PCR: not so much on Tuesdays

It's been too long since my last post, but I've been busy.  The semester is over, written and oral comps passed, and I can return to being productive with some tinkering on the side.  I've recently been beset by updating some equipment usage logs which isn't hard, but takes up time I'd rather be using to do other things.

When looking at thermal cycler usage for the spring 2012 semester, one interesting thing pops out: Tuesday instrument usage is markedly lower (~40%) than other weekdays.

The numbers are hours used per day of the week from January through May.

What can account for this?  Impulsively, I think a couple of things contribute.  First, people come to lab on Monday with ambitions for the week and maybe some fresh thoughts contrived over the weekend about some result or another.  Once these results are obtained, perhaps some other steps or reflection on these new results are necessary before proceeding, hence the dip on Tuesday.  I think people then "push" to get the rest of their planned work done across the rest of the week, thus maintaining regular instrument usage, even on Fridays.  A few of us obviously spent some fun weekends in lab, too.  Someone I showed this to suggested that perhaps class schedules impede research on Tuesdays, but since Thursdays are well utilized, I think that seems unlikely, given the Tues/Thurs or M/W/F scheduling of classes here at NAU.

So there it is.  A mostly pointless blog post to help me feel better about not putting anything up for a while.  Maybe something more substantive next time...