Data (observations):

Step 1: -Strawberry had a moderately sweet smell, was at room temperature -Red in colour, has a bumpy outer surface (stem was removed) -During the crushing, the strawberry changed from a solid to a semi liquid state Step 2: -The strawberry became more of a liquid, few solid pieces left -As the strawberry was crushed even further, it became a slimy liquid -Sweet and salty odour Step 3: -The solution was a dense liquid, with very few solid pieces left -Drained slowly through the cheese cloth, due to the thickness of the solution -The colour was now more of a dark pink Step 4: -The solution became less dense after dishwashing solution was added -Many bubbles could be seen -thin white lines could be seen in the solution Step 5: -No change in consistency -Bubbles disappeared Step 6: -Ethanol stayed on top of solution -Ethanol- clear, odourless, transparent, liquid -Strawberry/dish soap solution stayed on the bottom Step 7: -White cloudy DNA strands started to form in-between the two solutions -DNA- Stringy, sticky, off white colour, had a thick constancy, clumpy -DNA stuck to the glass stir stick

Analysis (Questions):
a) The DNA strands had stickiness to them because DNA contains a sugar-phosphate backbone, and sugar when wet, naturally becomes a sticky substance. The other reason why they were sticky strands is because DNA is polar, and so is the glass stir stick that we used to examine and collect the DNA. Polar attracts polar, so that also accounted from the stickiness of the DNA strands, and why they stuck to the glass rod.

b) The DNA extracted from the strawberry was not pure, because if it was pure DNA, either all of the strawberry substance would have turned into the mucus like strands, or none of it would have. This purity could have been affected by genetically modified foods, because this tempers with the strawberries original DNA. c) The strawberries were crushed very finely because more surface area needed to be created, the more surface area the greater the amount of cells that would be exposed, thus causing an increase in the amount of DNA collected as the final product. If this step was omitted, it would have hindered the amount of DNA that was extracted, it also would have taken the reaction much longer to occur because the strawberry would first have to decompose, to allow access to the cells. d) Dish washing detergents work by breaking down the oils, fats etc. It contains usually around 30% phosphate, which contributes to the detergents ability to break down, and decompose foods. They, in some cases, also contain enzymes that help break down protein based stains even further. In this protocol, the detergent worked to break down the cell membrane, so that the DNA cells could be accessed and easily extracted. e) The role of papain played a key part in the DNA extraction. It caused the DNA to become much more malleable, which allowed it to stick to the glass rod as it was being swirled. It essentially made the DNA soft, so that it could be easily picked up. f) Three properties of DNA that were demonstrated in this reaction were, that DNA forms long strands which consist of several hundred nucleotides. This was demonstrated when we swirled the glass rod around in the substance and many long strands of DNA clung to the rod. DNA is a polar molecule, which is able to fully dissolve in water. In this experiment ethanol was used, which is also a polar molecule, but the DNA did not fully dissolve in the ethanol because it was cold, which caused it to slow down the reaction. Ethanol is also slightly less polar then water, so this caused the dipole- dipole attractions, between the two, too not be as strong. Finally, DNA exists in the nucleus, as a solid state. Even though in this experiment it was submerged in both ethanol and many other liquids, it was still able to hold its solid state. This is because of the many bonds it forms between its nucleotides, phosphate groups, sugar and nitrogenous bases. g) Possible sources of error could be, that measurements of the substances were not one hundred percent accurate, thus causing the reaction to react either too quickly or too slowly, depending on the difference in measurements. Human errors such as contaminating the beakers, pipettes, glass rods and the strawberry itself could also contribute to an error in the experiment. Not letting the solutions sit for the correct amount of time could have disabled the reaction from fully completing. Not completely mashing the strawberry, adding the ethanol too quickly to the solution, and stirring the dish soap not gently enough could have also affected the final results.