a sense of humor...

One of my labmates pranked the group email list with the following message yesterday:

Hey everybody, I got a tip that Thorlabs is doing "optics by the
pound" today. Everything they sell is going at a fixed rate per
pound, so if you need some lasers or detectors, buy now! Check out
their website!

Cheers,
Dave

I don't think I was the only person to immediately go to the Thorlabs website upon receiving this message.

Some time later, our advisor replied:

Hi Dave,

I didn't want to miss out on the sale by waiting for a purchasing order
to go through, so I asked Charlene to use the credit card to order the
parts on the website. We're literally getting (almost) a ton of stuff.
I picked a random assortment with mounts, mirrors, prisms, and even a
handful of laser diodes.

Thanks for the tip! If you need anything specific, let Charlene know
ASAP. She's already placed the order but we can put in another order
before 4:00 pm.

V

There was also the thing yesterday where my advisor was showing an undergrad around. Along with myself and a few other labmates, we were discussing this project on virus capsids. ``Now," said my advisor, "a virus that would work very well for this experiment happens to be something called HIV." Apparently the look on my face was priceless.