Five Ways to Improve Your Transformation Experiments

Transformation is the process through which bacteria can pick up foreign DNA from the surrounding environment. The newly acquired genetic information is both stable and heritable. In the laboratory, we can transform bacteria with small, circular pieces of DNA called…

Biotech Basics – Visualizing DNA

What is agarose gel electrophoresis? Electrophoresis is a technique that allows us to separate DNA, RNA or proteins into bands according to their size.  For more information about this technique, be sure to check out our previous post describing electrophoresis.…

Fiber Evidence from Crime Scene Investigations

Criminal investigations have been used for centuries in an effort to fight crime. The techniques used have evolved over the years, and the field of forensic science can now solve more crimes than ever before. Modern forensics labs utilize cutting…

Biotech Basics: Accuracy and Precision in Measurements (and a #SciArt Project!)

  What is the difference between accuracy and precision? Accuracy describes how close a measurement is to the true value of a given quantity.  Precision describes the reproducibility of the measurement. Accordingly, measurements can be categorized as follows: Neither accurate…