Growing DNA

This is going to sound really futuristic and awesome, but it isn’t. It’s actually being done right now, the idea of growing DNA.

Say, I kidnap someone. And me, being a stupid criminal, sends the family a ransom note and I lick the envelope. They can take that envelope, find just one little cell off of that envelope and use it to find me through the DNA.

Now, in reality, they cannot take that one single cell and analyze the DNA to find me. They need more than one cell, because, really, DNA is small.

So what scientists can do is toss the cell (maybe the DNA. I’m not sure now.) in a test tube, toss in the building blocks of DNA–the sugar and phosphates (backbones of DNA), and the  adenine, cytosine, guanine  and thymine–and toss in a DNA polymase so it can separate the DNA and let it sit for a day or so.

Once all this sits for a bit, we’ll have a lot of DNA that we can then analyze and find the kidnapper.

Now this can technically be used for a lot of other things that requires more than one cell of DNA. I just heard this in class and kept thinking to myself: Now, how can I use this in a story?

AS a note, this is called PCR.

my area of expertise

This summer, I’d like to write another novel.

I suppose that is silly, because the more I’ve been reading, the more I’ve been finding that for new writers, novels are not the way to go. But I like writing them, I like developing them, and I like the results.

The problem is that I tend to write male characters. Now, I’m not sure if there really is much of a difference between the mind of male characters and the mind of female characters. But just in case, I’d like to write  a novel with a female main character.

So, I got the brilliant idea recently of someone who was raised by pirates and becomes an assassin. I started developing this more yesterday until it hit me.

This is my second story with characters associating with criminals.

Now, I honestly don’t know what this means. I know that writers tend to have their own little spot in writing that they “specialize” in. But criminals for me? That is honestly the last thing I expected. I’ve never had problems with the law. I’ve never even been close to it. So why this?

To be honest, I have come in recent contact with inmates who clean the mental health hospital. While there are many people in my group who are scared of them, I more view them as just regular people. So maybe that is part of the reason this would be my specialty. Everyone is the same. Everyone eventually hurts.

And maybe not. Maybe as I become more of a nurse, it’ll change into something else. I did also get the idea of a superhero who has a psychotic break and checks himself voluntarily into an asylum. That is obviously nursing related.

And who knows about me writing this novel over the summer. I generally spend months planning one. But that does sound like fun.