Battle of the Biology Bands — no one leaves alive!


Perhaps you remember the PCR song from Bio-Rad…or perhaps you tried hard to purge that from your memory. Then Eppendorf upped the ante with a pipettor love song. Now Greg Laden finds another pop tribute to PCR from Bio-Rad. The genre? Disco. By all that’s good and rational, not disco.

Two can fight this war against good taste. How about a big hair rock ballad to a tissue culture cell monitoring system?

That one needs an encore.

Little known fact: most molecular biologists dress exactly like that in the lab.

Comments

  1. ElectricBarbarella says

    While I may be a grown up head banger, the DNA video did it for me. I love The Village People…that just rocked…

    But taking White Lion’s song and making it about cells? Coupled with almost extreme look-alikes? Gold.

    Pure Gold.

    toni

  2. LisaJ says

    I say Roche for the win.

    Seriously though, I heard whispers in my lab yesterday of a possible recreation of that new BioRad tune by a couple of our post-docs. Some of us just eat this stuff right up. I may have to suggest a full on lab-wide talent show by forming my own team to cover the xCELLigence lineup. Can’t wait!

  3. Non Compost Mentis says

    Every once in a while I wonder if not being able to watch videos at work might not in fact be a good thing…

  4. Josh says

    Little known fact: most molecular biologists dress exactly like that in the lab.

    And that explains why everyone so quickly turns toward the geologists that walk into the room.

  5. Jadehawk says

    ahaha, now I will be humming GTCA all day long! And I don’t even have anyone with whome I could share this nerdiness :-/

    I shall inflict this upon the boyfriend when he gets home… but he won’t get it, I’m afraid

  6. Colin J says

    White Lion meets Def Leppard with a Warrant chaser. Toss in a biochemist on the tour bus and thats it.

    Awesome.

  7. Interrobang says

    If commercials aimed at general audiences were that clever, I might be more inclined to watch television. ‘Course, that wouldn’t do anything about the quality of the shows, come to think of it, but it would alleviate the distinct feeling that the pitchfolk are really selling cars, vacation destinations, and feminine hygiene products to a vast, secret audience of preschoolers.

  8. Bride of Shrek OM says

    Ah, takes me back to my youth, a time spent heavily invested in worshipping Bon Jovi, White Snake, Europe etc. Tragically I also wore legwarmers and had streaked fluffy hair but thats another story.

  9. says

    ACK!!!!

    They’re mixing up the melody of YMCA with the video of In The Navy!!! Maybe I’m alone here (and I suspect that I am), but that’s just wrong!

    Acoustic heavy metal??? What is this? The love scene from a cheesey 80’s teen flick?

    OK, now we’re talkin’! The third video is the winner in my book.

  10. Ichthyic says

    @tmax:

    one, we already covered that poll a while back.

    two, always examine the number of respondents to see if it’s worth even bothering.

    2231577 responses

    uh, yeah.

  11. khan says

    OT: poll to crash

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29493093/
    ————————————–
    This was passed along to me by my Liberal friend who is getting it from a few of her (ugh!) conservative friends.

    OK all you good conservatives, time for action. MSNBC the most liberal of networks has an online poll to grade Obama. They know we don’t watch their network, and the votes will pile up from misguided liberals with high grades.

    EVERYONE, click on the link below and give him the “F” he deserves. As of now he has 50% “A” grade from the liberals. We can drive this down.

  12. Newfie says

    They’re mixing up the melody of YMCA with the video of In The Navy!!! Maybe I’m alone here (and I suspect that I am), but that’s just wrong!

    The third one starts with some Bon Jovi/Def Leppard.. then it’s a Warrant and Guns and Roses mashup.

    / played in a few big haired 80s bar bands back in the day

  13. fsmdude says

    Hahaha, that’s good timing. I’m doing some PCR in my training period that started last week (in a research lab). Next monday, my first DGGE ever! Yeah!

