Ed Himelblau is a biologist and cartoonist.
Biology
The humble E. coli bacterium is used as a tool to grow DNA. Add your gene-of-interest (GOI) to the cells - a process called ‘transformation’ - and let them grow. Next day you have trillions of bacteria, each with a copy your GOI.
E.coli normally live in the human gut and grow best at body temperature, 37° Celsius. Shaking the flasks gets oxygen into the liquid media. Most labs have a table-top ‘shaker’ machine for this. Why not a 37-degree shaker ROOM? What could go wrong? (Did I say E. coli was humble? Actually, those guys can’t stop talking about themselves.) (102 words)
Drawing
Here are my thoughts as I redrew this cartoon (original from 1998):
I liked the idea of glimpsing the chaos through the window in the door. I kept that and tried to push the chaos a little further.
Kept some details like the steam pipe, the “keep door closed” sign (with one piece of tape missing), and the probably-outdated seminar announcement flier on the wall.
Tried to make the two characters in the hallway a little more active. The guy with the beard is about enter the room. He seems resigned to his fate.
Gotta love the little stream of liquid bacteria media flowing out from under the door. It looks a little more liquid-y in the new version.
The words ‘such’ and ‘just’ aren’t needed. A shorter caption is (almost) always better.