WIKIMEDIA, J.J.Early September—school is starting back up, students are joining new labs, and scientists are using the Twitter hashtag #labhazing to imagine the hypothetical pranks they might play on unsuspecting newbies.
Science writers John Rennie (@tvjrennie) and Jeffrey Perkel (@J_perkel) kicked off the trend on September 1 after Perkel tweeted: “Paging @NerdyChristie @scicurious @tvjrennie: today’s game: fave lab hazing rituals? Eg, find the keys to the PCR machine. Go!”
Soon after, others were joining in with suggestions that ranged from mostly benign to downright terrifying. Rennie, who summarized the exchange on his PLOS blog The Gleaming Retort, noted that labs aren’t exactly hazing hotbeds but that surely scientists play the occasional prank. “If nothing else, during the long hours that scientists and technicians often spend waiting in their labs or doing mindless tasks, their imaginations have plenty of time to conjure up fantasies about pranks they could pull but probably never would,” he wrote.
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