The Dark Side

I was a chemist once. One spent days dessicating molecular sieves, sometimes blowing glassware, maintining strictly oxygen-free conditions, grinding ingredients in a mortar and pestle, then sat for weeks planning other reactions while the one in the furnace heated up to 900 C and cooled slowly down again.

Today I purified my first plasmid; it was through a super-spiffy kit from Eppendorf company. It worked the first try, and I've still got time to set up a restriction digest before I go home. I could, to use dialect from my youth, *totally* get used to molecular biology.