Uncategorized
Erin and Charlie celebrate at the Wine Bar
Science
After the failure of my first PCR, we tried again. This one is more successful. Of my 7 samples, 5 amplified. We aren’t sure why the other two didn’t, so I’m going to try to re-extract DNA from them and try a few different primers with them this week.
Conservation
A documentary produced by Ashwin Bhandiwad and premiered at the Benthic Ecology 2010, enjoy! Shifting Sands: The Fight for the Outer Banks from Ashwin Bhandiwad on Vimeo.
Uncategorized
Charlie celebrates with Southern Fried Scientist and Maggie
Conservation
Bluefin tuna are some of the most endangered fish in the sea. Prized by the sushi industry for their delicious flavor, populations of bluefin have declined precipitously in recent decades.
They also may be the first species of fish to be driven to extinction by commercial fishing. Normally, when populations of fish get low, it isn’t profitable to fish for them anymore- thus they are not driven to extinction. However, a single bluefin tuna can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, so it is still profitable to fish for the last one.
Read More “Might as well eat ’em: A semi-serious April Fool’s Day ethical debate” »
Conservation
I received an e-mail from Oceana today encouraging me to “tell President Obama to keep his promise”. The e-mail claims that while running for President, he campaigned against offshore oil drilling, which would make his recent announcement about allowing offshore drilling a broken promise indeed. However, I seem to remember that Obama as a candidate was for offshore drilling. I went to my favorite non-partisan fact check website, Politifact, to sort this out.
Read More “Has President Obama broken a promise on offshore drilling?” »
Science
I know that many of you have been losing sleep over the questionable quality of my first PCR and gel. Well, the mystery has been solved! My lab partner made the gel with DI water instead of with TAE/agarose solution. Not only is that an easily fixable problem for the future… it’s something that, for … Read More “An update on WhySharksMatter’s first PCR” »