Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Perks

Celebrating the Queen’s Birthday

In New Zealand there is a national holiday in observance of the queen’s birthday. This may seem a bit funny to those Americans out there—at least it did to me—but when you think about it, it’s kind of like president’s day. The day affords Kiwis a long weekend to go on holiday somewhere or just relax at home.

I took the opportunity to travel down to the northern bit of the South Island. We visited “the sounds” region and it was a fantastic trip.

On top of the fun and games, I was able to drive on the left side of the road for about an hour without any major disasters!

There were gorgeous vistas:

Exciting roads:

And of course, lovely sunsets:

I also found a stuffed Cincinnati Red's baseball bat in a second hand store!!


The Fabulous Feijoa

If you ever get the chance to eat feijoa (Fee-Joe-Ah) fruit in your life, take it! In my book, the almighty feijoa is one of evolution’s chart-toppers. It is tart and sweet all at the same time. You cut it in half and spoon in out. Yum!

In addition to the actual fruit, one can also enjoy feijoa lollies (aka candy) that are delicious, feijoa vodka that is odd but nice, and feijoa tea that’s always satisfying after a hard day’s work. As I had not seen them before arriving in New Zealand, I assume you can’t get feijoas in the states. This fact has set me on a mission to eat as many feijoa fruits and feijoa-flavored items as humanly possibly while here.

Walks around Wellington

There are so many great things about Wellington that it’s hard to isolate just a few of the city’s attributes as “the best.” However, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the city is the green belt that basically horseshoes around the CBD providing fantastic hiking and stunning views without having to travel any distance. For example, a few of my mates and I explored the “skyline track” that runs along a ridge north of the city.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

The enzymes ate my homework!


Edgar Allan Poe was pretty good at what he did but I’m fairly convinced that his stories would have been enhanced had he spent time in a molecular biology lab. No joke. It can be truly frightening because things will just go wrong. Horribly wrong. And you might not know why. In fact—in my case at least—you almost never know why. And to figure it out takes time and then by that point you’re both behind in the work you were meant to do and late to re-do whatever it was that didn’t work.

As you may have guessed, I feel a bit like I’ve been in a Poe-esque story for the last couple of weeks (granted we had a lovely Queen’s Birthday weekend holiday in the middle of it—look for an upcoming post).

Essentially I thought I was all set to send off DNA samples to be sequenced. I had done all the build-up work and I felt really good about the work I’d done. Thiw was likely my first mistake, since the Molecular Biology Gods (MBGs) can smell satisfaction and to them it smells like skunks. Just to be cautious I tested a few of my samples to make sure they were high enough concentration to sequence. They weren’t really. Well, technically they were too low. But I thought, “well, my sequences worked before and not much has changed so maybe it’s just a mistake and it will work.”

Nope. Sequencing didn’t work. The next logical step was to test all the other samples I had waiting to get sequenced. Their concentrations were also too low. At this point I was pretty upset because we’re talking about 80 samples that I thought I was basically done with.

So what happened to the DNA? My theory is that the enzymes I added to “clean” my PCR reaction—the ExoSAP that I talked about in my “scientific waste” entry—was inexplicably eating double stranded DNA in addition to the other stuff it is meant to eat. I’m currently trying to prove this but the little mini-experiments I’m setting up to test it are on the back burner as I try to redo essentially a month or more of work in a couple of weeks—using a different clean-up protocol, of course. It’s a new art called “Turbo Science!”

Hesitantly, I will report that it’s going okay but I refuse to be satisfied with my work thus far lest I upset the MBGs again.

Today, a number of samples went off to be sequenced. So, if you want to do me a favor, cross you fingers and hope that they come out okay! =)

Thanks friends,

Ellie