Fred was able to use the machine to prove that Gus has the genetic mutation that causes ginger hair

That's nothing. I was able to use just a simple color photograph to prove that Gus has the genetic mutation that causes ginger hair.

i hope the owners of Taq sue his pants off.

s/DNA testing machine/PCR thermocycler/

Walker: Yeah, that whole "UK people have bad teeth" thing is just a stereotype. They have perfectly normal orange teeth. Wait, what?

They're just reflecting the color of his brother's hair.  They look fine when he's not around.

/seriously, good on this kid, that's cool

'To identify my brother's mutation I opted for sequencing which I couldn't do at home so I had to send the sample to a lab.

He built a PCR but didn't do any DNA testing.  PCR is the easy part.

He sent the dna to a lab to be tested...

Nerds.

devek: He sent the dna to a lab to be tested...

But he built the lab in his home, and cloned the asian graduate students to staff it.

Who has that Kick A Ginger Day news pic?

Wonder if it explains these guys?

Just one redhead ...

He built a thermocycler.  He could have used a few water baths and an egg timer, then tranferred tubes.

Tedious, but quicker than building this from scratch.

Do we believe the caption or the article?  Did it cost £250 or £400?

utah dude:
i hope the owners of Taq sue his pants off.

s/DNA testing machine/PCR thermocycler/

That patent ship has long since sailed, my friend.  Besides, even back then, when you bought the enzyme you also paid nominally for a limited non-commercial license.

Donkey Hodie:
Do we believe the caption or the article?  Did it cost £250 or £400?

[i49.tinypic.com image 660x200]

I'm gonna go with £250 in the final product, plus another £150 spent farking up the prototypes.

Not only did he not actually do any DNA testing (only DNA amplification, which he could have had done at the same lab that actually analyzed his sample), he didn't even prove what he set out to - that both he and his brother shared a father.  All he did was prove his brother had the genes for ginger hair... which was obvious anyway, and has nothing to do with proving shared paternity.

17 year old builds thermocycler big woop.

satanorsanta: 'To identify my brother's mutation I opted for sequencing which I couldn't do at home so I had to send the sample to a lab.

He built a PCR but didn't do any DNA testing.  PCR is the easy part.

It's a temperature chamber with some reagents in it. Still, this kid's got some good skills. I'm just surprised no one called this a DNA 3D printer yet.

From the headline, I thought RFLP analysis.

I thought he did a restriction digest of DNA extracted from cells from every member of his family and a nonfamily control and ran large format gels to show that they were related.

He spent money to prove that the Postman was a ginger?