ITS TIME FOR CELEBRATION OF GOOF UPS! 🥳

[drishtantmkawale (Drishtant Maruti)]

International Journal of Goof ups

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 s…

So, I have been associated with the Moina Model-System from July 2019.
Many Goof-ups have been done by me and well as my collaborators.
I will list the ones which I remember

1. On the first day of my introduction to Moina as my research partner which was on 18th July 2019, I had made a bottle with 250mL of Dechlorinated Water + 1 drop of milk + ~10 Moinas and then I had fed milk to them.
   I thought that feeding milk just on the first day would be enough for them to survive, so I did not feed them the following days and gradually on the 4th day, there were no Moinas!!
   The reason was not feeding them!

   Then, I started feeding them daily.

   Two days back, while discussing each of us’ goof-ups, I shared this goof-up of mine to everyone and to my surprise, we found out that we can design an experiment on the basis of this goof-up!
   How?
   @Arunan Sir added that we can check the maximum number of days till which the Moinas can survive without being fed and also, we can have a comparison of the Moinas which are fed daily.
   We can compare the changes (if any) in their growth-curve, reproduction rate, etc.

2. As we started building up some context on Moinas by doing assays like Red-Moina or observing for colour change and also even culturing, we came to know the importance of replicates!
   Replicates are just the same as the original bottle! Like a twin!
   Lack of replicates does not make up a good experiment. If we prepare just one bottle instead of preparing more bottles, then what would be the use of that!
   CUBE does not believe in keeping all the eggs in the same basket.
   That means, if we make just one bottle, there are chances that because of some negligence or mistake, the bottle can get disturbed!
   What if a cat comes and pushes the bottle down!?
   Our Moinas would be gone! So, replicates are important!
   On my first day also (as mentioned in the above point), I did not make replicates whose importance I have realised now!

3. Earlier, while performing the Red Moina Set-up, we did not use to make Control bottles!
   What is Control?
   Control is something which is used to compare with the test!
   In our case, the control bottle would consist of say 250mL of Dechlorinated Water + 1 drop of milk daily + Moinas which we expect that the Moinas will remain colourless till the end of our experiment!
   And the test bottle would consist of 250mL of Dechlorinated Water + 6 drops of milk + Moinas which we expect that the Moinas will undergo a colour change say Yellow, Orangish-Red or Red!

   So how will we convince everyone that we have obtained colour-changed Moinas?
   By comparing the colourless Moinas from the control bottle and coloured Moinas from the test bottle!
   And also, having replicates in the Control and Test bottles need to be kept in mind while designing the experiment!

4. Crying for lack of equipments!
   When we had started culturing, we used to culture the Moinas in plastic bottles. And when there were no bottles, we did not use to do the culturing!
   This, I think was a mistake or goof-up which was committed because the main motive of Collaboratively Understanding Biology Education is to make Science free and accessible to all!
   So that people don’t run away from work when there is a lack of something.

   If there are no plastic bottles, we can use glass beakers, if not glass beakers, then 50mL Falcon tubes and if that too is not available, then 2.5mL Eppendorf tubes or centrifuge tubes can also be used in culturing!
   Yes, we have done that!

   As @Arunan Sir says, "we should start our mobile camera as we use our kitchen knife! Precisely!.. and sharpen the knife whenever needed"
   Here, we can sharpen our photography skills by learning new techniques to handle our mobile camera for eg. adjusting the resolution!
   Using the mobile camera precisely would eliminate the need for Microscopes to some extent if we are working in our home lab!
   @edurafi Sir from HBCSE, TIFR, had introduced to us the FOLDSCOPE which can be termed as our pocket-microscope.

   Which means that the process of doing science and learning through it should not be halted!
   Whatever may be the circumstance!

5. Goof-up of not reporting the Goof-up made by us!
   Are we courageous enough to highlight the mistakes done by us and report them in front of everyone?
   That too will add to the process of learning!
   And sometimes I wonder, are we learning something from the mistakes which are happening by us?
   We should Celebrate the Goof-ups as the title of this topic says, by discussing extensively on it and taking out positive as well as negative points which can be kept in mind the next time!

Let us show to the world that science can be done at our homes without the help of sophisticated instruments, equipment and brag them!

Focus on the idea of looking for alternatives!
Please add to this by creating a new thread!