Natural Science Forum / Biology / Microbiology / June 2005

First off let me explain that I am putting together a PCR lab of an
undergrad microbiology class. I am kinda doing this "on the run" and
don't have a lot of time to do incremental experimentation to figure out
the best mix and configuration of buffers / primers / etc. So I am ...

This may be a well known factoid .. but I can't seem to find the answer
anywhere - or perhaps I am asking the wrong question ... so here goes..
How does (did) DNA get longer as you move up in complexity?
How did it get from (say) 20 KBP in yeast to 3 Billion in humans?

Great post Ed.
Reason dictates a Designer of Creation and the life within.
Beyond the Creation. He hears and sees in secret. Like we
do, today, with our 'technology.' Xcept the Creator 'monitors'

Howdy,
My chairman has asked me to find a stain we can use to preferentially
stain bacterial DNA- in the organism. He has mentioned Feulgin and
acetocarmine as possibilities, and I came across something called

I know that you use EtBr dye when using UV gel documentation.
Will this same dye work with white light documentation systems (like the
EdCam ... http://www.pecascientific.com/polaroid.htm)?
Is there a better dye?

I'm looking for a good introductory Microbiology textbook,
college-level.  I've surveyed the most popular ones on Amazon, but I'm
having trouble getting much of a sense of the differences between them.
Can someone recommend a good, up-to-date intro text?  I don't want to

A collegue of mine have managed to get brown E.coli lin239 colonies on
solid media. I didn't know that E.coli under certain circumstances could
produce brown pigments. Is this new to you too, or is this common
knowledge? The plate had quite large concentrations of m-toluic acid.

Im an "amator" about bio-chemistry (I used to study it at university years ago),
and I found an article about the relation between oxygen, pH and cancereous cells.
It seems that cancereous cells use a anaerobic mode and then dont like at all
environment with lots of oxygen. It ...

Any body is working in restriction endonucleases plz contact or give me
sugession to how to isolate and purifiy this enzyme

Yes, they are gnawing on your butt right now and absorbing your
life-force !
If humans want to become immortal, they have to destroy these
micro-monsters who are constantly biting our butts.

i'm 26 and currently planning to start college soon.  i know i want to go
into doing research with genetics, esp in the human genetics area.  even
though i know i have to take 2 years of liberal arts before i can pursue phd
or dr degree.

I read a paper written by rc johnsen in 2000, "drugs order bacteria to
commit suicide". It was talking about works of Elaine Tuomanen's team, but
since this paper i found nothing on this subject. Who have news from
Tuomanen works ?

All of the following substances are filtered @ the glomerulus except:
A) Platelets
B) proteins
C) glucose

Can anyone tell me where to get it? It's not commercially available

I once had a conversation with a friend studying biology. we were
arguing how much does a person's DNA determine his/her appearance. I
was arguing for 99%, while he was trying to tell me how small variation
in environment can change proteins' regulation and so on and so forth