March 21, 2016 at 10:43PM

Today I Learned: 1) Chopsticks was written in the late 19th century by a 16 year old girl (under a male pseudonym, surprise surprise). In the original score, the pianist is instructed to play with the hands sideways, little finger down, making chopping motions to play each note. 2) I have a new contender for 'safest chemical besides water' -- DFHBI-1T, a dye that lights up green when it binds to an mSpinach or mBroccoli RNA domain. Check out the MSDS: http://ift.tt/1Rwa7Kq. The only even vaguely dangerous-sounding thing I can see there is that it shouldn't be stored with oxidizers. For some reason. It isn't even known to contain any chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth, or any other reproductive effects, and that's saying something! And yet, it still recommends safety glasses. Is that really necessary? (bear in mind also that DFHBI is quite expensive and difficult to get in amounts greater than a few tens of milligrams.) 3) Today I tried out Benchling for the first time. Benchling is an online lab notebook and DNA-visualization tool. It's used for a combination of day-to-day record keeping and information storage of plasmids, primers, and other DNA-related things. With a good internet connection, it's actually pretty nice, and snappy enough to be worth using. The interface is a tad cluttered, as is usually the case with these kinds of programs, and the zoom functionality for DNA visualization is a bit more awkward than I'd like. Still, I'll keep it in mind next time I need a free plasmid-visualizing solution.