Awesome expansion Patrik!
You might like to hear that I've had great success with bananas without
salt; possibly because bananas contain so much potassium already. When I
ran DNA extraction at Mindfield I forgot/omitted the salt, although I
can be seen fiddling with it in the video as the DNA layer didn't seem
to be moving low enough for my tastes.
It emerged on closer inspection, later, that a clear gel forms when
banana-matter contacts alcohol, something I should have remembered from
an instructable I read ages ago; something about making "banana jelly
shots" by leaving bananas in vodka in the fridge.
I imagine this "gel" is protein, and if I had left the banana for longer
with the bromelain it mightn't have formed.
Also, the bromelain might go some way towards protecting the DNA for
longer, although perhaps some citric acid powder would help there too
thanks to its chelating potential. Only one way to find out! ;)
Great to hear that you guys wowed the crowd. I'm jealous; over here you
can't legally get alcohol that strong, so I don't think I'll be having
any banana DNAquiris -sans acetone- anytime soon. :P
On 18/11/11 06:47, Patrik wrote:
> Hi Cathal - the Sciencehackday wiki has events listed around the
> world, including one being planned fro Dublin:
>
> http://sciencehackday.pbworks.com/w/page/43932719/Dublin
>
> I was involved in the "Hack your genome" and "DNAquiri" hacks. We
> still need to do a bit more complete writeup at some point though. The
> DNAquiri hack actually won Best In Show, although bribing the judges
> with liquor may have had something to do with that :-D
>
> For the DNAquiri, freeze-thaw and a brief heat cycle was plenty to
> lyse the cells - no detergent needed. You don't need too much salt,
> and sweet fruit will easily mask the salt. Strawberries gave by far
> the most DNA, possibly because the commercial varieties are octoploid.
> We had a big pack of frozen strawberries, which is just perfect. We
> also used a fresh pineapple and a can of frozen pineapple juice for
> protease, but I'm not sure that made much difference. We wound up
> layering different fruit pulps, with the strawberry on top because
> that's the layer that generates most DNA.
>
> You do need to use a high-proof alcohol to get good DNA extraction. We
> used a bottle of Bacardi 151 and one of Everclear (both 151 proof, or
> 75%). Using this combination, we got a LOT of DNA in the top of the
> glass. You also get a layer of really strong alcohol at the top, so
> you may want to stir in the alcohol before drinking. If you let the
> glass stand a bit, you'll keep extracting more DNA, but after half an
> hour or so it does start to degrade noticeably. We poured the alcohol
> during the judging, so by the end the little shot glasses we had set
> out for the audience weren't quite as snotty anymore as we'd hoped.
>
> To be honest, the texture really wasn't a problem at all. If anything,
> the fact that we hadn't strained the fruit pulp was more of an issue -
> we had just smashed up the fruit by hand in a plastic bag instead of
> blending it, to avoid shearing the DNA. But that did mean some of our
> cocktails were a little lumpy. Taste was pretty good though. It's
> essentially just fruit pulp, high-proof alcohol, and a small pinch of
> salt.
>
> I forgot to bring my camera, but here's some pics I found online from
> other people, with the idea of maybe putting together an instructable:
>
> http://t.co/sl0NgY6A
> http://t.co/0T8aU6cL
> http://t.co/s2lHyqDr
> http://t.co/cjMv3ToW
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbiddulph/6338424461/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfbrightworks/6345720168/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfbrightworks/6345722136/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfbrightworks/6345719194/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/junnibug/6341329023/
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