Hello Bandits! Today we’re learning about fluorescent boogers (if you don’t like it, blame Jane, she thought it was funny!)… wait what!?
I’m running late this morning, so let’s start at noon today…but is that 12 am or 12 pm?! I ended up having to look it up!
https://www.npl.co.uk/resources/q-a/is-midnight-12am-or-12pm
Sounds like I’m not the only one confused, so let’s go with the 24 hour clock! 12:00 EDT
https://www.twitch.tv/techbanditry
Thanks to my recent return to filming, I’ve had 3 covid tests getting right up my nose in the past two weeks. As well as making my eyes water, they got me wondering how exactly these tests work.
How do COVID tests detect the virus? Turns out it’s all about the DNA!
PBS covers this quite well and goes on to address some of the issues with everyone and their dog needing to get tested right now and as fast as possible!BEWARE! It starts with some very long swabs going up noses!
And if you want a slightly deeper dive into this stuff…
This is a Smithsonian Magazine has a piece that actually includes a step-by-step tutorial for technicians doing the test!
Turns out, this kind of DNA based testing is also an incredible tool for helping modern detectives to solve crimes, new and old!
Here’s a goofy little video that touches on the basics:
And here’s a fantastic video that really gets into how it all comes together to solve crimes!
My friend Josiah Zayner runs and amazing company called The Odin that gives classes on biohacking and sells all the tools needed to do this kind of thing and a lot more.
The amazing Canadian Charity Let’s Talk Science has a number of cool DNA projects and information about this amazing technology including DNA extraction!
and DNA barcoding!
And my personal favourite the Food Detectives! It’s an eye-opening Let’s Talk Science project that shows us how to uncover food fraud… are sellers selling the food that they say they are!?
https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/stem-in-context/do-you-know-whats-on-your-plate
See you all at noon!
Cheers,
D!
A few things we talked about during the stream that you might be interested in…
Open Source Faceswapping program that you can play with: https://faceswap.dev/
Goldenwolf, our lady in London UK mentioned https://www.muchamore.com/killer-t-test a book she liked in reference to our discussion on biotech, DNA and genetic engineering and another that touches on the subject of Quantum computing which we chatted briefly about… the idea that instead of having ones and zeroes we could have one zeroes and both for computing purposes…along with something called quantum entanglement which could possibly solve our long distance space communications issues, like the telegraph did back in the 1800s!?: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-thousandth-floor-katharine-mcgee?variant=32208030498850
DNA and gentic engineering also got us talking about the possibility of tiny mouse sized Wooly Mammoths!
Here are a couple of articles from LiveScience.com that got me thinking more about the science behind this silliness!
https://www.livescience.com/64998-mammoth-cells-inserted-in-mouse-eggs.html
https://www.livescience.com/59679-mammoth-resurrection-challenges.html.