A review of PCR inibition and its mitigation in forensic DNA analysis

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) has a wide range of applications and usages in many disciplines of science. Some PCR failure can be attributed to the presence of inhibitors in the sample. Thirteen commonly encountered PCR inhibitors in forensic DNA analysis are investigated throughout this review. These inhibitors are humic substances, humin, humic acids, fulvic acids, hematin, hemoglobin, Immunoglobulin G, tannic acid, calcium, collagen, melanin, bile salts, and urea. PCR inhibitors either affect the amplification, known as amplification inhibitors, the fluorescent component, known as detection inhibitors, or a single inhibitor can produce effects through both mechanisms. In reviewing the current literature, three main methods to remove or mitigate PCR inhibition were identified; with the addition of an additive, using specialty coated magnetic beads, or using a spin column. This review discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each method and the success of each in regards to some of the inhibitors of interest

P4_5 A Rogue Earth

The Earth decides a giant mirror would be the best defence against the Death Star’s laser. Due to the conservation of momentum, when the mirror reflects the laser the mirror’s velocity and hence the Earth’s velocity must increase to 0.9998617325c. This will result in the Earth escaping from the Sun’s gravitational pull and becoming a rogue planet.As a result, this strategy would be infeasible as the destruction of everyone on planet Earth would still be guaranteed

P4_6 Horses make the world go round

The aim of this paper was to determine the feasibility of some factors of the Helios mythology, and to find the force that would be required to accelerate Earth from rest to its current angular velocity. We found that the force required to achieve this in a single day, is 1.39 × 1022 N which is extremely large considering Helios is only using four winged horses. This combined with there being no practical way to apply this force to the Earth, led to us concluding that it was not feasible

P4_3 - It's a Mad Lego World

In this paper, we investigate what would happen to the orbital radius of the Moon if the Earth was made of Lego. We found that for an Earth of equal radius and therefore equal volume, and not considering orbital velocity, the orbital radius of the Moon would increase from 384,000km to 1.98*10^6km

P4_1 Sunday Roast the 'Easy' Way.

This paper investigates the difference in time it would take to cook multiple common food items from a roast meal in an ’Easy Bake’ Oven, opposed to a standard kitchen oven. We found that when cooking a 1.00kg chicken and 1.00kg of roast potatoes it saved the chef 31.0mins and 5.60mins, respectively. However, due to the size of an Easy Bake Oven and the practicality of this, the standard kitchen oven continues to be the ’Easy’ way to cook a Sunday roast

What Do People Mean When They Say They “Had Sex”? Connecting Communication and Behavior

What do people mean when they say they “had sex”? The most-cited study regarding what activities are communicated as having “had sex” is now over 20 years old. This chapter provides findings from a study that replicated the original study’s methods to provide an up-to-date understanding. An Internet survey completed by 380 women and 197 men from the United States was conducted. Results show that penile-vaginal intercourse was the sexual activity most likely to count as having “had sex,” with 97.4% of participants indicating it as sex. Other common sexual activities measured include penile-anal intercourse, oral-genital contact, and manual stimulation of genitals. The findings suggest many attitudes represented in the original survey have changed. Implications and future studies are offered