Run and Tumble

Someone in the previous lab session threw out my plates, so no data on what’s in my kittie’s guts, and if their different diets affect what lives in them. Had to spend most of the lab sitting on my thumbs waiting for another group to finish so I could use their plate.

Got a microscope in the mail, but not the one I ordered. Ugh.

Things are looking a little up, I’m working things out with the scope supplier and lab promises to be interesting tonight. We inoculated some Pseudomonas aeruginosa last week on media that induces their characteristic blue-green pigment. I’ve been wanting to see this ever since I found of P. aeruginosa makes it;, the specific epithet even means ‘copper rust’. We’ve been using that bug all semester, but it doesn’t seem to want to express the pigment on TSA, so I’m looking forward to the pretty colors tonight.

I’m also going to see if I can get a whiff of the distinct odor (previous plates shared space with less-than-pleasant smelling bugs) and maybe even get use of the UV lamp to look for fluorescein.