The Pocket Card Monthly QR Exclusive - December 2024

Thank you for ordering one of our popular STEM Pocket Tools and scanning the QR code to reach this page! This page is exclusively for holders of these cards and will have new content, freebies, resources and discounts every calendar month.

If you haven't signed up yet, subscribe here and you'll get our full toolkit of STEM resources!

A guide to our December deals:

Here’s your guide to getting the best value on our STEM gear!

Like a Carl Sagan lecture, we’re keeping it simple. No games or daily wheel spins:

Cyber Monday only deal (December 2nd):
- Automatic discount: Free shipping in USA on orders over $150 (like 3 lab coats + 1 pocket protector)
December 3rd-15th:
- Buy 2 Word Magnet sets, get 1 free (automatic)
- Buy 2 Pocket Cards, get 1 free (automatic)
December 16th-26th:

20% off all gift cards (use code: GIFT20OFF)

December Resource: A free BioRender alternative from NIH

We’ve recommended BioRender before as a wonderful digital tool to grab illustrations for your posters and papers. But, it’s expensive at $79/mo for the plan you actually need to publish your diagrams. Luckily, the NIH went ahead and launched it’s own free alternative called NIH BioArt Source with over 2000 illustrations.

It’s more limited and doesn’t have the customization engine that makes BioRender a better tool, but we hope they will grow this database for all of you doing research on a tight budget! Here’s a preview:

@geniuslabgear 🔬 New, free NIH Scientific Illustration Database! We’ve recommended BioRender before. This isn't as good but it's free! DM me for the link! #SciComm #Research #Academia #PhDLife #phdchat #Science ♬ Main Title (From "Elf") - Dominik Hauser

The worst way to co-author papers with other groups

Did you make any connections at those conferences we talked about last month?

Now you might be wondering “How do I actually write a paper with these other researchers?” The standard practice is to schedule a short weekly meeting to monitor progress, but my favorite author Cal Newport says this is a trap!

I loved Cal’s tip on collaboratively writing papers with colleagues, paraphrased below:

When you meet weekly for 30-60 minutes to make progress on a paper, people just do the bare minimum to not look foolish. Real progress on hard problems takes a longer block of time. Instead, schedule a 4+ hour meeting once per month, ideally in person. Colleagues will take this “BIG” meeting more seriously and do significant prep. With everyone focusing on the hard parts together, you can finally crack the difficult parts and get that paper published.

Listen to the full 5-minute explanation on a web browser here starting at the 58 minute mark.

Just for fun: Science Cartoon

The future of science is uncertain right now…look for these 5 SIGNS in your lab mates and help them if you see it!

Science cartoons by Tom Gauld.

December behind-the-scenes news:

Lab coats are back in stock!

After selling out the original 2000 lab coats in about 4 months, we have another run of 2000 more that just arrived! In the first week, over 400 already went out the door and we won’t have more until June...so these may go out of stock again.

If you want to grab our first 100% cotton lab coats designed with feedback from over 1000 scientists, first read about all the ways they can help your day in the lab on the Louis (men’s fit) and Curie (women’s fit) detail pages.

Louis and Curie Lab Coats by Genius Lab Gear

We were featured on a Shopify Planet video about carbon-offset shipping!

For 2 years we’ve been offsetting the carbon emissions from every shipment using Shopify Planet - at no cost to you. This money doesn’t go to tree-planting, it goes to startups doing research in carbon capture technologies. It won’t all pan out, but we need the fund this research to find what works and what doesn’t.

I personally researched and vetted these companies and feel good about how this money is being used. They even publish each carbon credit purchase. My skepticism actually lead to a relationship with the app’s internal team at Shopify, and they interviewed me about it. A short clip was just published in our efforts to get more store owners to implement this.

Below is a screenshot of our small but meaningful offsets in 24 months:

Carbon emission data offset by Genius Lab Gear for 2 years

The next 4 years will be hitting the gas on fuel production and carbon emissions, so it will be up to us consumers to vote with our wallets to drive the change we need!