Run and Tumble

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.

Tonight we’re going to be using Bergey’s Manual to identify some unknowns.   It’s basically the book for bacterial identification and classification. I’ve been wanting to get a look at Bergey’s since the first time I read about it, so I’m super jazzed for lab!

(edit: This was written last Saturday, but I accidentally saved it as a draft, rather than publishing it.)
We were assigned an extra credit project, make an 8 to 15 slide presentation deck on a microbiology topic of our choice.
I’m doing mine on microbial bioremediation, of course. I’m amused that my biggest problem is figuring out [...]

Small Things Considered is running a great article wherein Ted Park recalls uncovering the way way penicillin works.
I find articles like this fascinating. It would be nice if there were more written experiences of “I didn’t know, but I had some hunches, so I tried this, this and this.  A colleague mentioned such-and-such and that [...]

Test #2 is slated for tomorrow. I’m all studied up. I don’t have any problems with the material. A few of the practice questions had subtly different answers where one was ‘kind of right’ and the other was ‘just a little righter’. If anything besides brainfarts or rushing trips me up, [...]

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 [...]

Remember the lab practical I was worried about?  I still think I should practice the areas I pointed out, but we got our grades back, and I did very well. So, that’s one less thing to worry about.

Finished lab practical #1 last night. I think I did ok, but I did mess up a bit. Here’s where I’m predicting I lost points, and subsequently, what I’ve got to focus on.

Ran out of time before finishing 3rd streak on my streak plate. I’ve got to learn to work a little [...]

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 [...]

We did streak plates earlier this week and I had a blast.
I’d been looking forward to doing a streak plate since before I even fully decided to take a class. Streaking is really basic and easy, but it elegantly solves one of the earliest problems in microbiology, “How do you isolate bacteria from the hodge [...]