Can I use some grant money?
So as you might remember from the chalk talk, I have been creating and naming genetic markers this past week. Genetic markers are just sequences with known locations. It's pretty simple to find one: you just look for repeats like gtgtgtgtgtgtgt or cacacacacaca, etc. in a DNA sequence. Then you put that segment of the sequence containing the repeat into a program (we use Primer3Plus) to find primers at the 3' and 5' ends of the markers. The crazy thing is that you can order these primers the way you might order a birthday cake. With some good ole grant money (accessed by a code on a Duke website), I typed in the names of markers and sequences of the primers into the order cart. With just $4.60, a machine somewhere out there will take those sequences and synthesize the primers that we need. Really now?!
So I'm waiting on those right now but in the meantime, I might help to collect eggs in the fish room. I can't even imagine how much water we use for the fish, and it makes you realize--more than ever--what a huge investment and risk science is.
