Replicate this

I'm learning to make DNA this week. Manually that is, not by the unconscious mitosis that goes on in my cells every day.

Maybe you've heard that DNA is made up of the 4 bases: adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine. Well, pretty much all you do is chuck some of each into a bucket, give it a stir, and 'hey presto' DNA!

I jest of course. The protocol is much more interesting that this, although it is taking all freakin' week...

Rather than manually sticking together all the base pairs like some kind of Lego train, we get bacteria to do it for us. Put the DNA sequence inside some E. Coli, and let the whole thing replicate over and over until there's millions of copies of the original DNA sequence. We left those little bad boys incubating overnight, (as so often occurs in curry lover's gut after consuming a dodgy chicken tikka misala), so that when we arrive tomorrow morning the lab will be full of stinky, bacterial goodness ready to burst its contents into the world.

I'm reading 'Cooking for Geeks' by Jeff Potter, and I'm marveling at the similarities between a laboratory protocol and a kitchen recipe. Add some starter culture, incubate overnight, and there you have it, Yoplait!

How does a cake rise? Obviously the air gets in there somehow, but how does the actual chemistry work? As embarrassing as this is to admit, I really don't know the difference between baking soda and baking powder. (I will read on... Watch this space.)

If I don't know this already, clearly I'm no cook, and perhaps that says something about my skill as a scientist. Perhaps it's time to take my PhD into the kitchen and get practicing! E. Coli yoghurt anyone? How about yeast cake?

The question is, can I DNA sequence a sponge cake?