#valdanderthal

[recovering-academic]

Three cheers for http://valdanderthal.tumblr.com for finding my student ID on the ground in a completely different building!

[recovering-academic]

I am super happy I am alone in my office today, because I have been talking to myself the entire time! 

[valdanderthal]

I realize I have been MIA on tumblr for the past month and I will continue to be so for the rest of the summer. Once the spring semester ended I was in NY (home) doing forensic work and I will be leaving soon for Peru to collect preliminary samples for my dissertation and volunteer with a forensic anthro team down there. Busy but productive! I will be back to my procrastinating tumblr ways once the fall semester begins. 

I hope everyone has a good field season! 

[valdanderthal]

[valdanderthal]

"You cannot tell them to go out and dig the soil. This is against their delicate nature.” - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (X)

Excuse you sir! 

Peru (First 3 photos)

Ecuador (Last 3 photos)

Blog your field photos! 

https://commonhumanitybbth.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/womendigging/

[valdanderthal]

Now that’s how you gut a pumpkin!

[valdanderthal]

Kemp Lab Ancient DNA Extraction Protocol (A “Quick” Guide):

1. Remove <50 mg of bone or tooth material from the whole.

2. Submerge the sample in full strength Clorox bleach for 4 minutes and then pour off the bleach.

3. Rinse the sample by submersion in DNA-free molecular grade water. Pour off the water.

4. Repeat step 3.

5. Transfer the sample to a 1.5 mL tube and add 500 µL of DNA-free molecular grade EDTA (pH 8.0). An extraction negative control, to which no sample is added, should accompany the extraction and be subjected to the following steps.

6. Incubate the sample at room temperature for >48 hours on a rocker.

7. Add 90 µL of proteinase K to the samples and incubate them at 60-65º C for 3 hours.

8. If the sample has not been completely digested, you may choose to repeat step 7. At this step you might also use disposable pestle for 1.5 mL tubes to aid in the mechanical breakdown of the sample.

9. Heat up some DNA-free molecular grade water to 65º C for the final elution of the DNA (steps 17-19)

10. Prepare the Promega Wizard® Minicolumns by attaching them to 3 mL luer-lok syringe barrels (minus the plunger) and placing the columns on the vacuum manifold.

11. Pull 3 mL of DNA-free ddH2O across the Promega Wizard® Minicolumns.

12. Centrifuge the samples at full speed for one minute to pellet any undigested bone or tooth bits, dirt, and/or “sludge”.

13. Carefully transfer the liquid to a larger tube by avoiding any co-transfer of the remaining bits/dirt/sludge.

14. Add 750 µL of 2% “Resin” (i.e., 2% celite in 6M guanidine HCl) and 250 µL of 6M guanidine HCl. Vortex numerous times over a 2-5 minute period.

15. Pull the resin mixture across the columns.

16. Pull 3 mL of 80% isopropanol across the columns.

17. Place the columns in 1.5 mL tubes and centrifuge at 10,000 rpm for 2 minutes to remove excess isopropanol. Discard the tubes.

18. Place the columns in new 1.5 mL tubes. 

19. Add 50 µL of 65º C DNA-free molecular grade water to the column and wait 3 minutes.

20. Centrifuge tubes for 30 seconds at 10,000 rpm.

21. Repeat steps 19 & 20. This results in 100 µL of extracted DNA. 

For more details: Kemp Lab of Molecular Anthropology and Ancient DNA

[hyacynthus]

valdanderthal replied to your photo “LOOK AT THIS GIF THAT I JUST MADE. This is basically my master’s...”

Oh damn! I should do that with my 3D scans! Did you use a certain program to make the gif? I am not gif talented

I made this in GIMP (too frugal to buy Photoshop) by putting together a bunch of stills. I followed this guide. Piece o' cake!

I also made a MPEG video of a skull spinning around that I've turned into a gif using an online converter. I'm currently trying to figure out how to compress it because it's at 16mb right now.