F = (9/5)C + 32 = Frickin' Cold!

The environmental controls in my building are pretty screwed up. At some points this summer it has been so hot that we had to drape the bioreactor in wet towels and aim fans at it to keep it from overheating. That's the opposite of what's been going on the past few weeks. It's been exceptionally cold in my lab. Can't-feel-your-fingers-well-enough-to-type cold. The AC is running full blast, and there's a vent right above my desk. I keep a huge sweatshirt in my drawer and have to wear it anytime I'm in the lab. Dan has begun wearing a winter hat while working in here. He tried to make a clone library last week, and couldn't get anything to grow...too cold! The hallways are fine. The faculty offices are fine. The labs at the other end of the hall are fine. Ours seems to be the first room on the central AC duct work system, so we get cold blasted. We've been leaving a thermometer on the counter out of curiosity. I walked in this morning and took a reading. It's the coldest it's ever been in here...15 C. For those of you not accustomed to temperature in Celsius, here's a brief primer. Science folks run a lot of experiments at "room temperature" and report it exactly as such in papers etc. Saying "room temperature" makes it clear that temperature wasn't strictly controlled during the experiment, but if anyone were to ask what "room temperature" actually is, the common answer is 22 C, with a range from 20-25 C. For those who want to put Fahrenheit numbers to it, 22 C is equivalent to about 72 F, 20 C is 68 F. But right now, my lab is hovering well below "room temperature." 15 C amounts to a frigid 59 F! That's just plain ridiculous!