> A typical PhD student in the biosciences will use about 200,000 pipette tips over the course of their research. (An estimated ten boxes of 96 tips per week, with 50 working weeks per year over a 5-year period, comes out to 240,000 tips. And five years is a generous estimate for completion of a PhD in the biosciences.)

This seems ridiculously high to me. If the student works 6 days a week, 10 hours a day, they would be using a new tip about every 3-4 minutes nonstop, every single hour of those 10 hours a day 6 days a week for 5 years. No reading, no writing, no meetings - just pipette tips every 4 minutes, 10 hours a day for 5 years.

Is that really the life?

edit: Oh. Machines. Right.