Something You Don't See Every Day (Anymore)

Genomic Repairman, who speculates that the majority of scientists under 40 have never encountered a hard-copy reprint request, "found it sort of charming to get one of these things in the mail again," he says. Prior to the advent of "institutional access and the digital age," he says, were he to want to read a paper published by one of his peers, he'd "scribble in the article details and send it off to the lovely young chap and expect a reprint of the article in the mail sometime later." Because the reprint request his lab recently received came from overseas, he suggests that the PI "probably cannot get institutional access to the journal that the article is published in or does not really want to pay the $30." Whichever the case, Genomic Repairman says he's "going to tuck it away into my file to keep because I think it will be something fun to show folks five or 10 years down the road."