Friday, October 03, 2008

 

And in other science media news...

I've noticed that on some completely non-science websites (like fucking GAWKER!), snarky bloggers noticed this week's front and back covers of Nature and are questioning whether or not this Sigma-Aldrich ad with the yellow and chocolate Labrador retrievers isn't just a little TOO similar to the front cover with McCain and Obama to not be racist.

I doubt there was any intentional racism at work, since Sigma has been bombarding me with leaflets of this very ad at work and were probably just continuing their marketing blitzkrieg on the print edition of Nature. In fact, we just got a bunch of chemicals from Sigma the other day in lab, and the box contained a stack of crap talking about the unique forensic properties of dogs' nose prints. Somehow this is supposed to make me want to buy oligos from Sigma. What it does in actuality is make me say "awww, cute dogs" for about two seconds, then say, "FUCK SIGMA AND THEIR SHITTY-ASS OLIGOS!"

Oligos, also known as oligonucleotides or primers, are little snippets of DNA we use in PCR reactions.  PCR is basically a technique for photocopying specific stretches of DNA, and that specificity is conferred by the oligos you use.  I think that's Sigma's point about the dogs...their primers are as unique as a dog's nose print.  Too bad Sigma takes forever to synthesize their primers and half the time they mail you the wrong ones!  We used to use Sigma primers in my lab, until we realized that they charge way too much, fuck up orders all the time, and don't synthesize or ship them in a timely manner.  I'm way less offended by the perception of accidental racism than the notion that cute dogs and their cute noses should be exploited to whore out Sigma's inferior-ass primer business.  Cute dogs never make me wait two weeks on doing some PCR I need because they haven't gotten around to doing quality control on my dumb oligos. 

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# posted by Razzy @ 7:34 AM
Comments:
even if the dog picture is supposed to look like the obama-mccain picture, how exactly is that racist?
# posted by Anonymous racism is gay : 10/03/2008 8:52 PM
 
i mean, if they're both dogs then what race is it against?
# posted by Anonymous racism is gay : 10/04/2008 9:04 PM
 
I took a picture of this dog display in the window of a dog grooming shop in a tony town in Westchester. I thought it would be appropriate for this post.

Here's the URL:

http://www.uploadhouse.com/viewfile.php?id=2773723
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 10/07/2008 5:28 PM
 
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