I finished some much needed yardwork over the weekend. My compost bin is now topped off with the copious spoils of a battle with overgrown straw and overambitious blackberry vines. That’s enough mass to get the compost into the thermophilic stage; I’m looking forward to seeing it steam in the mornings.
What’s really cool is that [...]
Lab was the pick-me-up I had hoped for. The lab manager accidentally made the Pseudomonas stock broth way too concentrated, so our plates came back covered in the stuff. They looked like giant, corroded pennies. The pigment was definitely neat. I took a whiff (and even convinced some lab mates to do the same), and while the odor [...]
In the spirit of the holiday, I present to you a bit of information on members of the informal genus Vampirococcus.
It’s a neat little bug that nestles next to members of Chromatium, forms a cytopathic bridge, and sucks out all their yummy cytoplasm. You generally hear about it as an example epibiont when people discuss [...]
My prof is big into metaphorical explanations.
She often refers to enzymes as Oompa-loompas, I think this is a perfect way to think of them.
Last week was spent putting the finishing touches on, tearing down, and re-finishing my slides on microbial bioremediation. It was pretty fun, and the first presentation I’ve prepared in a while. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I ended up learning about topic I felt pretty solid on (well, solid enough for a 15 [...]
All water is poo water. Unless you want your guts eaten, your brain eaten, or cysts in your tissues, don’t swim and stick to beer.
Last night’s lab was spent learning about and inoculating more selective and differential media. We were mainly differentiating based on carbohydrate catabolism using fermentation tubes, MRVP broth, starch agar, OF-glucose media, and Simmon’s citrate. We’ll see the results on Tuesday.
We’re building up a toolbox of techniques we can use to work through a d-key and [...]
On studying for the staining portion of a lab practical, “How do they cram all that Gram?”
I started two Winogradsky columns this past weekend.
They’re really simple to set up and were invented by Sergei Winogradsky, one of the founding fathers of soil microbiology. The basic concept is that you get some mud and water, put it all in a semi-sealed tube exposed to light, and watch as bugs set up shop.
The [...]
Wonder if it would’ve been better if I’d kept Data’s song in my head?
Life forms,
You tiny little life forms!
You precious little life forms
Where are you?
Data sings about life forms
RSS Feed