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January 20, 2015 3 min read
Howdy folks - Cecil Sassafras here again!
Blaine and Tracey asked me to come by today and share with you all “something fun.” Well, we all know where that can lead.
This time we will not be learning about rockets. We will be learning about something much smaller – DNA.
Blaine’s and Tracey’s journey through DNA is recorded in volume 2. But if you haven’t gotten there yet, I highly recommend this post all about DNA.
In short, DNA is the stuff that tells our cells what to do and how to look. It resides in the nucleus of a cell, so as you can imagine it is quite tiny.
In fact, you normally need a very powerful microscope to see DNA for yourself. That is unless you extract it and force it to join up together into one giant mass of DNA!!
Today, I’m going to share with you a trick that I learned in college to make DNA visible to the naked eye. It always makes me feel like a bit like a mad scientist, so I’m sure you guys will have a blast with it.
Before you begin, you need to gather up the following:
Now we get to the real fun!!
We are going to breakdown some cell walls and cause the DNA to head out into the solution. Then we will use some alcohol to force the DNA to join up into large chains that we can actually see.
Let’s begin!
Step 1 – Make the extraction solution.
Step 2 – Break down the cell walls so that the DNA can be released.
Step 3 – Remove the solids.
Step 4 – Extract the DNA!
The twins are always asking for more, so here are two ideas you can use to take extracting DNA to the max:
Well, I hope you will enjoy extracting your own DNA! See ya next time . . .
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