IGEM:IMPERIAL/2007/Projects/Experimental Design/Improve Methodology/Results2

Aims
The aim of this experiment was to test for the amount of evaporation from the samples with respect to the amount of mineral or paraffin oil added to the top of the samples. The experiment was carried out on the  11-09-2007

Discussion
A summary and graph of the results are shown below. The results show us that using 20ul and above of mineral or paraffin oil will prevent evaporation over a 17 hour period. Using 90ul seemed to be more effective because although 20ul did clearly stop alot of evaporation, some was still present. However, two problems were found when measuring: From the results we have decided to use above 30ul in our experiments this is because we feel that although evaporation is minimal we need to try to prevent any evaporation. To determine the exact amount we will look at the results from the test of fluorescence with oil. In terms of methodology we have noted that pipetting mineral oil slowly and with lower volumes improves upon problem 1 above.
 * 1) Measuring oil accurately is difficult because of the capillary action of the gilson pipette
 * 2) Measuring the samples out of the wells because of the difficulty in pipetting small volumes from the wells.