Where are all my coloured liquids?! Unfortunately, science is usually colourless and very rarely calls for dramatic staring. Also, I usually like to label my tubes... #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob pic.twitter.com/aofNoQk9si
— Michelle Clark (@biomedmichelle) May 4, 2018
Looking for a generic image of a scientist at work is like stepping into fantasy land. Stock images show the stereotype, which is a white person in a lab coat starring at something, most often a test tube containing blue liquid. Scientists on Twitter are having a laugh poking fun at not only the stereotype, but the inaccuracies within the unlikely scenes.
This is how I do animal research - I just let the mice pick which tubes they like best #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob pic.twitter.com/MS67SBQDZp
— Christa Trexler (@ChristaTrex) May 4, 2018
The whole thing started when Nicole Paulk, a biochemistry and biophysics professor at the University of California, San Francisco, was working on a presentation. “I was trying to find stock images that aren’t too stuffy and more realistic, that don’t show us with tweed jackets and elbow patches,” she says.
Instead, she found a scientist peering deeply at a chunk of dry ice. “No one on the planet, even a dry ice scientist, would ever do this,” she says — so she tweeted it. Turns out, there are a lot more photos where this came from. So science blogger and former chemist Yvette d’Entremont came up with the hashtag, #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob.
We all know that every chemical and reagent is blue - it's basic chemistry. But that one time somebody made red was a great day for science #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob pic.twitter.com/lguK3v6znF
— Dr Paul Coxon (@paulcoxon) May 6, 2018
Check out the hashtag #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob. So far, it is still mostly scientists, but other people are contributing examples from their professions, too. -via Metafilter
Comments (2)
As for labeling? Bottles, yes. Flasks, frequently. Test tubes, rarely.
Maybe the article mentions it, but Burtt played the Imperial officer in Return of the Jedi who gets hit in the face by Han Solo and falls over a railing. He does an imitation of the famous Wilhelm Scream on his way down.