Brainoid

Meeting Zhang Zhiyong on the road was just a small episode. After Zhang Zhiyong took his two doctoral students away, Wang Xin asked quietly from the side: "Senior sister, who was just now?"

"Zhang Zhiyong from the Department of Chemistry." As a PI, Qi Min still pays attention to his words. Even if he feels that he is a great master and a loser in his heart, he still has to downplay it on the surface, "He is quite powerful."

"The Chemistry Department... I don't go there very often." Wang Xin muttered, "Senior sister, how did you know him?"

"We met while on a business trip." Qi Min replied, "He lived next door to me when I was staying."

It sounds like you can have some relationship with the future boss, but in fact it's just a casual acquaintance. Qi Min doesn't know much about how people who really devote themselves to scientific research live their daily lives. I guess Zhang Zhiyong doesn't spend his free time eating chicken.

Qi Min also wants to publish NATURE and SCIENCE, and also wants to be a big boss in academia - everyone who engages in scientific research has this thought at some point. But the reality is that struggle and success are not linearly related. Doing this thing depends more or less on luck. In fact, she is very lucky. Although she has not yet published an article on the topic during her Ph.D., she has at least graduated and has a teaching position that can support her family. There are many people who are even more unlucky than her. There are many people who cannot complete their projects, many who are tricked by their bosses and cannot graduate, and many who cannot find a suitable job after graduation. Life is so difficult. Who doesn’t want to graduate from Science at the age of twenty-five? But how many Zhang Zhiyong can the current social structure accommodate?

Qi Min thought this way and felt that it was not good to use Zhang Zhiyong as an example. Just like the proletarian workers who want to stand up cannot point the finger at the labor aristocracy, it is not the fault of the academic bosses that ordinary PIs have low incomes and ordinary PhDs are exploited. However, tracing back to its roots, it touches on things that schools are not allowed to say in public.

When Qi Min was studying for his Ph.D., he would go home at night and often read the English translation of "Das Kapital" with Anton to criticize the various exploitations and misfortunes caused by the capitalist social structure. But the next day Qi Min went to the laboratory to be exploited, and Anton went to the Chinese restaurant to be exploited. Everything was the same as the day before.

——

Wang Xin and Chen Linyou are not very concerned about who Zhang Zhiyong is. After all, they are only first-year students and don't know enough about other departments. It's normal for them to not know much about it since they haven't attended a few lectures.

However, the doctoral students in Zhang Zhiyong's research group are a little concerned about who Qi Min is. After all, biology and chemistry are somewhat related. Most senior doctoral students in the biology department have heard of Zhang Zhiyong, but almost no senior doctoral students in the chemistry department know Qi Min.

Probably a doctoral student in Zhang Zhiyong's research group checked Qi Min's information privately - this is not difficult because the information of all science major PIs is posted on the website of the School of Science - and then discovered that her doctoral thesis was published in a joint The second digit in one work, and the first digit is obviously an English-native surname plus a male given name.

This would seem a bit suspicious in the eyes of some gossip enthusiasts. In addition, Qi Min does look extremely young, so it would be easy to make something out of it. Fortunately, in the Department of Chemistry, perhaps because the experiments were too dangerous, boys were much more surprised. Most boys were not very good at this kind of gossip, which tests their ability to associate, so nothing was spread. On the contrary, it was the doctoral students in Zhang Zhiyong's own group who teased their boss if he was interested in sending umbrellas to the bioinformatics laboratory where the young female PI worked late at night.

Of course, it was impossible for Zhang Zhiyong to fall in love with Qi Min, but after Zhang Zhiyong left school on Friday night, he sent Qi Min another WeChat message: "I heard that the students in our laboratory said that the papers you published when you were studying for a Ph.D. were jointly published, and I was a little curious. .”

Qi Min didn't know why someone as big as him was suddenly curious about such a question. Shouldn’t those who publish SCIENCE in non-popular fields be unworldly?

But there was no conflict of interest between her and Zhang Zhiyong, and this was something she had explained to the school leaders, so Qi Min still replied: "The article I wrote for my doctoral degree was based on someone else's. Garry was one year ahead of me, and he was married because of After a year gap, I helped him do experiments for a few months."

"So that's it." Zhang Zhiyong replied, adding, "What about your project? It failed?"

"It's not finished yet, I'm still doing it now." Qi Min replied.

"Is it that simple? I thought there was something hidden. It's so boring." Zhang Zhiyong made a [wiping sweat] expression behind him.

Qi Min felt baffled and a little surprised. He asked him this on WeChat in the middle of the night, just to satisfy his desire for gossip? Unexpectedly, Zhang Zhiyong seemed to be a very serious young PI on the surface, but in private he was even more gossipy than the doctoral students in his laboratory.

And even if you don’t get any shocking stories, you don’t have to just say “It’s boring,” right? She almost didn't graduate. As a colleague, couldn't she even express sympathy in a formal way...

Qi Min replied: "That is, definitely not as interesting as the story I just made up."

After she finished posting, she switched the page back to the game of chicken. After finishing the game, she found that Zhang Zhiyong had messaged her back: "Sorry, I'm overthinking [呲ya] Chat more in the future, let me eat some creatures too." It’s a guabai [laughing evilly]”

——

Qi Min doesn't have much interest in gossip, but this is barely a way to build a good relationship with the future boss. And Wang Xin likes to spread gossip in the laboratory, so she knows something about it.

The next day, Saturday, Qi Min had to pick up Anton and Mimi at 11 o'clock in the evening. There were no experiments scheduled in the laboratory during the day.

It was almost time for dinner. Qi Min was originally going to ask Wang Xin and the others to go to the cafeteria together, but she saw the WeChat message Zhang Zhiyong sent her: "Are you at school? Let's make an appointment to have a meal and chat."

Qi Min used his toes to figure out that he just wanted to hear gossip from the biology department, and he didn't know how a young talent in the chemistry field could have such an unpopular hobby.

Let’s just talk, Qi Min replied: “Okay.”

Zhang Zhiyong made an appointment to meet at the meeting place, which precise canteen was on which floor, which row and which table after entering, and Qi Min also passed by.

At first, the two of them bought food. Zhang Zhiyong didn't use his chopsticks much. Instead, he asked in a serious tone: "Well... you know about Director Li of the Department of Chemistry, right?"

"I don't know..." Qi Min really didn't know.

"He is getting married for the third time, to a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry." Zhang Zhiyong said in a serious tone, as if he was talking about something serious about his major - but it is indeed about his major. If it involves academic misconduct, Maybe it's business.

"What...is this?" Qi Min was a little confused.

"His second marriage was also to his former graduate student." Zhang Zhiyong said, "You don't know about this? It seems that we have a lot to talk about."

Online weeding: Yi When I bought it, I looked at the ingredient list...water, glycerin, propylene glycol, and then carrageenan powder? Doesn’t that mean that the main ingredient is carrageenan? ? Isn't this the technique of making jelly? ? ? (And this jelly texture mask will indeed become thinner as it is applied, but that is just because it dries...the same goes for DNA electrophoresis gel made of agarose)

(By the way, please give me some free recommendation tickets...)