Costs more than its weight in platinum

At the lab here we bought another supply of Applied Biosystems Big Dye version 3.1 cycle-sequencing reagent, used for DNA sequencing. “1000” reactions for $7255. (We dilute it and get a lot more than 1000 reactions.) The ten plastic tubes, in their cardboard box, with the shrink-wrap still on, have a mass of 80.94 grams. That’s 2.6 troy ounces. $2788 per troy ounce. At the moment, gold is about $550 per ounce and platinum $1015. The Big Dye is shipped in a big foam box with a BIG chunk of dry ice to keep it frozen. The box, according to the shipping label, weighed 18 pounds. That’s 263 troy ounces, or $27.6 per ounce. Silver, at the moment, is about $9.10.

We try real hard not to spill it....