(Untitled)

[niennaeste]

This is why I'm glad I'm not a tech:

Me: Ellen, aren't the PCR tubes supposed to be in this cabinet?
Ellen: Oh, we're out.
Me: We're out of PCR tubes?
Ellen: Yeah, I ordered some, but they haven't come in yet.
Me: We're out of PCR tubes?
Ellen: Yes. Try to borrow some from someone else

Comments

[anonymous]

Reading this is like watching one of those movies where you know you missed something critical because you're never quite sure what's happening until the last guy pulls a gun on the other guy, and then, all of a sudden, your brain goes:

"Wait! That guy has a mustache. He's a different guy than the one who blew up all those nuns. So that must mean..."

And then the mustached guy shoots the other guy and it's over.

Or, to put it another way: WTF is a PCR tube?

--Ian

[niennaeste]

They're very small tubes you do PCR reactions in. They're rather critical, because the thermocycler only takes tubes that size, so if you don't have any, you can't do a PCR.

[kieri_cat]

Your know? I think I could have guessed it has something to do with doing a PCR. What the hell is a PCR? I'm looking for something to the effect of "it test to see if....."
=)

[niennaeste]

It's short for "polymerase chain reaction". It amplifies small pieces of DNA. I'm doing a lot of cloning currently, so right now my project more or less is entirely PCRs and gels and minipreps.

[crazybetsy]

Dang. Kind of like when the lab I worked at for a summer ran out of P200 tips. (okay, well, not RAN OUT, but ran out of the pre-racked, presterilized ones. the techs racked pipette tips for two days, pausing only to put them into or take them out of the autoclave, until the new tips came in.)