Conduct research and experiments

I need a clear lab experiment log and result summary for the funding review on Monday. Take the raw measurements from Sheet1 and Sheet2, calculate means, standard deviations, and confidence intervals per treatment group, flag any outliers beyond three standard deviations, and create a results table with sample size and p-values. Put the experiment protocol header and date on the printed page and save as Experiment_42_Results.xlsx.

Before I hand this to the principal investigator, make the results obvious. Show the primary outcome and its effect size up top, put the statistical significance and sample sizes next to it, and create a small table explaining any missing or excluded measurements. Highlight cells where replication failed or variance is unusually high and note the practical implication in one sentence.

I ran the analysis and two replicates of the same treatment diverge drastically. The lab tech, Ana, swears the samples were prepared the same; the protocol was followed. I worry it’s either a measurement instrument drift or a data transcription error. What step-by-step checks should I do now to find out which it is, and which result should I present to the funding panel tomorrow if I can’t resolve it?

Across projects we keep losing time when manual transcription errors from the lab notebook are discovered during analysis, forcing repeat runs. Which habits, quick checks, and small spreadsheet practices will stop costly repeats while keeping lab techs' workflow simple? Recommend also one change to the protocol that reduces risk without adding significant time per sample.