The Ivory Tower has landed. As a future scientist, I no longer receive normal spam. Apparently my penis is just fine, thank you, but there's a Nigerian who needs a US bank account to hold 400 liters of fetal calf serum.
PS - No, I don't work with serum or mice.
Posted on September 11, 2006 08:42 PMI really like the options you have for your fetal calf serum here. Optima, Advantage, Premium, and Premium Select. I never knew there were better and worse grades of fetal calves.
Posted by: Dianna on September 12, 2006 12:19 AMThey're probably like the options other scientific supply companies have for fridges/freezers: Super, Max, and Ultra. All of which are just Frigidaires from Sears with different labels and price tags slapped on them.
Scientific supply is an incredible racket.
Posted by: Jacob on September 12, 2006 11:12 AMWhile all of the items at the left sound chillingly Frankenstein-ish to me (Normal Human Serum? Insect Cell Qualified Fetal Bovine Serum?) I'm most partial to the corporate warmth of Fico/Lite-LM (Mouse). Do they have logowear? If you order 500 ml at the special price, do they send you schwag? Can I have it?
I even like what I take to be either their product description or their mission statement. It sounds like a PBS announcement. "...the support of the Catherine T. and John D. MacArthur Foundation, Fico/Lite-LM for the isolation of mouse mononuclear cells, and Viewers Like You."
Posted by: katie on September 12, 2006 12:00 PMYou'd be surprised and amused by the product names for some of this shit. "Redi-vu" dyed chemicals, "Stratalinker" crosslinking systems, "Quikchange" mutagenesis kits, and "GeneJammer" transfection kits. It's like the sciences never progressed beyond 1950s marketing strategies.
In fact, these companies *do* have schwag. They're normally jealously guarded by the grad students that receive them (because it's passing cool among dorks to wear a shirt advertising radioactive ATP). Sadly, I myself have no no schwag to give. Though I'll look into obtaining some and passing the savings (and shirts) on to you. What size?
Posted by: Jacob on September 12, 2006 12:15 PM