Don't carry more plates than you can handle securely, don't wink at the president if you are in a parade, and help someone if you see that they are...

....getting their head chopped off in a cafe....

On Monday, January 26, 2009, we streaked strain 53-78 on the agar that we have concluded they grew best on 1/12/09. The original plates were streaked on 1/12/09. We also inoculated tube with the same liquid media as the plates. New plates are labeled with a 2 and the color denotes media. We have 9 strains on R2A, 3 strains on 1/10 PCA, 10 strains on PCA, and 4 strains on MA. Strain #56 is streaked on both MA and PCA. It was streaked on these two media on 1/21/09 because there was no growth on MA. This accounts for the 27 plates and 26 strains. Strains #56 and 68 were not restreaked because of no growth on 1/26/09, so we put them back in the incubator. Strains 53, 60, 67, 70, 69, and 77 did not mix well in the broths. Another unique characteristic of these 6 strains is that they are all dark in color. The new tubes and plates were put in the incubator at 25C. Old plates were put in the cold room.

I dropped the plates streaked on 1/12/09 containing strains #55, 62, and 65. Luckily, there was no obvious contamination on the plates when viewed on 1/28/09.
LESSON: Don’t care more plates than I can hold securely!!
Serial Dilutions were done on the soil sample Golbi-1. The dilutions were done from 10e-1 to 10e-3. The liquid used is 1/10 PCB. 100uL are placed on 3 plates on each of the 4 media for each of the 3 dilutions. The 36 plates are para-filmed and placed in the incubator at 25C. We put the 3 dilution tubes in the incubator at 25C.
Soil samples were radiated with gamma rays to select for radiation resistant organisms. Dr. Rainey’s paper described that desiccation resistant organisms from arid environments are also found to be gamma radiation resistant.
On Wednesday, January 28, 2009, we streaked the organisms from the stock plate that was streaked on 1/12/09 that is kept in the cold room on plates with various amounts of NaCl concentrations in the media that the organisms grow best in. Organisms that were found to grow best on MA were streaked on R2A because of the inherent high salt concentration of the MA. We are attempting to find out the maximum salt concentration that the organism can withstand. The various salt concentrations used were 1%, 3%, 6%, and 9%. The plates were divided into 2 and labeled with the strain number. Similar amounts of organisms were streaked on each plate.
Also on Wednesday, we attempted to find out the optimal temperature and temperature range at which the organism can grow. The temperatures that the organisms are placed in are 10, 25, 30, 37, and 42 C. We restreaked the organisms on the media on which they grew best. We will incubate the organisms for 20 days which is the standard incubation. The organisms will remain incubated at the various temperatures and at 25-30 days of incubation we will find out the optimal growth temperature for each strain.
Finally, we made a list of laboratory phenotypic test we will do. These are listed on Airset and e-mailed to Dr. Rainey.
Also, I found out that if someone ever chops off my head in public no one will help me. Ladies keep your men happy and away from kitchen knives!