I had my first really successful day in the molecular lab yesterday.

This is a gel from a PCR reaction of beta fibrinogen intron 7 for eight cockatoo species.

While I promise not to show many more of these (it gets boring pretty quick), it’s exciting because everything worked. Lanes 1-8 have a single band, which shows that I successfully amplified the gene I’m interested in. Lane 9 is a negative control. It’s empty as it should be, showing that I didn’t have DNA contamination in the reaction. Lane 10 is a ladder. It has known sizes of DNA so that one can judge what size fragment the PCR reaction returned.

Now I just have to figure out how to sequence DNA…

Not long after the start of this summer field season, keiths asked if I could explain what I was doing for my thesis in a little more detail. I said I would, I meant to, but somehow I got lazy when it came around to actually doing it. Well, I aim to be a man of my word, and with this summer’s field season coming to a close, I figured I’d better elaborate soon. In terms of humor, interesting writing, and insightful commentary, I promise nothing. This is simply a brief description of what my thesis involves and what my days are like out here in the Davis Mountains. Read the rest of this entry »