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Build your own PCR machine
- WestCoastJustin 15y agoI wasn't aware what a PCR machine does and the website assumes you already know! PCR is a technique that allows scientists to create a vast quantity of a specific sequence of DNA (via http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091226132510AA7WDvN http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091226132510AA...).
- m_for_monkey 15y agoThey have a nice interactive Flash demo which explains what PCR is and how to use the machine: http://openpcr.org/use-it/ http://openpcr.org/use-it/.
- bsenftner 15y agoThere ought to be some explainer on the home page. I was staring at the page thinking "...okay, and this thing is ???" The less curious will just leave. Perhaps you want that?
- djacobs 15y agoIt can do a lot more than that, but yeah that's definitely the first/primary job of a PCR machine.
- polyfractal 15y agoFunny anecdote: the original PCR experiments were done with water baths at various temperatures. They manually moved the DNA samples from the boiling water (denaturation), to hot water (55-ish degrees, annealing) to hotter water (elongation, 70ish) and then back to the boiling water for another round of amplification.
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- AceJohnny2 15y agoThis system does precise temperature control (heating and cooling) of the reaction vessel, which is filled with your sample DNA and the right enzymes. There are other systems which benefit from precise temperature control: make chocolates (getting the right consistency depends on following the right temp curve), sous-vide cooking, SMD soldering ovens, there emerges a need for generalized PID (proportional-integral-derivative) temp controllers. But hey, one's just emerged! http://brettbeauregard.com/blog/2012/01/introducing-the-ospid/ http://brettbeauregard.com/blog/2012/01/introducing-the-ospi...