Put the Sci in your Fi – #2 – Beakers, Bunsen Burners and Budget Cuts (Part 1)

Read this blog from an amazingly talented and imaginative scientist about how scientists use some day-to-day wares and instruments in a life science laboratory.

Rachel M Brick

First of all, thank you to fellow sci-fi writer K.S. Watts for the title!

And now, on to post no. 2 for putting the ‘sci’ in your ‘fi’, part 1 of the mini-series, Beakers, Bunsen Burners and Budget Cuts!

If you’ve watched any sci-fi movie, you’re probably familiar with the following setting:

Super dark, blue-lit labs… (Image credit: jimmyjimjim)

Full of high-tech equipment… (Image credit: neisbeis)

Why do labs always look like this? Because it’s edgy. It’s dramatic. It’s exciting and photogenic.

It’s also incredibly expensive. And who can blame the author for wanting to set up a billion-dollar lab? Expensive, flashy toys are always exciting, not to mention they are apparently extremely effective at getting the job done. Vaccines can be discovered and mass-produced within a week, amiright?

But what if your character is not a trust fund baby with rich parents, and they want to set…

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Put the Sci in your Fi – #1 – Button, button, who’s got the button?

Amazing post about…would a genetically engineered baby grown outside a womb have a belly button?

Rachel M Brick

Hey guys! In keeping with one of my New Year’s resolutions, I’m starting up a new section on my blog: Put the Sci in your Fi.

My hope and intent with this blog thread is to create a fun, informal resource for non-scientists who want to write Sci-Fi novels. Those of you who are already well immersed in SF writing will know that you must do your homework, and sometimes there’s a great deal of homework to be done. But sometimes, it’s hard to know what to look for when you’re unfamiliar with the field, especially if you’re looking for something specific.

giphy Always researching…

During the course of writing SF, I’ve been asked a good number of questions that I did my best to explain. There is a certain level of creativity that we can inject into our works, of course. Otherwise, we might as well just write textbooks, and…

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Beliefs vs Facts

As a human and not a machine (unfortunately), I have numerous beliefs. But I have tried hard over the last 10-12 years to differentiate between beliefs and facts. I believe in God, but I don’t consider existence of God/s to be an objective fact. In this issue, atheists and agnostics have a better rational argument…

Yemen – forgotten by our tribal mentality

According to the UN, Yemen is currently the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Countless have died, become homeless, on the verge of starving to death, and besieged by diseases. Yet it has barely created a ripple in American social media. I am starting to realize social media outrage has the potential to produce real-life…

Women and toxic families

Women dealing with toxic family - a topic that comes back to me every week, even at work after others become familiar with my writing. And these stories are overwhelming shared to me by women from the eastern part of the planet (doesn't mean it only happens there). In popular culture, many times we easily…

The Tragedy of Kashmiri Pandits

This is a very charged topic, especially in India, but I've been wanting to write about it for a long time because Kashmiri Pandits are one group of refugees that everyone seems to have forgotten about. Having Kashmiri Hindu friends in New York City who themselves or whose parents had to leave Kashmir, gave this…

CDC, Quackery, and the Habit of Blaming Women

Recently the CDC posted guidelines telling women that drinking too much alcohol can result in violence/injuries, getting STDs, or getting unintentionally pregnant. Although intentions might have been in the right place, a lot of it came across as patronizing and somehow taking away the sense of agency - that women need to be warned to watch…