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Thursday, February 7, 2013

Hmmmm....

Well to start off this weeks post, let me tell you how close I am getting to completing my second dichotomous key. I did run into another little problem yesterday with two of my bacteria's results. With the results I have, currently, it looks like Salmonella and S. Marcescens have pretty much all the same results. That is a problem for me because I don't know how to show identification between the two. 
What we decided to do was, attempt growing on a media that I couldn't do at first (because we did not have the media until this week) which is blood agar. Blood agar basically shows the bacteria's capability to breakdown hemoglobin in blood. 
I inoculated all 15 bacteria's yesterday and tried to read them as soon as I got here today.

 






 To sum it all up, my results were unreadable because I was not aware that they had to be inoculated in a candle jar. The picture on the left was one of my more clear results that we were able to read, somewhat, but the others just turned completely brown. Which, I learned, means the blood in the plate had began to oxidase, or had too much exposure to oxygen. 

An example of that could be; the color of blood before it hits the surface (oxygen), then it turns a darker, almost black, color. Basically the same idea. 
















The picture to the right is the correct way I should have inoculated the plates. The plates are put in a jar with an ignited candle on the inside as well (thus the name "candle jar"). This is to remove the oxygen present in the jar.
Then, as extra security, the spaced between the lid (of the jar) and the lip, is parafilmed.   




For some of you that have read my blog, you will see that this is not my first problem or mistake. So, just like the mistakes before I will continue until I find the results I am looking for. I am not too worried about it now because I have a little time to fix LITTLE errors. I do want to get started on my poster for the presentation as soon as possible so it can be done without flaws and I can have enough time to practice what I am going to say. But it looks like once I work through this little problem I can get started on my poster. =)

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