Nerd moment #937: Gel Electrophoresis and DNA Fingerprinting

Multiple questions come up whenever I tell people I’m a bio major. “Are you crazy?” “What do you plan to do with that degree?” “Why did you choose that major when you started out as an art major?”

The answers to those questions are, respectively, and in the simplest forms: yes, save the world, and because we get to do cool stuff like this:



That, guys and gals, is how to catch a killer.

That blue blob is the result of gel electrophoresis, which is just a fancy way of saying we made a Jell-O-like substance, put DNA samples in it, and shocked it for almost two hours. You can get one of these kits on any science-y type website to try it at home, and you pretty much do it in any biology class in college. I myself have done three electrophoreses in the past year.

The point of this fancy-schmancy blob is really to demonstrate how very unique DNA is and how it gets broken down by restriction enzymes to show that your DNA does not match someone else’s DNA, but they tell all the uninterested college kids that what we’re really doing is looking at two samples from a crime scene and trying to match it up to one of two suspects. That way, we can all fulfill our lifelong dreams of reenacting the show CSI: Miami. Except for the fact that this is ten times cooler because half the things they do on CSI: Miami aren’t real and this is a true way that forensics labs really roll.

I won’t get into the extreme details of it, but at a basic level, you add enzyme to DNA and it breaks it into smaller fragments, which are represented by the separate blue stripes in the picture. If you have a suspect DNA that has the same exact bands as the evidence DNA, you can say you’ve found yourself a criminal and call it a day.

There are a lot of downsides to using this type of DNA fingerprinting, as well as a lot of room for human error. For instance, the way we ran our lab made it so accuracy was key, and let’s just say college kids have no accuracy at 8 A.M. This is the case with any electrophoreses however, whether the FBI or DU students run this experiment.

So why did I choose biology? Why did I primarily want to go into forensics or genetics? Things like that blue blob, that’s why. I mean, how cool is that? Or is my nerdy college-kid swag just going crazy there?

What do you want to do and why? If you’re a college kid, why did you choose your major? Have you ever wanted to be on CSI: Miami?

Nerd moment #248: A Little Out of Character While Being In Character

It started with a simple conversation over a Chinese buffet dinner a few months ago. And ended with this:



Oh yeah. That conversation went there.

A couple of my friends are pretty big Anime and video game fans, and while I’ve seen a few Animes, I barely know any of the ones they talk about. I’m not that big of a fan. However, I’m all about video games. So while eating dinner with the two of them one evening a few months back, they were discussing a convention that Colorado has every year dedicated to both Anime fans and gamers alike. It’s called NDK, and one of my friends goes every year. I just so happened to be there while he was trying to convince my other friend that he needed to go with him this year, and let’s just say I ended up in the crossfire.

Now, I’ve never been to NDK, Wasabicon, Comicon, or any other crazy conventions that come to town, though I’ve always wanted to go to Comicon. I love comics, I love video games, and I love costumes, but I just never seemed to combine them. Until now.

After convincing me that I should go and try it out with them, we decided that I had to go big and dress up for NDK. It’s not required, but that’s half the fun. People dedicate mass amounts of time and money towards making a costume to resemble their favorite character, and I’ve never made a costume before, so I figured it was time to go for it. After much deliberation, I settled on Yuna from the game Final Fantasy X-2 (even though Final Fantasy X was a much better game…).

It’s so difficult to go solely based off screenshots and pictures in order to determine detail in someone’s costume. That, plus I’ve never even attempted anything like this before, plus I had no sewing machine. So I set off, with help from one of the aforementioned friends and enlisting my mom (much better seamstress than I), we slowly but surely HAND-SEWED something that actually wasn’t half bad compared to the character.



It was so interesting to see everyone dressed up and displaying all their hard work and effort. Like I said before, I’ve never done anything like this, the costume or the convention, and while it’s up in the air whether I’ll do it again, I commend those who find a lot of happiness and passion in it. I was basically in it purely just to dress up, but I respect those who wait all year for the convention to come to town so they can see the latest in Anime, games, and meet others with the same interests. I just loved watching all types of people roaming around the hotel, and I gotta say, I loved the attention I got for my costumre, too. All kinds of people kept coming up to my friend (dressed as an amazing Link from the Legend of Zelda games) and I, asking to take a picture or asking for hugs. Definitely an interesting experience.

