Changes

I was on the verge of deleting this blog, but realised that I could put it back to its original use. When I’ve got time, I’ll be hauling out my files and typing up practicals, tips, etc for existing school techs, the things I learned over the past nine years working in school labs.

It’ll be a while, and if anyone has any particular questions they’d like answered about practicals, etc, post a comment.

standard protein curve

There’s less of the geek in here, and probably because I’ve deleted this blog half a dozen times in the past; so to balance the scales I thought I’d tell all you fine folks how to do a standard protein curve.

This is basic,  GCSE, A level kind of thing, although the principles remain the same no matter what level you’re studying at.

Like all standards, precision is the thing, so in making up your solution use an automatic pipette and, for school techs, make up only what you need for the class plus 25% to avoid waste, but keep the practical viable.

Make up your standards. I used to use BSA, with 10 standards, usually 0.0-1.0% (10gdm-3), plus 2-3 unknowns. As technician you should make a note of the unknowns even if you don’t label the vials; these can also be made up in advance and frozen. When I knew the practical was upcoming, I would take a quiet hour, make the standards, aliquot them out and run them. If they passed, I froze them ready for the students.

React the standards with a protein reagent, school labs tend to use Biuret reagent. CLEAPSS provides a recipe for Biuret, rather than Biuret A and B, and its more stable, meaning you can make up a batch at the beginning of the year and keep it.

To plot the curve, run the standards (now pretty shades of purple) through a colourimeter, usually on 550nm. Draw your curve then use it to plot the reading from the unknowns and read off the concentration. Done and done.

Any questions?

a purple earth

We occupy a very special position in our solar system, its a position that allows water to maintain its liquid form, a key ingredient in the evolution of life. Himself stumbled over Growing a Planet during channel-hopping, a BBC documentary on the evolution of life on Earth with plants forming the basis of that process.

horizon’s synthetic biology

I clicked over halfway through Horizon: Playing God on BBC2. There was less of the playing God, and more of the streetwise science/kitchen science/bucket science, whatever you want to call it.

A few minutes after being introduced to Synthetic Biology we’re into pop-up labs and biohackers. Man! What I wouldn’t have given for that when I was in school! When I started on the science-path; it was all degrees and PhDs; something I’ve lurked around the edges of and finally shied away from. I’m finishing my degree purely to punch through that pain barrier and prove to myself that even this dumbass can handle it.

The whole show takes me back to the days I only read of when scienctists turn author and tell their anecdotes of the nights in the school lab, building kit-cars and having a garage filled with bits and pieces that they hack together, turning childhood curiousity into scientific discovery and invention.

I wish I’d been born fifty years earlier or twenty years late. Although it seems, from what I read, that biohacking isn’t really all that new…

You can read more here:

http://biocurious.org/
Bedroom Biotech
Genome at Home
Dawn of the BioHackers

Whilst exciting there are risks and concerns that we’re moving too fast. However, the microchip revolution moved quickly, there are always conerns, naysayers and worrywarts and yet, its rarely allowed to significantly delay the next bit revolution. So is synthetic biology playing the role of a god? Or is it simply another tool that humanity can use for any purpose it sets its mind to?

frozen planet

Unlike a lot of my tv, where I multi-task and do something else as well as listening/watching the program, Attenborough always demands my full attention. Richly deserved, I might add, especially with his latest offering ‘Frozen Planet‘.

The first episode was captivating, and the image of a tunnel, deep into the ice, with a waterfall cascading into it, is stuck with me. I suspect it may well float in front of my eyes when I’m old, grey and nuts. Either way I will subject my grandchildren to it, over and over and over again.

If you’d like to take a peek, its on BBC iplayer here.