I recently found out you can just do this??? Why so easy, omg... I used to open it barely with my fingers, knives, scissors, but all you had to do is this??? Ahhh

Aerobic bacterial culture on a canine stomach swab. Images are growth on blood agar at 48 hours. Originally looked like an environmental bacillus at 24 hours (was normal bacterial colony sized) - but now resembles a fungus (or oomycete? or other?). The microscopic images are from an attempted tape prep using LPCB, taken at 40x. Since the order is for a bacterial culture, we are not required to ID this organism — so this is just out of curiosity! It got subbed to SAB-DEX today, so can’t speak on that growth yet. What could this be!

UPDATE: This appears to be along the lines of Pythium/Lagenidium. It’s most commonly seen in horses and dogs, and informally referred to as “swamp cancer.” Those in vet med will be familiar. I find it to be best visualized using darkfield microscopy and a wet mount. Without sharing more information, it fits all the clinical symptoms as well. So, not quite a fungus, but somewhere in between fungi and algae (aka oomycete)! Mystery solved-ish

Hi, I know this is a long shot, but I’m going to ask anyway.

I’m writing a fictional story about a heroine, and I don’t know anything about Microbiology. She uses her knowledge from the various fields to solve a variety of problems.

The only problem I seem to have is, I’m not sure how to make the subject exciting for the reader to comprehend and understand.

I’ve watched a couple of YT videos on it, and I somewhat know the basics, but still, I really want the story to be embraced by my audience. If I can do that, it might have a positive effect, for many of you in the field, or fields. I’m not sure.

Can you help? Thanks.

Howdy everyone. I am not good at math and feel like I am going crazy with it/thought about it for so long it feels incorrect, so I’ve come to ask for help.

I am diluting a stock sample to inject 10uL of samples at the following concentrations: 10^5, 10^6 and 10^7.

I serially diluted my stock all the way down to 10^-9. Under the hemocytometer, I counted an average of 30 cells at a 1:100 dilution factor. Hemocytometer is typical, at 10^4.

What concentrations will I have if i inject 10uL of 10^5/6/7 serial dilutions? What do I need to do to ensure I am injecting 10uL of 10^5/6/7 conc. into my organisms?

Feeling very dumb about this. 🤦

Hello everyone, I'm Rich (if I indeed was, I wouldn't be here). As the post title states, guide my path. Here's where I'm at and what's up:

• I'm 52.
• I want a career change.
  • I (now) live by 'never too old to start' and 'I'd rather see it through than end my days saying, I should've.' I've already done that long enough.
• I've been fascinated in the stuff specific to the post title since I first saw the movie Outbreak ('95 I think). It's not just 'a thing'. It truly widens my eyes when I see or hear about any of it.
• I'm a military vet with 2 college degrees (AA and BA) in completely unrelated fields. Each is also either so specific in degree or a defunct school it's been a bear to get anything to transfer credit.
  • Let' just pretend I'm coming out of high school.
• I've not taken anything related to STEM and I don't know about the topic of my interest other than that gleaned from excessive amounts of movies, videos, and talking with friends in medical (somewhat related, biology driven). Something about end of the world and the brief moments when I've circled around chemical warfare (military time) lit the fire - so to speak.
• I'm not delusional. Watching my wife go through masters level healthcare and my kids entrenched in the medical school and nursing processes, I respect the time, energy, and effort it takes. I've been supporter and bystander in all of it since day 1.
  • That said, I respect that I'd likely never make it to BIO-4, let alone 3, etc - especially given the time I have left (if I'm all-in I won't even get a BS until I'm like 55+). Maybe "they" don't even hire old ass people.
    • Regardless, it's a goal and I need to put it out there to define the direction. If someone asks, "what are you trying to do?" I can point to that. I want to be in a BIO 4 facility.
• So far, I'm at ground zero and square one. I likely need to and should take CC classes - intro chemistry, basic biology, core math stuff (again, most of my BA classes likely won't transfer as Art School stuff just didn't fit the accreditation - unfortunate because I've done the English, Math (some), Psych, classes already).
• Due to full time work (with freedom and wiggle room to kick that to the side to allow for the career change, if necessary), I'd prefer an ONLINE degree.

So the question?

Immunology, virology, infectious disease, microbiology, or just go general biology and health sciences? There's an element of 'I'm too old to go through a long, drawn out path of 10+ years of school' to finally get my foot in the door', so..

What do you say?? What would you do (don't say, I wouldn't unless that's truly how you feel based on experience).

Thank you!

I have a bachelors degree in microbiology and minor in chemistry. I am ASCP certified in micro too. I never finished my masters due to health complications from COVID and tbh I’m still not the same. I was going to University of Florida and doing it virtually. I really want to get back into the microbiology job force. I worked in clinical micro for like 6-7 years and interned at a sewage treatment plant with a microbiology lab before that, but when I look for jobs it’s really discouraging. I’d like to get a job outside of medical microbiology but it seems like without a higher degree I’ll never be qualified. It’s really disheartening because if I wanted to work in medical microbiology again I’d have to start from scratch and I still have a lot of problems since COVID. Not to mention I haven’t worked in a science field since 2020 when I had to quit my job due to long covid. Any advice ?

Is this wrong???

Google says it's a fungus Aspergillus niger which produces citric acid not any bacteria.

