Wish you happy good year 2014...

a last one for november... to be soon completed

a next one...

the reason why I write these 'empty' posts is that I hope to fill them with cartoons soon...

So I was ill and in hospital, so I had no time for cartoons in November. But I promise to fill up this year's cartoons as soon as I'll have more time for it.

sorry I've been hospitalized lately

ddd

......

Scientific Halloween presents

Happy Halloween to all of my colleagues....

Baby names for sociologists

No comment this time...

Halloween bedtime stories - scientific bedtime stories part II.

Sorry for being so late with comments - I am still completely booked until Christmas :-). I have plenty of scientific and family occupations, although I promised to slow down in science and focus more on family, simply I cannot stop science because my co-authors depend on my work for finalizing some manuscripts. So this blog was the latest thing I had in mind in the last month, but now I am trying to continue it...

Baby names for Shakespeare fans

Just a continuation of this long series this time.

To sleep or not to sleep that is the question - scientific bedtime stories part II.

Just a logical continuation of my previous post... Yes, this is quite typical... I mean last time I started to tell a story to my kids in the dark, I remember that while falling asleep I started to mix up my next scientific talk and paper with the tale. I mean that even half-asleep and half-awake I remember telling my son things like "and then the prince found some PCR amplifiable DNA in Cinderella, oops, sorry", then I continued the story, but then again I fell into a different level of consciousness and continued again "I'm not sure what was the optimal environmental DNA sampling was done" or so :-). I'm just wondering what my kids think about me and my fairy tales at these moments. IT'S NO JOKE, IT'S REAL :-), the real life of a real scientific mum!

To sleep or not to sleep that is the question - scientific bedtime stories part I.

That is quite true. My husband can stay awake for 2-3 min after we put dim light in the kid's room. So I do not like to leave him with the bedtime story issue because for sure I'll hear him snore within one minute... And lately - as I am working during night on scientific issues, so I had not too much time for the blog as well - I am also the one who falls asleep first during the bedtime story...
P.s.: I had some problem with my computer and afterwards I could not install the drawing program until now, this is why I did not prepare new posts until now. But thank you for encouraging comments and mails.

Thanks for the 40000th pageview!

Dear Readers, thank you for your support and pageviews and comments.. Actually I am quite busy and mostly tired of preparing this blog. My newest posts are viewed only by very few people - so this is not inspiring at all... But I do not want to prepare only popular posts about lab safety signs just to increase pageviews... Well, I'll continue the blog, just be a little bit more patient, and maybe send me some encouraging comments. :-)

Rat Brain Prize winners

The Brain Prize is a good and novel prize, the Nobel Prize of brain scientists. I am not that much of an animal right activist, but I always sadly thought about poor labrats who have to pay the prize of advancing science in all fields... In fact, we have understood a lot from the rat brain until now, this is why I made this cartoon and invented this posthumous and living prize for the animals. Scientists winning this prize for their outstanding work should also give a thought of the thousands of poor labrats who contributed to science with their own neuronal network... (Recently I was outcompeted by a researcher for a scientific prize... This person won with his brain anatomy works on living and then killed monkey... I was shocked to read the following sentence in the Materials and Methods part: 'Animals were then killed.' After an operation and some fluids or changes made to their brains for several weeks... I then decided that I prefer not to win anything but not doing any harm to animals...) And Patty is the rat name because in Hungarian a 'rat' is called 'patkany'.

After the Scientific Oscars

And to finish this year's Oscar series I made this one to demonstrate that winning different scientific prizes and awards is a good thing but many scientists always want to win more and more and never get satisfied with recognition... In addition, some people always win because they have publication records and ethics that are unbelievable and uncomparable.

Talks of Male Winners during the Scientific Oscar Ceremony

 

When getting the Prize most people have to say something. What they say is quite characteristic for them of course...

The Scientific Oscars part II. Male contestants...

And of course the Oscar series has to be continued... And male contestants also win some important Awards each year. Not too much special comments this time...

Talks of Female Winners during the Scientific Oscar Ceremony

Not too much comment needed again I think, we all know how actresses and people winning the Oscars talk about their own life and thank everyone for their success... What they say is quite typical of them...

The Scientific Oscars part I. Female contestants...

In fact this whole story about the Scientific Oscars was invented because I had enough of working and spending all of my days with at least one baby in my hands. So I had to learn to manage almost everything with only one hand... I open bottles, cook, clean, read, write, blog, email and make science with a baby around. There should be an Oscar for me in Best Technical Performance or something like that for all this. And of course the other women in science also merit their Awards... Pity that Amanda did not win the Best Makeup and Hairstyle and Best Costume Design Awards this year... :-)

The night before the Scientific Oscars...

