DNA Day!

In celebration of the completion of the Human Genome Project in April 2003, today is National DNA Day. The following Science Buddies project ideas offer an excellent point of entry for DNA discussions and an introduction of relevant concepts.

• Do-It-Yourself DNA
  Design a DNA Extraction Kit and use it to purify DNA from strawberries
• Extracting Onion DNA
  Extract DNA from onion in sufficient quantity to be seen and spooled.
  
• A Magnetic Primer Designer
  Test how matches and mismatches affect the ability of primers to stick to the DNA that is copied during Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) .