Fun Jar: DNA Extraction!

Zorg pulled: DNA Extraction!  That's always fun, and easier to do than most people think.

Here's how to extract DNA from fruit.

You'll need:

alcohol (rubbing is fine, ethyl works too) Put it in the freezer right away, it takes a while to chill.

fruit: banana, kiwi, strawberry, or onion. (Yeah, I know onion isn't a fruit... but it's got such huge cells you can see them with a good magnifying glass!)

laundry detergent

hot and cold water

ice cubes

thermometer

plastic measuring cup

funnel/ cups

coffee filter

2 large bowls (that the measuring cup will fit it)

knife/cutting board/plate

fork and spoon or coffee stirrer

measuring tablespoon

1.Cut half of your fruit (maybe use a whole strawberry) into small pieces and then mash them with a fork. The idea is break it up as much as possible. With an onion you could use a blender. Put this into the measuring cup.

2. Add 1/2 cup of warm water and a tablespoon of laundry detergent to the mix and stir it.

3. Put the measuring cup into one of the bowls and fill the outer bowl with very warm (125 degree F) water. You can use a mix of boiling water and tap water to get the right temperature. This is called a water bath. Keep it here for 12 minutes, adding hot water and stirring every now and then to keep it warm.

4. While you wait, put ice cubes and cold water in the other bowl so that when 12 minutes are up you can put the measuring cup in the cold bowl. Let it chill maybe 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Drain this goop through your coffee filter (placed in a funnel set in a cup is the easiest).

6. When you get about a tablespoon of filtered liquid, that's enough (but you can collect more and do this several times). Take one tablespoon of the liquid and add one tablespoon of ice cold alcohol (this won't work if it's not ice cold) and a pinch of salt.

7. Swirl to mix. It will suddenly turn goopy and clumpy as the DNA comes out of solution or "precipitates". Put the cup on ice for 10 minutes or so to get as much DNA out as you can (you can even stick it into the freezer overnight).

8. Pull the DNA out with a spoon or fork, or just dump it onto a plate and mess with it.

9. Eat the other half of the fruit! Did you ever think of how much DNA you eat?

For added fun, we looked at the DNA under the microscope: stringy!

Oh, yes, Cholo and Oob wandered in and out of this experiment, but on their Fun Jar time, Choclo pulled Legos, so the three of us built all sorts of Lego things.

Hand Painting

No, not finger painting! We mean using face paint to paint your hand like this. I painted a horse on Klenda but you could do any 4 legged animal like that. You could also do an octopus (pentapus, or paint the extra legs going up the hand! Hey, how about a squid!!!) or a person if you folded up one finger and used your thumb and pinky as arms.

Klenda painted an alligator on me. As you can see in this photo, it is lying in wait for the horse.

Don't worry, the alligator didn't get the horse; in fact the horse kicked the alligator and danced on its head.

This would be a good Fun Jar activity! One caution: you do want face paint here. Tempra would flake off of flexible hands. You can find recipes to make your own here.

We did go on to paint our faces because, well, we couldn't resist! Thanks for the face paint kit, Mumpy!

Have You Hugged Your Mummy Today?

Yesterday we brought back the Fun Jar. This is a quart Mason jar (decorated with sticker glue stickers) filled with slips of paper with fun things written on them. At various intervals (like after a particularly tedious chore) we draw a slip and do what it says. We just finished cleaning the family room and drew: toilet paper mummies!

That's Klenda in the top picture, Klenda wrapping Zorg in the middle, and Leena (wrapped by Klenda) at the bottom. Mxyl was off running errands with the Emporer.

Other things in the Fun Jar include: baking soda volcanoes, playdough, board games, watercolor paint, Simon says, singing silly songs, freeze dance, telling knock knock jokes in foreign accents, special things for each person in our family (we all do a special thing for the person whose name we drew), Optimath Prime, Bumblebee spelling bee, Frisbee, superhero body trace, obstacle course, nature walk, random science experiment or art project, etc.

Nothing fancy, nothing expensive, just a long list of all the fun things we can forget to do regularly.

And, no, I do not reuse the toilet paper!