An experiment to extract your own DNA ... MartianBishop .. your kids will love this!

[Twiglett]

It's from 'how to fossilize your hamster'

You need

1 tsp salt dissolved in glass of water
a small clean glass
washign up liquid
an eyedropper
an ice-cold spirit dink of greater than 50% alcohol by colume (gin, vodka, rubbing alcohol, whiskey)

What to do

Put a tsp of washing-up liquid diluted with 3 tsps of water into the clean glass

Ensuring a clean mouth first (ie not after just eating) - Swill the salt water round your mouth vigorously for 30 seconds then spit into glass with washing-up liquid

Stir firmly for a few minutes then very gently pour a couple of tsps of ice-cold strong alcohol down the side of the glass (use eyedropper if not steady) .. tilting the glass helps

You need a clearly demarcated water / alcohol boundary ..if careful the spirit will form a separate layer on top of the salt/spit mix

What will you see?

Wait a few minutes and you'll see spindly white thread-like clumps starting to form in the alcohol .. This is your DNA

cool eh?

My kids would love this - they are playing with their chemistry set as we speak (I'm scared to go in kitchen, there are strange smells coping from there).

Have you tried it yourself yet?

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oh gosh if doing it with a child you need that DNA movie .. I think MB probably still has the link .. will try to find

Yes, have done this in the past. It is Great.

If you want all sorts of loverly DNA stuff have a look at the University of Utah genetics site

here

the flm on DNA is called Life story, and was made by Horizon. Not sure if you can get it on DVD

If you want larger amoints of DNA that are dead easy to see, try the wheatgerm one on the Utah site.....but it has to be untoasted/heat treated, because over heating it denatutes the DNA

oh cool!!!! Will try this with DD.

Oooh! We got that book for Christmas. I've been looking out for old camera film pots so we can make exploding rocket things.

Gin and vodka will both work.

better though, is surgical spirit that you can get from the chemists.

you have to float the alcohol on the surface of the water (like the cream on the top of a liqueur coffee).

The dna is soluble in water, but not in the alcohol, and comes out of solution at the alcohol/water interface.

You have around 2 meters of DNA in every cell (except red blood cells which don't have any).

there is enough DNA in a person to go to the moon and back over 600 times!

It is very lobg, but ever so thin, and packaged up very well when the cells divide!

might have known you already did it

that life story .. is that the one there was a link to on a website .. do you remember a year or so back .. it was CGI .. like it was all alive .. there was a big flat blob .. oh wait, that's not DNA is it? What am I thinking of?

that was the inner life of the cell.

Majestic.

You linked to it first, didn't you?

I should tell you that one of my sixth formers listed it in her statement of antry and said that seeing it made her want to do biology at university!

You changed her life!

isn't MN wonderful!

inner life of cells

yes I did ... and at the story of it changing it someone's life

could you repaste the link (am on different laptop)

x-post .. thanks MB

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