They can never leave

These have been some productive days, Anna Linderholm and Cristina Valdiosera have been here producing. Both Anna and Cris are on my list of “very good researchers”, why I would host them any day of the week. And also, why there is always a lot of data where ever they have been. For example, Anna went in to the laboratory with >30 petrous-bones. That is a lot of petrous-bones. And it will be a lot of data that is now being mercilessly produced at SciLife. And a lot of data means much re-sequencing, even more analytical work (like, really a lot of analytical work), a jungle of interpretations, and eventually some pages of manuscript. Going in to the laboratory with >30 petrous-bones is like inviting people to a big party, it may be exhaustive to write and send out all the invitations, and you may feel that you have done a good piece of work when all of them are sent off, but what you really have done is to pass a point of no return with a much larger work-load ahead of you. Luckily, Anna has yet not realized how I have sneakily trapped her in the Stockholm-group. And neither has Cris, who was running a similar regime maybe with somewhat fewer bones, but much older such. She blindly walked into the same trap. There is no way out for them now, they can check out any time they like, but they can never leave.

 

But there was time for some socialization and gossip too, apart from all the lab-work. After having worked together over longer and shorter periods for more than one decade, there is always a lot to talk about. And it is also important to bring the young once up to date on all the historic gossip and unconfirmed rumors, how are they going to know all the irrelevant faults and mistakes of the older generation when we have left the field otherwise? That is why you can see three generations of ancient DNAers here, Anders who supervised Cris, Cris who supervised Ricardo, and Ricardo who has yet to find his first victim. And to my delight, the younger generations of ancient DNAers do not shy away from a good beer (or half a dozen of them…).

Three generations of aDNAers