Discussion
I mentioned this in the lounge on a thread about favourite/new technology, but thought I'd post here in case it's of any interest.
I was watching a programme about digging up old landfill sites, and a question was asked about the possible development of new bacteria in this environment. Whilst that in itself was an interesting concept, they found a sealed bottle of some gunky liquid and decided to test it.
The scientist person on the programme then said they could test it "in the field" and compare with a database of previously identified bacteria.
To test it, she said they could use a portable DNA sequencer, which was apparently powerful enough to sequence the human genome.
I was expecting a large, delicate, expensive piece of equipment in a Pelican case.
Instead she pulled out a little box about the size of a cigarette packet, with a USB lead to plug into her (standard) laptop.
On googling, it appears to be a real thing and available for $1000.
Surprising just how small, usable, and (if you have a reason for sequencing DNA), cheap it was.
I was watching a programme about digging up old landfill sites, and a question was asked about the possible development of new bacteria in this environment. Whilst that in itself was an interesting concept, they found a sealed bottle of some gunky liquid and decided to test it.
The scientist person on the programme then said they could test it "in the field" and compare with a database of previously identified bacteria.
To test it, she said they could use a portable DNA sequencer, which was apparently powerful enough to sequence the human genome.
I was expecting a large, delicate, expensive piece of equipment in a Pelican case.
Instead she pulled out a little box about the size of a cigarette packet, with a USB lead to plug into her (standard) laptop.
On googling, it appears to be a real thing and available for $1000.
Surprising just how small, usable, and (if you have a reason for sequencing DNA), cheap it was.
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