Sunday, November 16, 2008

Misbehaving microbes

Apparently, my body is a sterile field, free of microbial life. I have cultured myself and come up empty.

Not only that, but I have a condensation problem.

The pretty pictures in my lab book with well-lit, glowing circles of bacteria on a dry plate form a stark contrast to my drippy, singed specimens.

Yes, singed. I'm pretty sure I burned one of them. Note to inner lab genius: do not incubate culture plates inside of Tupperware. Rather like a hot car in the Texas sun, this method will lead to a petri dish filled with death and not pretty pictures.

As much as the plates in the first picture look teeming with life, that is merely a ghostly silhouette of evaporating media while it struggled in the heat. Must reorder supplies.


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