I am in my first year of biochemistry (graduation)

Doing it from a distant learning program

This is a book they provided.

freaked me out but figured im kinda curious about this. basically i cut young branches of a willow tree (which contain indolebutyric and salicylic acid) and infused them in boiling water to create some organic rooting hormone.

the result is a pretty light yellow liquid that i keep in the fridge, but i wanted to try propogate some cuttings so i diluted some in water, and filled a couple jars and left it by a windowsill. what i noticed is that over a few days it darkened to a deep orange/rust, and like a week later i check it and it's got all this bacteria/mould on the top.

im kinda confused since the acids are antifungal, but even if they denatured, this got mouldy way faster than normal water does. im definitely no expert on the matter, but im super interested to know what's going on

I believe this is c.krusei but not so sure if the plate grows an unidentified strain or not. what are your ideas?

35 hours of incubation in 36 degrees. chromagar

* PMID: **42654240 -** [**https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42654240/\*\*\](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42654240/)

# Abstract

**Background/objectives:** Dietary modifiers of the gut ecosystem may influence intestinal and host responses associated with psychological stress. However, it remains unclear whether sucralose, a widely consumed non-nutritive sweetener, alters host-microbiota interactions following chronic stress exposure. We investigated the effects of short-term experimental sucralose exposure in mice previously subjected to chronic restraint stress (CRS).

**Methods:** Following completion of the CRS protocol, mice received 0.03% or 0.1% sucralose in drinking water for 12 days. Intestinal phenotypes, cecal microbial community structure, microbial metabolites, colonic epithelial gene expression, and epithelial serotonergic responses following allyl isothiocyanate (AITC)-induced visceral stimulation were evaluated.

**Results:** Colon length was significantly reduced in the 0.1% sucralose group, whereas intestinal permeability remained unchanged. Sucralose selectively altered colonic epithelial gene expression and was associated with changes in cecal microbial community structure without marked changes in alpha diversity. The relative abundance of Bacteroides acidifaciens was significantly reduced, particularly in the 0.1% sucralose group. Fecal acetate and cecal tryptophan concentrations were decreased following sucralose exposure. Following AITC-induced visceral stimulation, the CRS + 0.1% sucralose group exhibited reduced immobility behavior together with increased epithelial serotonin and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid concentrations.

**Conclusions:** In mice previously exposed to CRS, short-term sucralose exposure was associated with colon shortening, differences in cecal microbial community structure, reduced Bacteroides acidifaciens abundance, decreased fecal acetate and cecal tryptophan concentrations, and altered epithelial serotonergic responsiveness following visceral stimulation. The behavioral and epithelial serotonergic findings suggest that prior stress exposure may influence selected host responses to sucralose. These findings provide a basis for future studies examining how dietary sweeteners modify host-microbiota interactions following chronic stress exposure

are these considered as gram positive cocci? the one encircled and the small dots in purple?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266651742600115X

Is it okay if the gram stain result from sample collected is different when the gram stain came from inoculated media?

The media I used: MacConkey Agar

Cultures used: Serratia Marcescens (Red)

Acinetobacter Baumanni (Bright Pink)

Escherichia Coli (Lavender)

Hi everyone,

I’m a 3rd-year B.Sc. Biotechnology student from Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, and I have to complete a 3-month dissertation/research project as part of my course.

I’m interested in areas like Cancer Biology, Cell Biology, Molecular Biology and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), but I’m honestly a little confused about where and how to find a good lab/institute for my dissertation.

I have started contacting professors through email, but I’m not getting much response, so I would really appreciate some guidance from people who have already done their dissertation/internship.

My questions:

How should I approach professors/research labs?

Which institutes/labs are usually open to B.Sc. Biotechnology students for short-term projects?

Is cold-emailing professors the right approach?

What should I look for before choosing a lab?

Any tips for getting a 3-month research opportunity would be really helpful.

If anyone has experience with this or can guide me regarding the process, I would genuinely appreciate your advice. 🙏

Thank you!

I have been working on antimicrobial compound from actinobacteria Targeting AMR, I want to use LCMS/MS with library features to know my compound can anyone help me with that. I'm from VIT, vellore

Media: MSA (left) and Nutrient Agar (right)

Organism: Staphylococcus

Hoping that someone here can help with this question and that it is appropriate for the discussion. I do microbiology work in my basement (mainly mushroom growing) and want to confirm the quality of the air with some comparisons between various rooms in the basement.

I remember an ambient air quality dish that made use of petri dishes left open for a specific period followed by incubation. Can anyone point me to a procedure?

Hi everyone!

I've been working on archAIons.com, an AI-guided tool that analyzes full-length Nanopore 16S sequencing data and turns thousands of DNA sequences into a species-level microbiome profile in seconds.

We recently benchmarked it against several established tools using mock microbiome samples, and archAIons achieved 100% recall of the expected species and the highest species-level F1 among the five approaches tested.

You can see the benchmark here:
archaions.com/benchmark

There is also a free trial, so if you have Nanopore 16S data, I'd love to see people try their own samples and share what they find.

Feedback is very welcome!

Hace años tengo un tacho a la sombra donde junta agua de lluvia para regar. Siempre tuvo restos de hierros oxidados adentro, pero nunca había tenido bichos, mosquitos ni nada raro. Sin embargo, en apenas cuatro meses se armó una estructura masiva de unos 30 centímetros con forma de tubos alargados y de color marrón/naranja.

Me gustaría saber qué es y si es tóxico, malo o cómo descartarlo. Puede ser un hongo o una colonia de bacterias? Intenté buscar imágenes similares, pero no hay nada que coincida en google con esto.