Let's get this bread

  I have selected samples 3 and 4 which were a control starter and a banana starter. I found the Lactobacillus plantarum microbe was present in the banana starter and not the control. This microbe is used in the fermentation of many foods due to its ability to produce lactic acid. By producing lactic acid and other antimicrobial compounds, Lactobacillus plantarum degrades lactose, acidifies it, and produces aromatic compounds. This also contributes to the safety, flavor, and texture of the fermented food https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1687157X18300234 . There has been research that found that Lactobacillus plantarum is a common microbe found in bananas in Taiwan https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28229214/ . Here is the sequenced genome of L. plantarum https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/?term=Lactobacillus%20plantarum[Organism]&cmd=DetailsSearch . This microbe has also been found in the GI tract of humans. It’s been discovered that certain genes are responsible fo

Here are some cool science communication examples that I found on platforms that I use quite often: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMefqVfGP/ Bill Nye TikTok I like that all videos are less than a minute. This allows the audience to be engaged and have a shorter attention span since the videos are shorts. I also like how he talks about a variety of different topics and isn’t just focused on one particular part of science. I think he could post more. He usually only posts 1-2 times a month so new content isn’t coming out very often. Accessibility to these videos might be hard for those with vision or hearing impairments because most people use tik tok on their phones and for people with vision impairments it could be damaging to their eyes and people with hearing impairments may struggle to hear what is being said and putting captions on the videos is not an option. https://pin.it/6MIGm5s NASA Pinterest NASA’s pinterest is interesting to me because it includes a wide variety of photos which help

  This week I looked at Erin https://yeastperfection.blogspot.com/ and Gioia’s https://yeasterday-gn312.blogspot.com/ blog to find out what research questions they were asking. Both had questions regarding the types of microbes in the samples. Erin specifically wanted to know what species were correlated to which controls and what types of fruits. Gioia wanted to know what species are the most universal in the starters. Both of these questions could be feasibly answered by gathering data from all the starters and putting them in graphs like the QIIME we looked at a couple weeks ago. Some different questions they had that I liked were “Does aroma correlate more strongly with fungal or bacterial types present?” (Erin) and “ Are there certain types of fruit/treatment groups that tend to have the same microbial makeup?” (Gioia). Gioia’s question was similar to one I asked previously. Erin’s question may be a little harder to answer just because we submitted aromas based on what we though

  Sequencing the starters What are we sequencing?  We are sequencing the starters to find what nucleotide sequences and microorganisms are present. Specifically we are sequencing the 16S rRNA gene which is bacterial and the ITS region which is fungal. https://ncsu.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=2288bbf2-6cd8-4faf-885b-acd8010517c2&start=15.579365    Amplicon-based metagenomic sequencing This type of DNA sequencing has pros and cons. When looking at the pros, this type of sequencing is frequently used for exactly what we are looking for, identifying microbial species. Cons to this type of sequencing is that it can be very time consuming with all the different tubes and containers and markers that are put in the samples to be able to tell which is which. It seems to me that the shotgun metagenomic sequencing would be easier because you don’t have to worry about doing everything that you do with amplicons before sequencing, you can just look at all the DNA without hav

Update on the starters On Wednesday the starters were submitted for sequencing! Last feeding of the starters: Control- smells like a fresh loaf of bread Banana- not much of a smell but lots of bubbles today Lime- still smells like spoiled milk, also has lot of bubbles R

 Rising rate experiment Time measurement was taken Experimental time point  Control starter height from bottom of cup (cm) Banana starter height from bottom of cup (cm) Lime starter height from bottom of cup (cm) 10:00 am 0 min 2.2 cm 1.9 cm 1.8 cm 1:15 pm 195 min 2.2 cm 2.2 cm 2.2 cm 4:05 pm 365 min 2.2 cm 2.3 cm 3 cm 7:00 pm 540 min 2.2 cm 2.5 cm 3.5 cm 10:00 pm 715 min 2.3 cm 2.8 cm 3.8 cm 7:45am (day 2) 1305 min 3.2 cm 3.2 cm 3.5 cm 11:00 am 1500 min 3.2 cm 3.2 cm 3.5 cm 1:30 pm 1650 min 3.2 cm 3.2 cm 3.5 cm