Science of the Yesteryear

Are you old enough to remember The Magic Roundabout, Hong-Kong Phooey and Mr Ben?  Did you finish your degree barely touching a computer?  When you graduated was 'genomics' a mere glint in Fred Sanger's eye?  If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions then you, like me, may feel befuddled by the dizzying speed of technological advances.

Don't despair, even when you say you went to 'Glastonbury' in 1990 and realise the app-savvy, linked-in, 'omics'-brains you are talking to weren't even born.  If you have spent years in fusty, ill-funded labs only to stumble, blinded, into the light of modern science, here are my rules for survival:

1.  Don't cry

2.  Even if you don't know what the piece of data being flashed on the screen is telling you, you are still a good person

3.  You are still making a contribution, however small

4.  Don't waste money on expensive running shoes; you'll never be able to catch the latest advances

5.  Accept your limits.  You have fewer brain cells than you had when you were 20

6.  It is inevitable that one day you will be replaced by a robot, but as the great Loudon      Wainwright III said (young folk may be more familiar with his famous son, Rufus), 'at least you've been a has-been and not just a never-was.'

7.  It's not your fault; you were born too soon.