Joseph Geha / The Mercury News
The taste of a fresh, perfectly ripe apricot in the middle of a warm summer day can only bring one thing to mind: science.
Well, maybe not.
But at the first-ever Apricot STEM Fair, held at the Los Altos History Museum on Sunday, Silicon Valley’s rich history of family-run apricot orchards came together with modern science fair exhibits, bringing out hundreds of people young and old.
Wide-eyed kids gathered around an exhibit from 23andMe, the Mountain View-based genomics company, where employees were demonstrating how to extract DNA from an apricot, using test tubes, dish soap, salt, water and rubbing alcohol.
“Look at that; that’s DNA,” Patricia Penton of 23andMe said to the kids as she pulled a wooden stick from a test tube with a coagulated strand of genetic information hanging from the end.
“It kind of looks like snot, doesn’t it?” she said…Cont.
Laura Jung and her 7-year-old twins, Juliana and Nikko, watch as DNA is drawn from an apricot at the Apricot STEM Fair, Sunday, June 24, 2018, at the Los Altos History Museum in Los Altos, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