  14. gr8googlymoogly says

    fatherdaddy “That’s funny. My ’80’s hair band used to wear lab coats.”. Even funnier – my ’80’s lab band used to wear hair coats!!

  15. gr8googlymoogly says

    The Roche exCELLigence clips had be looking for my Bic lighter!! Funny stuff!

  16. Newfie says

    My ’80’s hair band used to wear lab coats.

    …so, like Devo… with more distortion?

  17. Brian says

    The title of this post is quite accurate. I watched all those videos for the first time and I’m pretty sure that I didn’t survive the experience.

  18. NewEnglandBob says

    Geee Tee Cee Aaaa – Enzymes!

    Want to fry your mind?

    Play all three videos at the same time – WOW!!!

  19. says

    No wonder it always took so long to get them to fix our equipment – they’re busy making music videos!

  20. says

    What the hell happened over at Bio-Rad? I used to work for a small ad agency in the 80s and we had to do the dullest, most uninspired graphics for them. I remember one meeting in particular where I was actually told, “don’t use those colors, colors scare the scientists”. I gotta pitch them for some business.

  21. Newfie says

    Thanks yourself, never heard of the High Kings… I intend to check out some more.
    If you haven’t heard it, I recommend Evan and Doherty’s – Road Not Taken album.

  22. says

    Love it. Hopefully a taste of things to come. Be interesting to see what would happen if the likes of monolithic omnicorp Sigma-Aldrich weighed in on this.

  23. Newfie says

    @’Tis Himself
    Tommy Makem was to our house for Sunday dinner back when I was 11 or 12… right after mass, of course. Seen him and the Clancy’s a few times over the years.

    Nice to see his lads at it.

  24. anthonzi says

    I wish they would find a better way to use their talent rather than just wasting it on PCR machines…

  25. 'Tis Himself says

    Newfie,

    I heard Tommy Makem and one of his sons at tbe Mystic Sea Music Festival a couple of years before he died. Of course I’ve been hearing Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem songs for years.

    Someone I wish I could have heard in person was Stan Rogers.



  26. «bønez_brigade» says

    Those videos (especially the Poisonesque ones) are much easier to watch than the previous attempts by others.

  27. JimmyHaulinHogs says

    There’s a great song called “Dissect” by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion that’s always gotten a lot of airplay on my pod, but the lyrics were difficult to figure out and very hard to find anywhere. I finally found them recently and it made my day. It seems that the song was actually about everyone’s favourite biology class. [Dissect lyrics] Either that, or it’s about something way too sadistic.

  28. Newfie says

    Someone I wish I could have heard in person was Stan Rogers.

    Same, though I was in high school when he died, and didn’t get to appreciate his music til a few years later. Still, I have everything he recorded.

  29. BlueIndependent says

    They’re all good, but the hair band ones are so astoundingly complete in their mockery of glam rock. HAH!

  30. Diego says

    The problem with these “biology bands” is that they are ads for biotech companies. There’s nothing wrong with biotech companies, but these ads have a parallel with studio-made bands like the teen sensations that Disney is always manufacturing. I prefer more “poacean rhizomes”, if you catch my genetic drift. I know there are some talented bands within academia. I’d like to see more of them posting their work on the web.

    And yeah, Newfie and TIs Himself, I am a big Stan Rogers fan too. It was a tragedy losing him, though I am kind of glad that he went so heroically. It’s not the way we normally lose talented musicians at a young age.

  31. says

    Roche-xCELLigence just made this the greatest blog in the history of internet blogging. I don’t know where or how you find this stuff PZ but either way, we all love you for it.

  32. Newfie says

    I don’t know where or how you find this stuff PZ but either way, we all love you for it.

    I think we’ll file this one under “random biological ejaculations”.

  33. Chemgirl says

    I dunno what you’re talking about, those hair guys were sexy. I need to land me a molecular biologist, it seems.

  34. J. D. Mack says

    For those who live in the Washington, DC area, all I have to say is – JAXX!

    J. D.