Strawberries, E. Coli, and Paper Airplanes

                In my last blog I talked a bit about biology and how we’re switching from learning about evolutionary biology to learning about a molecular level of biology. I’ll admit I wasn’t thrilled to learn about the processes of meiosis and mitosis – the processes of cell duplication. Memorization really isn’t my style, but I figured I was going to have to take a deep breath and dive into the magical world of complex definitions. As expected, there are lots of those which I will have to learn, but what I wanted to talk about here is the lab I did this past Monday.

Extracted DNA from one strawberry

                The lab had two major components. The first was isolating DNA from strawberries – so cool! What we did was add a lysis buffer (consisting of detergent, salt, and water) to a single mashed up strawberry and then we add ethanol alcohol to the mix. Most natural things will break down in alcohol, but not DNA. This allowed us to twirl the DNA onto a glass rod. The really cool picture on the right side of this blog is all of the DNA in a single, average-sized strawberry. Cool, right?

                The second portion of the lab, we grew our own E. coli using different amounts of plasmids – a small, circular DNA molecule which is separate from the bacteria’s DNA. I’ll be honest; this is not the easiest topic to explain. I really encourage you check out my friend Dylan’s blog. He’s a senior here at Clark University who has been making video blogs about his own research with growing bacteria. His work isn’t the same as what we did in lab, but it’s pretty similar. There’s a link on the right side of this blog to his video blog, but I’ll put in the link again for you right here. http://www.biowithdylan.blogspot.com - You’re welcome.

                Stepping away from biology, I wanted to talk a little bit about what I did in management class on Friday. We actually spent a majority of the class period making paper airplanes – and yes, it was for an educational purpose. I got to make paper airplanes in college. Are you jealous? Anyway, the class was split into three different groups. The groups were assembly line, cellular manufacturing, and quality circle. These are all types of manufacturing. To review, assembly lines are when one person performs one specific task and passes it down to the next person to perform their specific task and so on until the product is complete – in this case, each person did a specific fold in the airplane. Cellular manufacturing is when there are several individuals who each make the product from start to finish. I was in that group. I made my own planes myself! Last is quality circle in which the group organizes themselves in smaller groups to make the best products they can. The only requirement of them was to not be an assembly line or cellular manufacturer. Each group had a manager and would bring groups of ten planes to be tested. Wow – that was a lot of explaining. Let’s get to the cool part.

                We learned based on the different types of manufacturing that while some are more time-efficient, sometimes the quality is sacrificed. This plays into the trade-offs of what kind of manufacturing is best for each company. It is understandable that assembly line manufacturing is faster, but not necessarily the best in terms of quality. If there’s one person who is particularly bad at folding airplanes, each plane will have the same fault. Cellular manufacturing depends entirely on each worker. As you can imagine, my airplanes were flawless. Just kidding. Quality circle, as given by the name, are very good quality, but is more time consuming because they take the time to figure out the best methods and implement them to create the best possible airplane.

                I guess if there was a way to tie strawberry DNA, E. coli, and paper airplanes together, it would be to say that you never know what to expect in college.  In my management syllabus, it said, “In Class: Airplane Manufacture.” I had no idea what that meant, but I figured we would just be taking notes off the board. I can never tell when one of my classes is going to surprise me – hence, surprise…