Lab.Hacks

Lab.Hacks

Rating: Excellent

Strong Points: Easy to use, enormous amount and variety of resources for bench scientists

Weak Points: None

Platform: iPad/iPhone/Android

Cost: Free

Lab.Hacks combines all the tools and tables you would ever need at the bench into one excellent app. The app is divided into four sections: Hacks, Helper, Buffers, and Tables. The Hacks section is a stream of posts offering tips for optimizing your experiments, such as diagrams showing how to load a gel or how to troubleshoot your ChIP-seq analysis. The Helper tab includes a number of useful calculators and converters so that users can quickly determine the appropriate volume or weight of reagents for making dilutions. The Buffers tab provides guides for creating stock solutions of common buffers such as EDTA and HEPES, and also provides a space for users to create and save recipes for custom buffers. Finally, the Tables page includes a number of essential resources, such as images of commonly used protein ladders, fluorochrome spectra, and even a playlist of music to keep you productive. Lab.Hacks is an excellent app that compiles essential resources and time-saving information into one place.