Here’s some of the awesome people I got to meet and take pictures of:



Hello Kitty Samurai. No, it doesn’t make sense. No, you really don’t ask questions at these events.



My friend (on the right) and another of the many Links running around NDK.



Ru-fi-oooooooooooooo!!!!



Most of the Final Fantasy characters.



Sailor Moon characters.



Tidus and I. For those who don’t know, Tidus is the main character in Final Fantasy X, and my character is the main one in X-2. Boy meets girl, girl has to die in order to save world, boy tries to save girl, boy is actually from 1000 years in the past so boy must return home in the end, girl seeks out boy in the second game.



My buddy Link facing a Beer Knight. His armor is made entirely of Dos Equis cans. ‘Nuff said.



Chain “Link” fence. Get it?

And for no reason, here's a Storm Trooper on vacation.

Overall, the experience was interesting, to say the least. I’m actually really glad I went and took the time to make a costume for it. And while there were so many more people and pictures and whatnot, my blog can only handle so much nerd right now. It might be ready to explode.

Have you ever been to Comicon or any convention like it? Have you ever dressed up as an animated character? What have you done recently that was a little out of character for you?

Nerd Moment #958: Absolute Zero

credit: http://shirtoid.com/8834/absolute-zero-is-the-coolest/



So I’ve been known to nerd out from time to time. Okay, I nerd out a lot, and it’s all over different things. So today’s nerd moment is a concept from physics that I’ve been mulling over for quite some time.

It’s called absolute zero. It’s something we can never, ever achieve, because it goes against the second law of thermodynamics. And because it’s impossible, it’s fun to speculate the idea of what would happen if we ever did truly achieve absolute zero.

By this point, I’ve either lost readers, or everyone is wondering what in the world absolute zero is. But only a true nerd would blog about this, so that tells you what you, as a reader, are getting into.

Temperature, to explain in a physical sense, is the speed of particles. If something is cold, the particles are moving very slowly. If something is hot, the particles move faster. This is why solids are tightly compacted and gases are able to expand; water, in ice form, is very cold and therefore its particles move slowly and keep it together. In steam form, the particles are hot and moving very fast, allowing the gas to go everywhere if not contained. Therefore, absolute zero is exactly as it sounds: it is 0 degrees on the Kelvin scale, –273.15 degrees Celsius, and –459.7 degrees for those of us in the states using Fahrenheit. In other words: it’s freakin’ cold.

At cold temperatures, atoms move very, very slowly, basically slowing movement to a small vibration if it’s cold enough. At absolute zero, motion stops completely. The atoms are not moving at all, and the electrons surrounding an atom are not moving randomly in their orbitals as they should. Nothing is moving at all at absolute zero. So this raises the question of what happens when things that are constantly in motion just stop.

credit:http://wikibon.org/blog/unhackable-encryption/



I’ve heard many theories on what could happen at this point, but the coolest one I’ve heard is the one I’ll mention here, though I question whether or not this could even be the case in absolute zero. One theory is that once all motion of electrons around an atom cease, it will allow particles in a solid to separate. The constant movement of electrons bumping into other electrons it comes in contact with keeps things from going through each other. So, if they stop, the theory is that solids could move through other solids because that constant bumping is not there to prevent it. We could walk through things. This concept blows my mind. This concept also presents the idea that if nothing is moving, what would happen to the perception of time? What about the perception of space? Would they cease as well? It’s hard to fathom, but I find it fascinating.

Now, whether or not this theory has any actual weight to it, who knows. I would research more into it, but 1.) it’s a cool idea, 2.) I don’t want to shatter that concept for myself, and 3.) there are many theories out there including this one. Unfortunately, the closest we’ve ever come is around one billionth of a degree (in Kelvins) above absolute zero. It would take an infinite amount of steps of pulling heat and energy away from a particle in order to achieve absolute zero, which is why we can only ever hope to get so close.

Nerd rant over. What concepts blow your mind?