My BFF and new to you Edge for Scholars blogger buddy Britteny Ivey is posting about the much awaited Amazon Prime day and how you can make the most of it. Not to detract from her writing, but I thought I’d just drop a few of my favorite things that scientists and people with organizational OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Divas) can snap up to bling out your office, lab notebooks and lab buddies.

1. For $129 this Acer notebook is a steal and a great thing to have in a lab with lots of undergrads. Rather than making everyone break out their laptops, having a couple of these buddies around is a encourages students to share data on apps we love like Evernote or Google docs.

2. Stop making your labbies write on ucky lab tape and show them some love with the macdaddy of label makers. This buddy is 20% off at checkout on Prime Day and prints in 6 to 40 point font. It also PCR’s your samples for you. No. It doesn’t. But it’s got rubber bumpers for klutzes, a ton of fonts scientists need and low cost printing cartridges. Be sure you pick up some low priced Prime Batteries on sale tomorrow as well. Buy it for your lab and then ‘test it out’ (wink, wink) at your house for a week by labeling everything.

3. Where normal people see a food saver, scientists see a way to save money with precious solutions. This buddy will seal your blots in tight with that new probe that cost you a kazillion dollars to make. Coopting (inexpensive) food service items for science = genius.

4. You officially have no excuse not to buy your lab a Keurig coffee maker anymore.

For $70 for the machine includes 40 samples of all kinds of tea, hot chocolate like substance and COFFEE. You will make your labbies way less cranky with these single servings of yum.

5. Lab and personal security. It’s a thing. For under $60 you can wirelessly record your office or lab so no one steals your new Acer notebooks or Nobel Prize winning ideas. Also handy if you think a colleague will be attacking you in the near future. Not that that would happen, because you’ll have enough coffee to share.

6. For $6 (yes, $6!) you can get this hand held 30x magnifier with a built in light. I love looking at Nissl or H and E stained sections with if I can’t run down to the real microscope. I also like looking at bugs with it.

7. 100 Fancy Pants pens. Because writing makes things sink in and now you can do it in 20 shades of pink. Or purple. I’m not sure why they sell this as a ‘kids product’ because it’s awesome!

8. Fancy Pants Academic Pants. Okay, they aren’t that fancy, but buying these pants is the best advice I give. Ever. These no-wrinkle indestructible Columbia Straight Leg pants are great for teaching, field work, running away from field work and from teaching. Feel free to spill something on them and step out of that boring IRB review meeting to “clean yourself up”. You can wash these off in under a minute and then go hide and play Candy Crush for another 20 minutes. They are water resistant and on sale.

8. It’s a bracelet AND a flask. Because some days drinking out of your bracelet just seems like a good idea. Now you can get that for 20% off.

9. Bored by lab posters and signaling pathways to decorate the lab? Of course you aren’t, you geek. But how about adding a bit of personal style and a shout out to past and present trainees with this cool giant office (or lab!) family tree decal? It will help new hires know who everyone is and give your lab some much needed character.

10. A hedgehog timer. For keeping you on schedule. And cooler than everyone else. It’s only $7 tomorrow. And the kitten version is only $5. The cutest tape dispenser you’ll ever see, Friend. It’s here. You’ll need that.

11. The last notebook you’ll ever need. I’ve sung the praises of these Rocket Smart Notebooks and everyone I know who bought one LOVED it. These erasable (in a dang microwave!) gems are stylish, high quality and perfect for notetaking on the fly. Use ’em, nuke ’em and use ’em again.

Happy shopping, academics. Tweet at us @mclneuro or @edgeforscholars with your favorite #SciencePrime deals and steals.

About the Author

Screen Name

Fighty Squirrel, PhD, Awe.Some.

About Me

The Fighty Squirrel is very thin pseud for a molecular and cellular neurobiology type who runs a lab studying neurodegeneration. She is mother to a 14yo half child/half honey badger and 16yo half child/half border collie and a Reviewing Editor at Journal of Neuroscience. She also sort of a badass at air hockey. She speaks for herself unless her employer likes it, in which case it's patented.