Australia's Science Forum

Lorrae, I didn't get to send that fax Tuesday, and ended up being away yesterday (being Mum).

Will send it this arvo.

Sassi - can fax one your way too if you give me the number.

Fantastic Liz, that would be great!

Fax is 9959 4460 Attn Sanscha Aberg

Thanks Liz ,
I'll look out for it.

Lorrae

Hi L:iz,
Can I do a "Me too please"!
Fax no is 02 49586145
Thankyou

Sure Mushroom - I'll send them when I go down to sign out.

Hi Liz,

I received the fax.
Thankyou

Lorrae

Sorry Liz
I just checked the fax and I'm missing the last page. Could you send it through please??

Thanks Lorrae

OK, I'll do that this afternoon

Hi. In the transcript of the Southern Biological tutorial, it says 1% agar and 0.1% NaHCO3. I've tried that and it works really well.
Sandra

You could try gel electrophoresis in a butter container with agar & separate inks or dyes. simple cheap & it works really well. Details at:
http://www.brightminds.uq.edu.au/resour ... index.html

Thanks Sheryl,

That looks like a good one to have for the students to compare with the one we give them.

Just a quick question folks, I've noticed that Heinemann's hooks up the power with negative away from sample end and Bright Minds hooks up with negative to sample end. Does both work? Or which end is it?
Thanks,
Lou.

Samples should be at negative end

Thanx.

Thank you Liz, I received the fax...

Me Too Liz Thanks alot. Will give it a go next term!!
Lorrae

Hi Everyone!,
a couple of my teachers want to do the electrophoresis prac this year and I tried it yesterday and am giving it another go today. I have followed all the instructions to the letter but it is just sooooooo slow.It took almost three hours yesterday to get a good result and it's been on for an hour today and the dyes have barely moved. Any suggestions? My Batteries are brand new, maybe if I connected it to a power pack would this make things move faste.? what about upping the voltage? If they are going to compleate this in class it needs to go faster! Any help appreciated

I usually series up two power supplies to put 24V across this gives a reasonable result within the 1 hour class time frame
You do use Sodium Bicarb buffer dont you

Yep sodium bicarb buffer will try attaching another power supply to the one thats runing and seeing if that helps. Thanks!

Hey guys, I just had a go at this. a mediocre result after 90 minutes, so a few questions for the brains trust -

1) What do you use for electrode wire? The references I got off the net said stainless steel wire, I tried copper wire because that's what I had about. Does steel wire ( or old coathangers) work better?

2) does a shallower agar work better?

3) I made up my agar in the bicarb buffer (0.2% bicarb solution) 1g agar/ 100ml buffer .It was a bit soft but it set. Does harder agar work better or worsr?

4) Do you let your electrode wires set immersed in the agar, or cut out a channel and sit them in the buffer solution at the end of the agar? I had mine sitting in the agar as it set.
I used pink, blue, green, red and yellow colour. After 90 minutes the green has just seperated.
Thanks.