Our lab has a tradition of birthday celebrations. The person who’s birthday was last makes the next persons cake. There’s usually a birthday crown involved too. We also have a strange number of double birthdays in the lab and since I like making themed cakes I try to incorporate both of the birthday people into the theme. One year it was my turn to make a cake for a grad student in our neighboring lab who does a lot of phylogenetics and also my professor’s birthday (our lab focuses on DNA targeting). So I tried something a bit new and spent an evening making chocolate DNA and the tree of life as a cake topper.