High-Tech Ways Genomics is Changing Field Biology

To figure out an organism's genome and DNA sequence, field biologists need big, expensive equipment in the labs. But, new high-tech devices help scientists to examine samples on the sites!

Hosted by: Hank Green

----------
----------
Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever:

Silas Emrys, Charles Copley, Drew Hart, Jeffrey Mckishen, James Knight, Christoph Schwanke, Jacob, Matt Curls, Christopher R Boucher, Eric Jensen, Lehel Kovacs, Adam Brainard, Greg, GrowingViolet, Ash, Laura Sanborn, Sam Lutfi, Piya Shedden, KatieMarie Magnone, Scott Satovsky Jr, charles george, Alex Hackman, Chris Peters, Kevin Bealer

----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
----------
Sources:

Image Sources:

[alexanderofrhodes]

I'm a biology student, tackling my first real research in the Fall. There's an exciting future in this field!

[hibryd]

then they named it the minion, ensuring it'll be buried under an ocean of meme's about yellow cartoon characters and will be virtually impossible to find information about. -_-'

[Beryllahawk]

Watching Hank happy-roar about THE FUTURE while his shirt bears an also happy-roar face
Perfect

[WilliamDye-willdye]

My job is to help design and make equipment like that! One customer took our device into a Madagascar jungle because the DNA they're collecting tends to deteriorate quickly. Another is using it for fast COVID-19 testing in a small rural hospital. It's nice to see a SciShow video about what we do.

[kldogol]

You don't know how it feels to send your sample to another country far far away for up fo 3 months just to see a 'broken' sequence... That's really hurt me in my meow meow

[Revoltine]

Part of why I'm excited to dip my feet into Nutrigenomics is precisely because of these fascinating apparatus that just make these complex processes so simple and remove the logistics nightmare that is lugging huge equipments from one place to another.

[IanGrams]

I was hoping the minION would be mentioned. I was just recently reading up on it and nanopore sequencers in general. Too darn cool that it's now possible to get a sequencer for less than 5k and it's small enough to take it with you.

[saims.]

Hank: You know what else was huge?
Me: expecting something cooler*
Hank: *The Equipment*

[thomashughes_teh]

Dr. McCoy's medical tricorder might be obsolete before it's even invented.

[MaskedNozza]

This blows my mind that these devices exist. The MinION especially! Very cool tech!

[robertsnearly]

Funny how this shows up when just the other day, I was screaming to myself in my head...We are now living the future we dreamed of and THEN some. I am 65 (1/2) and grew up on both the Flintstones and the Jetsons. Granted, a lot is missing yet but there are things we could only have known since we finally knew what questions to ask. A lot of that too.

[PeriwinkleKat]

(Genetics PhD candidate here) I got to hold a minION at a genome sequencing workshop I attended back in 2015. The best part? What was used as a size comparison. Banana, stapler, small loaf of bread... geneticists are all a bunch of nerds.

[saikashyap]

Hank is Always excited when he in any video

[kevinluna]

Wow! The way that portable genetic material sequencer works by correlating a specific voltage to a nucleotide is genius! However, I imagine the ones that work at labs offer more accurate mappings. This kind of developments makes me think that maybe I should get into grad school to study something related to this subject. Maybe, as a plan B.

[clockworkkirlia]

That is... Beyond amazing. I love this. It's only so long before each wikipedia entry on a species links to its genome.

[MANYWWWWWWWWWWWWSU]

Always awesome vids. Keep up the good work! 🤗🤗🤗

[LumTheAlien]

This device will have a particularly postitve effect on fields like Bioinformatics, as they relay on establishing a wide genetic base to make coralations to specific genes.

[e.v.k.]

Gene editing is taking us to new Levels

[emarmstrong]

I wish I had access to one of these 3 years ago, it would have made everthing so much easier

[Nuri-sust]

The mechanism this minion works... Holy cow! Not what I expected