Bacillus Studious

Hi, I'm Lina and I'm a BTHS student :) -Click on the photos below to explore my posts. -You can find out more about me and explore my blog using the sidebars to the left and right. Enjoy!

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The Scientist aesthetic

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An oscillating reaction is characterized by rhythmic variations in concentration of the chemical categories that participate in it. The periods of these oscillations remain constant while the rooms remain so, so they work like real chemical clocks.

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Conducting heat shock on E. coli to promote uptake of our ligated plasmid!

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After conducting heat shock, we plated our bacteria along with a control bacteria which already had the Kanamycin resistant plasmid. By plating on Kanamycin, we can ensure that only transformed bacteria are grown. As you can see, quite a lot of our bacteria was effectively transformed since we had a LOT of growth on our ligation plate!

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Tetra SafeStart at 1000x magnification!

It’s super cool because you can see that there’s actual bacteria in the bottle!  I took this photo for my biology IA regarding aquarium biological supplements and their efficacy in establishing nitrogen cycles.  I gram stained a little sample of Tetra SafeStart to see the bacteria more clearly.

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Close up photo of our gel!

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Results!  The lane closest to the edge of the gel is a DNA ladder (or DNA standard).  Next to it is the solution we created in which we ligated the plasmid and kanamycin resistance gene.  And next to that is an unligated control solution containing the separated plasmids and kanamycin genes.

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We’re working on transforming bacteria using plasmids this week!  First we ligated the kanamycin resistance gene to a plasmid, and now we’re testing to see if the ligation was carried out correctly using gel electrophoresis.  If we see DNA bands of 4,300 bp in our ligated solution, we’ll know that the ligation was carried out successfully since the plasmid is 3,000 bp and the kanamycin gene is 1,300 bp.  Sometimes the plasmids and genes get ligated together incorrectly so it’s important to check to make sure the solution contains viable plasmids for use in transformation.

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Sorry about this post being a day late!  I have a big bio project that I’ve been working on.

Anyways, yesterday my Arabidopsis seedlings sprouted.  They are SO tiny.  I couldn’t help but squeal just a little at how cute they were.  Anyways, we’re essentially testing their salt tolerance right now, so I moved about 9 of the seedlings to a “high salt” plate in the tissue culture lab so I can compare the root growth of the plants in high salt vs low salt agar.  In total, about 80% of the seeds I planted germinated.  Sadly, the condensation in the plates ended up drowning a couple of them, though.  Nevertheless, I still have 9 good replicates for both the high salt and low salt groups.  I’m looking forward to seeing their growth tomorrow!

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Today in AED:  After our MS Agar was autoclaved, I finally got the chance to do my favorite thing in the world: pour and label plates.

We heated up our MS agar on hot plates (which is so much easier than using a microwave) and I’m proud to say that I didn’t burn mine lol.  But honestly pouring plates is so fun to me.  Even though some would call it tedious, I love doing methodical work.  Labellng and taping plates together is especially fun as well.

We also bleached our Arabidopsis thaliana seeds to prepare them for culture.  It’s amazing how 300 seeds can fit in such a tiny little portion of a microtube.  

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Here’s a sample of some algae from my aquarium at 400x

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Here are some cool looking photos of a not so good Gram stain I did today at home.  I love the colors... even botched microscope slides look beautiful.  

We had our first A day this year today, which means I had Chem this morning.  We started working on a lab.  Pretty simple stuff really, just to help us learn about measurements and uncertainty and sig figs.  I can’t wait for AED tomorrow!  We’re learning about Arabidopsis thaliana.

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I had a pretty fun and low key day in Advanced Experimental Design today. I got to organize lab supplies and clean up the lab tape dispenser. It’s just so satisfying putting all the tape in rainbow order…

Anyways, today in AED we did a scavenger hunt around the lab to look for various lab supplies and orient ourselves with what goes where.  Lemme just tell y’all that my group won.  All because no one could find where the nematode growth agar was.  How did I know?  I had stopped by during lunch to lend a helping hand and unpack lab supplies.  I was in charge of the nematode agar, so I knew exactly where to find it when the time came.  

Chem was alright today, we did an AIM 7 just to prove that we knew how to measure volumes using different types of flasks and beakers.  

In Bio we had “biology show and tell” where each of us brought in an object/picture/article that we thought was cool or that inspired us to become biologists.  I brought in a vial of river water from the river behind my house because I have always been super interested in marine biology and river ecosystems.  I had a great time watching people’s faces light up as they talked about what inspired them to be curious about science.  Good day overall.  

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Microbiologist Recreated Vincent van Gogh’s 'Starry Night' With Bacteria In A Petri Dish For Microbiology Art Contest

Microbiologist Melanie Sullivan submitted her microbiology masterpiece of Vincent van Gogh’s replica of Starry Night in a petri dish filled with bacteria to the American Society for Microbiology’s first Agar Art competition. The contest encourages microbiologists to get in touch with their artistic side and create a piece of art with the use of science.

Most of the materials used were proteins, yeast and bacteria to create stunning fields of scenery.

We invite you to look at this year’s winner, as well as other notable submissions by several scientists who have created ingenious pieces of landscape and abstract work in a lab. Check out the stunning submissions below, and view the winning works below.

Keep reading

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Seriously, getting new mildliners increases my urge to study by like 20000% percent

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Using Christmas break to catch up on some Japanese :)