 

Just a new series about the Scientific Oscars. I know it is not actual at this period of the year, but I had enough of all kind of Scientific Prizes being awarded to everyone except me (on maternity leave with the kids)... So I prepared this cartoon...

The Holiday Nightmare of the Scientific Mum. Part II. The Microbiologist

This cartoon describes particularly well the paranoia of scientific mums like me. I hate trips to tropical countries due to the above mentioned microbes plus the different parasitic worms. So I fear all those tiny mean organisms, and I am even more afraid that one of my little darlings could get infected with any of them... So, in order to stay relaxed we avoid tropical regions as holiday destinations like hell.

The Holiday Nightmare of the Scientific Mum. Part I. The Ecologist

Going on holidays with kids is in fact a constant nightmare for me as a scientist. This novel series is just representing the kind of paranoia scientific mums have while going on holidays...

Baby names for immunologists

Well, no need for comments this time.

Scientific sex symbols revisited

I guess the post title alone (containing the magic word 'sex') will bring me a lot of pageviews :-), irrespective of the content of the post... Well, this is just a cartoon not that much about science, but about women. It only describes the women types I know... The real sex symbol (Ms Amanda Beauty who knows and uses her weapons of mass destruction), the asexual scientific spinster (Dr. Dorothy Mary Nevermarry, who does not even know what is sex) and the scientific wife with 4 kids (the prehistoric sex symbol with some extra weight due to kids, and simultaenous family life and carreer). Just some self-irony :-).

Homeopathic healing - my opinion about homeopathy

I do not want to comment too much. Many people know very well what is the whole homeopathy vs. science discussion about... I have tried some homeopathic pills ('medicine'?), some have even worked (although I know that of course they could not have acted chemically because they contained nothing except lactose), and I think that I have summed up the secret of homeopathic healing with this cartoon. It is quite an ancient story, for other religions I should have prepared a Buddha, a Shiva, a Vishnu, a Muhammad (well, not really that one), etc. cartoon as well, but anyway, the message is the same: if homeopathic pills have the same efficiency as the PLACEBO than it is basically your own faith that (may) heal(s) you. (If this is possible.) So maybe instead of going to pharmacy to buy and eat pills that do not contain anything you may better go to church (or turn towards spirituality). Homeopathy is something like a hybrid, it offers the illusion of healing yourself with a medicine while in fact it is only your faith that may heal you... Maybe I should call homeopathy the religion of atheists?
P.s.: I do not want to underestimate people's faith, I have seen examples when faith has cured people, maybe this is the reason why homeopathy is still florishing. I know leading scientists who use it and say: I have tried it and it worked, so why not? And of course I am also fully aware of the fact that chemical healing - i.e. medicine - is sometimes (in most cases) essential to get healed. (So it is foolish to refuse medical care and medicine, especially in serious illnesses. At the same time it is not bad if you also want to get healed. Because without your own faith in very serious conditions chemical healing may not work.)

Baby names for opera fans (or scientists loving operas)

Female scientists' last words

I think I put all text into this comic strip, so please just read it carefully... And basically without judgement.

Mothers' Day 2013 - comic strip about artificial (and natural) food colors

Mother's day is tomorrow... and yes Haribo Quaxi (one of Baby Boo's favourite gummy candies) is colored with the blue-green alga Spirulina. I may even dare to say it TASTES like Spirulina algae (not a very nice taste). But it is fun to see the special and completely NATURAL blue-green colour of the little frogs... I discovered the use of these strange pigments after some friends bought Baby Boo some completely artificially coloured gummy candies with comments about the health damaging effect of the latter ('may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children'). Since then I started to watch and read very carefully all ingredients and comments on gummy candy packages...

The Sleeping Baby Transposon System - Inspired by Stripped Science author Viktor S. Poór

Thanks for the inspirational comment - Viktor (Stripped Science)! The transposase function among 'simple' parents is when they interchange the kid between each-other, hoping that the other will be able to put the baby to sleep...

Walking in the nature with a biologist mum...

No need for too much comment I think. Just as there is spring on the Northern Hemisphere the situation when kids ask such questions are getting more and more frequent. Here are some answers.

Women (joking) about the Sleeping Beauty Transposon System (comic? strip)

Just a strange cartoon this time - half joking, half serious, half ironic, half critical, half self-ironic, half schematic, etc. etc. Just take it as it is. A critical comic strip about female scientists discussing latest scientific breakthrough techniques. Dr. Dorothy Nevermarry is the objective scientist, Miss Amanda Beauty can only think about her Beauty, and Mrs. Science is always worrying for the future of our planet, maybe she is also a little bit against GMOs, and all kind of such works because women with kids are usually like this...

