Another Run At Stippled Studfish DNA

I've arranged with the DNA laboratory at Tuscaloosa to sequence our stippled studfish DNA. We've lost faith in several commercial labs. So, we're going to send Qiagen-purified, twice-PCR'd DNA, 38 samples in all I think. The final prep work will be done next week, I hope. Yesterday Travis ran about 30 re-PCR reactions, so we're about set with that. I hope that Andrew & James can get the Qiagen purification done with Kris' max-yield tricks. Travis pointed out that the counter-top centrifuge I have is rated at 15,000 RPM, with no speed control, while the Qiagen kit calls for 12,000 RPM. And in truth I'm not certain what speed that centrifuge really runs at, since it's fairly old with nothing like regular maintenance(!). So we're going to use a centrifuge in the Bishop lab with a variable speed control, and see if that helps our final DNA concentration. As always, I hope it works.

And congratulations to Ben Keck, Solomon David and Josh Perkin for receiving funding for their proposals submitted to the NANFA Conservation Research Grant program this year. Each will get $750. Ben is working with greenfin darters in the upper Tennessee system, Solomon is working with spotted gar in Michigan, and Josh is working with a disjunct, relict population of ironcolor shiners in Texas.