Day of X: May the 22nd: International Day for Biological Diversity

Image by doug88888 via Flickr

Paralleling today's International Day for Cultural Diversity, tomorrow the United Nations urge us to celebrate Biological Diversity.

The U.N. aim to support biodiversity by protecting endangered species so the range and variety of living things on our planet isn't reduced. It's a nice enough objective, but pretty passive. As always, Day of X recommends that you celebrate proactively, and actually increase biodiversity.

By breeding everything with everything else.

Mmmm...you feel that? It's going to be a good Day.

Your mission is to create at least one completely new species by the end of the day. It may be best to start small, with lifeforms that are at least physiologically compatible - for example, the dogcat has remained an elusive dream for hundreds of years. Maybe this is your day to break that cycle of failure! And all you need in terms of equipment is a pair of heavy gloves and an REO Speedwagon CD.

If you get more ambitious and want to move on to species which are physically unable to mate, you may wish to try DNA recombination. This requires some additional supplies:

1. Agarose gel electrophoresis supplies and equipment
2. One MJ PTC-200 thermocycler
3. A QIAEX II gel extraction kit
4. DpnI restriction endonuclease
5. A reaction buffer

(This is assuming, of course, that you wish to employ a conventional Polymerase Chain Reaction to amplify the DNA segments before recombination).

For the integration process, you will naturally need a recombinase. If you're a beginner, Day of X recommends you go with a good oldfashioned Cre recombinase. Sure, your neighbour may be lording it over you with his flashy RecA recombinase. But at the end of the day you're the one who'll be planting the seeds of a majestic Sheepdog Tree, while his glow-in-the-dark Amphibious Passionfruit remains a distant dream.

And that's your Day for today.