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The Data Was Ancient. My Doubt Wasn't

I spent weeks staring at a sheep tooth under the microscope, hoping for a sign that the ancient plague genome was really there. Everyone else seemed to have their big discovery moment. I just had a pile of animal bones and a protocol that felt like it was written for someone smarter. When the sequence finally came back positive, I should have felt something—relief, pride, maybe even excitement. Instead, I just felt tired. Like the bacteria, I kept going because I didn’t know how to stop. They’ll write about how we solved a mystery from 4,000 years ago. They won’t write about the hours I spent wondering if I was just contaminating another sample, or if the real plague was how much of myself I lost to this work. #Science #ScienceFatigue #LabBurnout

The Data Was Ancient. My Doubt Wasn'tThe Data Was Ancient. My Doubt Wasn'tThe Data Was Ancient. My Doubt Wasn't