No excuses...

for GFAJ-1, that is.  (I have plenty of excuses for myself.)

My favourite old-timer microbiologist had lots of PABA and was happy to give me some.  And, after some fussing with the pH to get the folic acid to dissolve, I now have my sterile 500x multi-vitamin stock solution for the specified ML60 culture medium.  And I also have the 1000x trace element solution, thanks to a grad student in another colleague's lab.  So now I can make medium exactly as specified for GFAJ-1 cells to grow in.

I also have fresh single colonies of cells to resuspend and inoculate into this medium.  I'll use the Petroff-Hausser counter and acridine orange staining to count the number of cells the new cultures start with,and recount them every day.