclude, we should report every small mistake happening while we do things and also the story behind that which will help us in building a context!