Reilly Lab Glass Blowing Outing
Much of our equipment is made of glass — flasks, pipettes, slides — so there was something fitting about spending a Thursday afternoon at Kinship Glassworks watching what our scientific forebears would have had to do to get their tools. The cells had been split, code had been written, experiments set to run overnight, and so the lab drove out to the studio, to try something new (and learn one of Steve’s favorite hobbies). We were handed safety glasses, blowpipes, and the polite suggestion to please not touch the orange part.
It turns out glassblowing and benchwork have more in common than we expected: both ask for sustained focus on a material that won't quite cooperate, both reward patience and quiet creativity, and both look effortless when they work — and like a small disaster when they don't. They both take perseverance and repetition to make sure all aspects are thought of so things go right, and thoughtful analysis of why things go wrong.
Photos of our pipette-wielding glass artists and their creations below:
