Questions tagged [experimental-design]
Questions on how to plan an experiment to gain the best results. Also suitable for questions on why other researchers followed a certain procedure.
159 questions
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optimum amount of pH buffer for an experiment
If trying to do an experiment involving the effect of pH on enzyme activity, is there any sort of guide as to how much pH buffer to add?
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How to measure the ability to discriminate between two colors experimentally
CONTEXT
Species differ greatly in their vision ability in general, and in their ability to discriminate between colors in particular.
Humans' color vision is usually (some rare human individuals have ...
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Why are there error bars for zero concentration in some cell viability graphs, if they are assumed to be 100%?
Take these for example:
As far as I know, the formula for cell viability is % Viability = (Treatment OD - Blank OD) / (Control OD - Blank OD) where each OD is the average of three wells (technical ...
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Behavioural experiment on Nasonia Wasps
I want to see how two male Nasonia vitripennis interact with each other. I have been using enamel paint on their heads to distinguish them, but I am wondering if any other methods of marking them ...
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Does binge watching cause sleep problems?
According to a study from 2017, binge watching is correlated with various sleep problems:
The people who reported binge-watching were 98 percent more likely to report poor sleep quality compared with ...
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Why am I getting a large horizontal band spreading across my native gel?
On every gel of this type that I've ran so far, I'm getting this large band interfering with my gel analysis no matter how much troubleshooting I've done. This is a Novex Wedgewell 6% Tris-Glycine Gel ...
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Which plants are best for experiments about plant growth? [closed]
I was assigned writing a term paper about optimizing plant growth using control systems. This assignment is part of a class on sustainable energy usage, which means it's primarily on physics and ...
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What is the meaning of NF-kB (transcription factor) "activity"?
This article discuss about the NF-kB activity and its mathematical modeling Understanding NF-κB signaling via mathematical modeling. The NF-kB is a transcription factor mainly involved in the ...
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Is it viable to make liquid potassium ferilizer through dissolving very small amounts of potassium chloride in water
I wasn't able to find fertiliser online that was simply potassium chloride and I didnt want to source my potassium chloride solution from potassium sulphate or other general NPK fertilisers for my ...
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Cell culture experiments, technical or biological replicates?
Experimental design:
Cells are grown, counted, and seeded in 96-well plates.
Cells recover 24 hours.
Cells are treated with different doses of a drug, 3x per treatment.
Cell survival read via MTT.
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Is there any reagent that can help me obtain the protein in a 14 μm tissue without damaging the morphology of the tissue
I need to extract proteins, but I want to protect the morphology of the tissue. Can I use lysis buffer directly？
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What is a "marker-matched" plasmid?
I see this term used a lot in papers and have trouble understanding it. From what I have gleaned it seems they are used during control experiments, perhaps with the goal of making the control plasmids ...
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PCR: From transgene/microgram to cell concentration
I am doing research on CAR T-cell kinetics. The measurement of CAR T-cell concentrations across time is normally carried out with qPCR (see here, Fig. 1). These concentrations are generally reported ...
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Is there a good protocol for bilateral decortication in rodents?
I was thinking about using bilateral decortication in rodents (preferentially mice) to study the roles of certain brainstem areas in cognitive tasks in the absence of cortex. However almost all ...
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What are some experimental techniques to identify binding partners?
What experimental techniques can be used to identify binding partners for a given protein? I know that if you have some candidates that may bind to a given protein, then you can use techniques such as ...
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Can disk diffuson be used, without diluting a broth culture to match a 0.5 McFarland turbidity standard?
In this video, there doesn't seem to be a process of diluting the broth. I'm not looking for extremely accurate test results, all I need is to see if a particular colony is susceptible to the ...
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Why are drug dosages so high in some mice studies?
On reading through some research on the effects of certain drugs I often come across staggeringly high dosages such as in this paper:
Römer, B., Pfeiffer, N., Lewicka, S., Ben-Abdallah, N., Vogt, M. ...
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Vegetation density estimation from distance method: random sampling or along the grid?
I am planning to sample the tree regeneration (new ones and advance regeneration, > 2m). I am planning to use small circular points to estimate the counts per area (= density of young trees). I ...
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I am conducting an experiment with oil eating bacteria. However, I am struggling to find a method to check how much oil they cleaned?
I am experimenting to determine the optimum conditions for microbes to break down motor oil. The conditions I am going to test are different pH levels to resemble freshwater pH and saltwater pH. I ...
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Would it be possible to genetically modify a plant to produce usable antibodies? And if eaten would they be used?
I am thinking of a project where i would Gene edit a plants cells to produce anti bodies that humans could use. Does anyone know
A. what genes to modify?
B. Would the antibodies be usable after ...
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What is a (preferably) flying carnivorous insect that hunts adult fruit flies at a rate that doesn't threaten extinction?
I am forming an experiment, where I will be forcing evolution on Fruit Flies
(Thanks rogue ant) The experiment goes a bit like this;
I will be forming an ecosystem where every abiotic factor is ...
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What insect/invertebrate species evolves fastest?
I am starting an experiment in which I will be forcing evolution in a moderately complex species of insect or invertebrate. I am prepared for the possible longevity of this experiment, but i have no ...
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how to extract garlic fructan?
can anyone tell me a not complicated way to extract fructans from garlic (i have access to highschool lab). I need this to be able to make an experiment on garlic extract and just fructan from garlic ...
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Is there a way to use presence-absence data to inform a sampling design for a more specific survey?
I am currently in the process of designing a spatial survey to assess the abundance/density of woody debris across an ecosystem with multiple defined habitats (i.e. I am interested in not only the ...
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Ensuring all individuals are genetically identical before experiments
I am a beginner in experiment design so please correct me if I made any mistakes. If we want to study the behavioral changes after a particular mutation of a gene, it seems to be a must for all ...
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How do peroxisomes work?
I have this question from my book:
A child is diagnosed with an enzyme deficiency that prevents the production of hydrogen peroxide. What would the likely outcome be of such deficiency?
H2O2 is ...
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Relationship between BMI and age?
I'm trying to study how age as a confounder may affect the relationship between commute mode and BMI (and design a research proposal).
To explain age as a potential confounder, I compared age to ...
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Antimicrobial susceptibility testing
To learn the Kirby-Bauer method, I've been looking at youtube videos where a bacteria's susceptibility is tested.
In this video, the researcher places the discs (containing antibiotics) right after ...
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Can I imbibe seeds before sterilization?
For an experiment I want to germinate lettuce seeds. For logistical reasons it would be convenient to imbibe the seeds by placing them in the cold for 2 days, afterwards I would sterilize the seeds ...
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Most optically transparent muscle phantom?
I am trying to use Schlieren imaging techniques to visualize how a sound wave propagates through muscle tissue.
In the past, when needing to experiment with muscle we would use an agar based muscle ...
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What material is permeable for plant roots, but "impermeable" for fungi & bacteria?
I'm designing an experiment where the roots of the plant will grow in a sterile environment while the shoot will grow in a non-sterile grow room. For this reason the environments of the shoot and the ...
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Question in gel chromatography experiment
Here I am trying to do
gel chromatography to separate vitamin B12 and Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA)
in this experiment, I am using sephacryl s-100 HR gel column
my question is can I use Phosphate ...
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Problem with epoxy silane (Random results in glass silanization). What are crucial points to look at?
I`m trying to immobilize an antibody onto the glass surface by means of GPTOMS (glycidoxypropyl trimetoxy silane). Using the same protocol (silanization in toluene or acidified ethanol (see below)) I ...
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How would one track a mineral nutrient in a plant in order to determine if the nutrient has been remobilized?
Before abscission, senescence of a plant’s structural components that contain mineral nutrients (E.g. Magnesium, Potassium...) are re-mobilized from the senescent tissue and used in other plant tissue ...
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Finding total concentration of enzymes
Sorry if my question is very basic for biology majors because I am not. I am trying to build a mathematical model of a particular pathway using systems of differential equations and in order to reduce ...
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Is there anyway from which we can measure the viscosity of honey using a refractometer?
Is it possible to use a refractometer to measure the viscosity of honey because as we know, a refractometer is used to measure moisture and therefore water influences the viscosity of honey so is ...
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Monitoring fish growth
I am new to experimental design and would like to perform the following experiment but I am not sure if my setup is correct or not so far. My idea is below.
Let's say you want to optimise the growth ...
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Selection marker for a cytoplasmic vector that works at low expression levels?
I need to express a selection marker on a plasmid in human cells (e.g. HEK293). However, I am using a cytoplasmic vector derived from a non-human virus with its own mechanism for transcriptional ...
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What slope do I need to prove a hypothesis? [closed]
I am conducting an experiment for school in which I am measuring people's heart rates as music plays at different tempos. My hypothesis is that as the tempo of the music increases, so will the subject'...
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Ideas for microbiology lab. Antimicrobial properties of cutting boards
I am an undergraduate student in Biology and I am trying to design a microbiology lab that will takes 3 weeks to carry out (1-2 day each week). I am going to examine the antimicrobial properties of ...
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Is there an adhesive that could used for larval fish?
I am currently working on an experimental design that requires a larval fish (~ 4mm long) to be affixed on a metal wire tip on its dorsal side. Now, I was thinking of a glue or adhesive to do the job, ...
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Will amylase inhibitors affect the colorigenic reaction between starch and iodine?
I'm doing an experiment for my IB bio EE involving colorimetry. I'm not experienced at all with colorimetry, so I'm having some trouble planning it. The experiment is on enzyme kinetics, and I'm ...
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Why didn't these scientists restore electrical activity in this pig's brain?
This experiment was published in Nature Magazine: Pig brains kept alive outside body for hours after death. The researchers used a system called BrainEx to revive certain metabolic and physiological ...
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Why don't materials and methods describe culture media in volume?
After reading several materials and methods sections of cell culture experiments, I have not seen the recipe for culture media ever described in terms of volume.
Human adipose tissue was obtained ...
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Computational approaches for making hypotheses about the effects of genetic engineering? Experiment planning methods?
Let's assume that I am searching for gene editing candidates for curing human adiposis. Are there computational frameworks that can allow me to select the best candidate-genes for editing via some ...
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How can I estimate the total number of yeast cell in a medium?
So I want to run an experiment with yeast. I want to monitor the population as close as possible in regard to its size. I am aware I could use a colorimeter or such, but I can only get a microscope. ...
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What would "N" and "V" stand for in DNA barcoding?
I'm currently looking protocol for PAT-seq, and when it talks about the barcoding that's utilized, the documentation mentions there being an "N" and "NN" in the sequence, as well as a "V". For example:...
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How can I measure the population growth of yeast?
I will soon have to carry out an experiment. I want to estimate the rate of growth of a population of yeast, although I don't know if it is possible to at least estimate the number of yeast bacteria ...
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How does the OD correlate with the number of algae cells?
My research team and I are using a spectrometer to measure the OD of an algae sample. We are trying to answer the question "Is there a correlation between OD and the number of algae cells?"
What ...
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Why did scientists think humans had 100,000 genes (before the Human Genome Project)?
One of the major results of the Human Genome Project (HGP) was that humans have far fewer separate genes than previously thought. From a 2004 article about the HGP:
Francis S. Collins, director of ...
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