Field of Science

Yes, that last experiment was grasping at straws...

That last experiment was motivated more by wishful thinking that by having actually discovered why my GFAJ-1 cells grow inconsistently in arsenate.  Result:  cells in foil-covered glass flasks grew fine without arsenate, not at all with it.


Now I need to put on my serious-science hat and do a test of multiple factors.

Plan:  Prepare large volumes of two parallel mixtures of GFAJ-1 in AML60 medium, one with 40 mM arsenate and one without.  Then place replicates in many different culture conditions.  Plastic screw-cap tubes.  Glass screw-cap tubes.  Loosely capped glass tubes.  Loosely capped plastic tubes. Tiny tubes.  Big tubes.  Foil-covered plastic flasks.  Foil-covered glass flasks.  Screw-capped glass bottles.  Screw-capped plastic bottles.  Large volumes of liquid with little air space.  Small volumes of liquid with lots of air space.  Stationary. Gently rocking.  Shaken, not stirred.  Vigorously agitated.

3 comments:

  1. (sorry if this double posts, it didn't show up before.)
    We used to use cheesecloth covered foam plugs or just cheesecloth covered cheesecloth plugs for some of our algal cultures. I have no idea what kind of foam it was to not melt in the autoclave, but the plugs let in air and did a decent job of keeping everything sterile. They looked like champagne corks once they had shaped to the container. That might be another (though old school) option.

    New poster, btw, but thanks for doing this work, and telling us all about it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This must be very frustrating but many people appreciate your effort. Keep up the good work.

    At least the cartoon looks very much like FWS ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. The cartoon was supposed to be ME, grasping at straws.

    ReplyDelete

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