Run and Tumble

One of the stations at the lab practical last week had us streaking skin swabs onto blood agar. That was my first time using that medium, I’m looking forward to seeing what grew. I chose to swab my chin, since I’ve got a beard, most people don’t pick the chin area, and beards may be a minor hazard in micro lab (sorry, Movember friends).

I’ve realized that since my 30th birthday, I’ve had many more days where I’m growing bugs than days where I’m not. It may be silly, but this makes me pretty happy.

Edit: Blame it on stress during an exam.  The skin swabs went on MSA, not BA, which we’ll be using for throat swabs. All this makes sense, given the environments of skin and MSA. My beard came back with a higher than normal, but not super high bacterial count. Very nicely defined mannitol acid zones. No really scary bugs, just the usual Staphylococcus spp. suspects. Waiting on a trehalose test to narrow one down.