This is a mystery that has baffled the minds of scholars since the dawn of time. We don't know where Cotton-eye Joe went, but with the knowledge of the 21st century we know where he came from.
DNA is what makes each and everyone of us unique. Handed down to us from our parents, it codes for every cell in our body. As a way to visualize DNA, we do a neat little activity involving strawberries, DNA extraction buffer (soapy salty water), and isopropyl alcohol.
We start by putting two strawberries in a ziploc bag and we crush them. What this does is allows the strawberry guts or cells to be exposed to the 10 ml of DNA extraction buffer that we add right afterwards. The soapy DNA extraction buffer, since it's part polar and part non polar, will take off the cell membrane on the cells inside the strawberry- exposing it's DNA.
This was how the strawberry mix looked after the DNA extraction buffer and isopropyl alcohol was added.
We then funnel out the strawberry soap mix. What this does is separate out the clumps of the strawberry from the DNA juice mix.
Then we added Isopropyl alcohol. The alcohol in this experiment would cause the DNA to clump together into something we can extract.
Picture of extracted Strawberry DNA.
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