This week, actually, last week too, I have been a failure at science.

There's nothing particularly new about that, and in fact last night after running the same reaction 5 times and getting the same result each time (=fail) we thought we finally got to the bottom of my problems...namely..ahem "operator error". Also known as "my incapability to program the PCR machine correctly and failure to notice the switching of annealing and extension times..five times."

Anyway, in the process of trouble-shooting (pre identification of me being the source of the problem) we threw everything out, made up fresh stuff etc, and so today when I ran it, it really really truly was supposed to work. Except that it didn't.

I came across a number of possible solutions whilst trawling the intertubes for answers, and I have decided on this one:

The Bad Karma Hypothesis.

Background:
This is basically the "God is punishing you" hypothesis. It sometimes gains a great deal of favor.

Symptoms:
- i) All rational explanations have been exhausted and yet PCR still is not working for you.

And if you look closely at that screen-shot you will notice that my lovely, beautiful MacBook now has dirty Windows running in the background.

That's karma for you right there.