Fun with microbes!

Many of you have probably had the chance to go to one of those chemistry "magic shows" with oozing mini-volcanoes, rows of beakers filled with mysterious glowing bright green, blue, and orange liquids, balloons filled with gases that make spectacular bangs or fireballs when lit, and instant ice cream made from liquid nitrogen (mmmm, so good!)

(Chemiluminescence baby! Found this from an article on "Liquid Light" on stevespanglerscience.com)


Well to all you science lovers out there, another "magical" technique worth knowing about is plating bacteria on petri dishes. That's right folks, for us microbiologists its the microbial equivalent of invisible ink, producing magically appearing messages when carefully applied. After 24 hours of incubation the text appears! Michal carefully plated a petri dish yesterday to announce the good news to her lab today:

The stars and microbes have spoken!