Tuesday, January 15, 2008
"We Are The World" can suck a fat one
Remember "We Are The World"? It was this extraordinarily cheesy song that all these celebrities of the era (ie: Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Hall and Oates, Billy Joel, Huey Lewis and the News, Cyndi Lauper, Stevie Wonder) got together and sang in the 80s, for world hunger or children or something like that. If they did it today, it would probably be for the benefit of HIV in Africa or something, but "We Are The World" was made back in the day when Reagan was in the White House and AIDS was called "gay cancer."
Well, "We Are The World" apparently inspired Bio-Rad's advertising campaign for its new thermal cyclers. What is Bio-Rad and what are thermal cyclers, you ask? Bio-Rad is a company that makes various molecular biology crap, and thermal cyclers are basically fancy, programmable heat blocks that we put tubes in to do PCR. I won't bore you with the details of PCR, except to explain that it's basically a way us lab rat losers can photocopy a piece of DNA, which we can then do all kinds of stuff with, and if you want to know more, you can read the Wikipedia page. It was invented by Kary Mullis, this crazy, brilliant, drugged-out maniac biochemist who accepted the Nobel prize he was awarded for this discovery by reciting a raunchy limerick about the nobility of Europe and tried to arrange a marriage between his son and the princess of Sweden. Kary Mullis is a hot piece. Anyway, thanks to Dr. Mullis, now every grad student in the world has to spend hours optimizing PCRs and hating life because of it. I've had such a terrible time with some of the more challenging PCRs I've done that I actually pray to a patron saint--St. PCRus--to intercede with Jesus and God on my behalf.
Supposedly, Bio-Rad's new fabulous thermal cyclers make PCR easier and for a mere few tens of thousands of dollars that our PIs (bosses) won't spend, those of us suffering in the trenches of molecular biology can reap the benefits. Bio-Rad decided to make a music video for "The PCR Song" promoting the "Scientists for Better PCR" cause:
Just mix your template with a buffer and some primers, nucleotides and polymerases too. Denaturing, annealing, and extending, well it's amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do! PCR! When you need to detect mutations. PCR! When you need to recombine. PCR! When you need to find out who the daddy is (who's your daddy?). PCR! When you need to solve a crime!
I particularly like the Stevie Wonder lookalike who sings the "Denaturing, annealing, and extending" part. That's a totally sweet vest he's rocking. Oh, and this song actually says "who's your daddy?" in reference to PCR's role in paternity testing. Awesome.
Well, "We Are The World" apparently inspired Bio-Rad's advertising campaign for its new thermal cyclers. What is Bio-Rad and what are thermal cyclers, you ask? Bio-Rad is a company that makes various molecular biology crap, and thermal cyclers are basically fancy, programmable heat blocks that we put tubes in to do PCR. I won't bore you with the details of PCR, except to explain that it's basically a way us lab rat losers can photocopy a piece of DNA, which we can then do all kinds of stuff with, and if you want to know more, you can read the Wikipedia page. It was invented by Kary Mullis, this crazy, brilliant, drugged-out maniac biochemist who accepted the Nobel prize he was awarded for this discovery by reciting a raunchy limerick about the nobility of Europe and tried to arrange a marriage between his son and the princess of Sweden. Kary Mullis is a hot piece. Anyway, thanks to Dr. Mullis, now every grad student in the world has to spend hours optimizing PCRs and hating life because of it. I've had such a terrible time with some of the more challenging PCRs I've done that I actually pray to a patron saint--St. PCRus--to intercede with Jesus and God on my behalf.
Supposedly, Bio-Rad's new fabulous thermal cyclers make PCR easier and for a mere few tens of thousands of dollars that our PIs (bosses) won't spend, those of us suffering in the trenches of molecular biology can reap the benefits. Bio-Rad decided to make a music video for "The PCR Song" promoting the "Scientists for Better PCR" cause:
Just mix your template with a buffer and some primers, nucleotides and polymerases too. Denaturing, annealing, and extending, well it's amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do! PCR! When you need to detect mutations. PCR! When you need to recombine. PCR! When you need to find out who the daddy is (who's your daddy?). PCR! When you need to solve a crime!
I particularly like the Stevie Wonder lookalike who sings the "Denaturing, annealing, and extending" part. That's a totally sweet vest he's rocking. Oh, and this song actually says "who's your daddy?" in reference to PCR's role in paternity testing. Awesome.
Labels: epidemic geekery, grad school bullshit, hilarious shit, nerd alert, science
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