Science activity fruit-full

Young scientist Hope Le Gray (5), from Wyndham School, extracts DNA from a banana at Otago Museum on Saturday, assisted by museum staff member Rachel MacJeff.

The activity was part of a science show at the museum.

University of Otago biochemistry lecturer Dr Nathan Kenny said children mashed bananas and mixed in hot water, detergent and salt to liberate the DNA.

A filtering process and adding isopropanol enabled the DNA to be separated and left behind, he said.

Children could also watch a genome being sequenced on a screen.