Tuesday, February 19, 2008

PCR

Y'all may be familiar with the "We Are the World" song that came out in the 80's. Well, this is a parody of that song that my Genetics professor Dr. Engle showed us last week. (My longtime readers may notice that this is the same professor that I had as a freshman. She was the one that said to thank your mitochondria!)

At any rate, the song parodies "We Are the World" on the subject of PCR, the polymerase chain reaction. PCR is a way of rapidly amplifying and replicating DNA, and we have been studying that in my Genetics class. It involves heating, cooling, and reheating until new strands of the desired DNA have been put together. While the video below is supposed to be humorous (oh, and it is!), it is still somewhat informative. So, I hope you can learn something! (Personally, my favorite part is the "who's the daddy" part...haha)


Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Paczki Are Baczki

C'est Mardi Gras!

Many of you may recall a blog by Aunt Cheryl a little over a year ago concerning the Polish doughnuts called paczki. They are traditionally made and eaten in large amounts for today, Fat Tuesday, the day before the beginning of Lent. In keeping with that tradition, I recently bought a box of four paczki. Kroger just so happened to have them on sale last weekend. (Coincidence? I think not...) The ones I got were Bavarian creme-filled and have a chocolate icing on top. I have already eaten two of them, and let me just say, mmmmm. I saved the other two just for today, so that I can indulge and "get rid" of them before Ash Wednesday.

For those of you that thought my title was CLEVER, thank you, but the idea was not original. I mentioned in a comment on Aunt Cheryl's blog recently that a bakery close to Xavier was advertising paczki on their sign. Just a few days ago, they changed their message to the phrase, "Paczki Are Baczki," and that was just too clever to go unnoticed. Naturally, I couldn't resist using that as a title for this blog! So in case those kind people are reading this, I give credit to the Busken Bakery on Montgomery Road in Norwood, Ohio. Perhaps I'll stop by and get some fresh paczki before tomorrow???

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys their Mardi Gras, and be sure to eat some paczki if you can get your hands on them.