How to start up your laboratory homepage - how to do some personal branding (Ego-boost) in science as a BOSS

Maybe this cartoon is not that funny for most of us. But just recently I realized that this is how it works and finally, deep inside there are lots of ridiculous things in it. Most scientists use their homepage to boost their Ego further and further and to outline their own importance, greatness - briefly, to build their own CULT OF PERSONALITY... (Not on a Stalin level, but similar to it on their local scale.) P.S.: My dear scientist friends, if you are reading this blog and finding some criticism in these words - please take it easy, and do not hesitate to criticize me if my Ego would become too overpowering one day. PS2: I know that you have read this comment, because you've changed your homepage, great!

Scientific Easter Preparations - Painting Eggs Quiz with the Scientific Mum (a microbiologist)

And the last one for this Easter is this one about the microbiologist...

Scientific Easter Preparations - Painting Eggs Quiz with the Scientific Mum (a physicist)

The next one with the physicist... The one who feeds the kids with Bridgman's eggs :-).

Scientific Easter Preparations - Painting Eggs Quiz with the Scientific Mum (a chemist)

Another one of this series now about celebrating Easter with a Scientific Mom :-)...

Scientific Easter Preparations - Painting Eggs Quiz with the Scientific Mum (a plant biologist)

Well, scientists have to make some scientific vulgarisation... And it is of course best to start it within the family... Kids are in general quite open for such things (unlike adults...) And it is so fun... The next quiz will be about the chemist mother... (and so on, and maybe later also on where to find these dyes...)

Baby names for philosophers... (part I probably)

I had some rest concerning my blogging activity recently. I decided it after having read this article in Nature and especially some comments about women who need also some time to live their lives instead of doing blogging. (Women have the kids, the housework, often a husband as well, they also have their scientific carreer and they also need some rest and sleeping hours, so the blogging is sometimes the last on the priority list...) I did not have too much feedback for this blog, in addition, I have the impression that my drawings are only accidentally viewed, so I did not get enough encouragement to spend so much time on the blog at the moment. We'll see...

Scientific baby formulae - your child's first molecular kit

I found out that since Baby Boo the baby formula industry has developed a lot and now the latest products also include nucleotides... I really have the feeling of taking part in some scientific experient and feeding my kids with some molecular kits...

Sexist advice for scientific presentations

This is not a joke, but is based on a real story, told me by the boss in the cartoon... The trick/advice worked as miracle, the attention of everyone was focused on Amanda during the speech, but nobody was listening to the scientific content... (I am sorry to make those cartoons, but very very often I have the impression that the male scientific world used young female scientists as decoration (ornament, parade, etc.)

The most expensive present I've ever had

Story inspired by life... Baby Boo went on a walk with his grandpa and found some nice flower that they picked up for me... Instead of being happy I got a shock (that I tried to hide from them) by discovering that it is a highly endangered plant...

Baby names for geometers

Not much comments, just a next one from this series.

Safety signs (+ lab equipment) for fashion addicts & yuppies in the lab

Well, we probably all know snobs and yuppies and fashion addicts in our environment... This small compilation is for them and about them... Because sooner or later they may also appear in the labs. (Although people wearing Louis Vuitton shoes rarely choose science for their profession, and people earning their living with science can rarely afford Louis Vuitton shoes...)

Politically corrected, revisited and modernized holiday terms

Well, not a really scientific cartoon, but an actual one... after all these holidays. I made the cartoon and the joke to express that I strongly and deeply disagree with this tendency and political will of correcting, rewriting and suppressing terms of our 2000-year-old civilisation. Even if eventually and actually it looks like this civilisation is declining and changing rapidly.

Scientific 'Happy New Year' Greeting Cards

Well, probably all scientists send and get some Christmas and New Year greeting cards from their colleagues. I also got some recently and this has inspired me. This cartoon is not really a joke, just the description of some facts or things I observed. Often men (who are in the position and have a lab) send a card with their group (lab) members on it. This is normal and quite understandable, especially in the US or in other countries/institutions with well-developed lab homepages including such photos each year, etc. What I wanted to show in comparison here is what I observed about Women in Science... 1) Scientific spinsters prefer to send some cutie animal containing greeting card (having often nothing more to show related to science or their lives or their non-existing lab, because they cannot cooperate with most people in the world)... 2) Scientific moms have tendency to send cards with their family on it. Either because they want to underline that besides their carreer they do have a happy family life as well (even if they may also have a lab if they are lucky), or because their chances to (ever) have a lab are quite low since they chose to have a family (so they cannot send any lab photo). And definitely family means a lot more to them than anything else, and they WANT or LIKE to share this fact with the scientific world as well, because it is an integral and important part of their personality, and/or because they do not want to be categorized as 'scientific spinsters' or 'escorts'...