"laboratory notebooks" refers to special books or records used by scientists and researchers to document their experiments, observations, and results in a laboratory.
Full definition
Whatever type
of laboratory notebook you choose, the goal is the same: to create an accurate, complete, organized record of your work.
But for researchers looking for more stable, searchable, and sharable records, digital options such as
electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) and laboratory information management systems (LIMS) are readily available.
Because laboratory notebooks can be used to support intellectual property claims or to defend against allegations of scientific misconduct, all entries should be in immutable form.
A number of innovative initiatives are also coming up, such as the SynBio4All platform supported by CRI, which can be described as part MOOC, part
open laboratory notebook, and part crowdsourcing discussion platform on synthetic biology.
Louis Pasteur's
laboratory notebooks reveal that the famous French chemist deliberately deceived his colleagues and the public in some of his most celebrated experiments, according to Gerald Geison, a historian at Princeton University in New Jersey.
That breach of contract case alleged that Mikovits wrongfully
took laboratory notebooks and other data from her lab after WPI fired her.
Aiming to restore alchemy to its rightful status, Principe and Newman — who came to the field separately but joined forces after meeting at a conference in 1989 — went through medieval alchemical texts, letters, and
laboratory notebooks filled with odd symbols and coded language.
Students who successfully complete this course will have a deeper understanding of the nature of original scientific research, including project planning, formulating hypotheses, designing effective experiments, maintaining a
detailed laboratory notebook, data interpretation, and conventions of scientific communication of conclusions resulting from these studies.
Mikovits's supporters, several of whom attended a prayer service for her last night at a nearby Presbyterian church she attends, were outraged by her arrest, which was instigated after WPI reported a theft
of laboratory notebooks and related material that it deems proprietary.
Many university legal and tech transfer offices advise that
any laboratory notebook, paper or electronic, should include a clear and detailed description of:
The plot thickened when she admitted that several pages of
her laboratory notebook has been ripped out, covering those tests and especially the purging of the apparatus to ensure that no nitroglycerine standards still contaminated the apparatus.
One of the most helpful chapters in the manual is devoted to the content, maintenance, and ethics of
the laboratory notebook.
On 4 November, WPI filed suit against Mikovits, alleging that she had wrongfully kept
her laboratory notebooks and other information about her work for the fledgling institute on her laptop, in flash drives, and in a personal e-mail account.
But
the laboratory notebooks suggest that Pasteur had tested only a few dogs and given them shots before they were infected with rabies.
WPI's attorneys allege that Mikovits «instructed» a research assistant who worked with her to «take irreplaceable patient samples and
laboratory notebooks.»
This journal is called
a laboratory notebook.