Today I spent the morning brushing up on some reading, looking at a review article done by Bai, et al. This article described research very similar to my own, because they are also using spectroscopy to look at the ion atmosphere around Nucleic Acids. They did not use precipitated DNA though, rather they use a buffer equilibrium technique to preserve the atmosphere around the DNA. They found that the total ions around the DNA almost always was within error of exactly compensating for the DNAs negative charge. They also studied the competition between different molecules with similar charges, finding that bulkier polyions were often less competitive than the alkali and alkaline earth ions. I then spent the afternoon brushing up on my OES skills, preparing and running a test series and calibrations set.
