h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I had already sterilised the TSA agar I was trying to melt, but had forgotten about it for a while and left it in my cupboard.... it stills stays sterile for quite a while I'm told!
Anyway I didnt melt it quite enough, because when I got near the bottom of the flask, solid chunks started plopping onto the plates!

I find the best way to do it is not to let it set, but to handle it as soon as its cool enough after coming out of the autoclave. Saves a lot of thumb-twiddling while waiting for it to melt.

I like E. coli too, very easy to count as they are nice and round and fluffy

E.Coli has to be one of the most studied organisms! It turned out that I wasn't supposed to call them cute when writing up.

i know how you feel! i've gotten into many an argument with people because i kept on insisting that e. coli were such lovely little lab pets, and its little buddies were our friends, but others thought otherwise...

(of course i suppose it didn't help that i also told them they had ten billion - 10^12 - microbes in their mouth, and more than 10 million in their gut...)

Well I checked on my little E. coli buddies today, must I must have done something terribly wrong with the plates! Some were all cracked and dried up, and some had been infiltrated by some dastardly Bacillus!

Assuming no-one messed with them, could there be something wrong with the incubation cabinet? Sometimes equipment does break down or start behaving oddly.

Yes! I would like to join the Campaign!
I love microbes

I'm going to do an entry about MRSA after seeing the ludicrous report on the news. just a short entry

hello leo, and welcome to the campaign! here's your complimentary cup of yoghurt . there's plenty of flavouring and additional fruit in the cupboard.



that wasn't so bad, was it? you can collect your shiny new badge at A1001854.

oh, and i think your mrsa article idea is great! i'll be looking out for it in pr. perhaps one day we should all get together and write an article about nosocomial diseases...

I thought that about a thing on the radio about that earlier, I listened to... 'Super bugs'....

has anyone done anything about probiotics? there could be a link from "microbes good or bad" or better still add it as another section

its in writing workshop at the moment - see what you think

Yes! I would like to join the Campaign!
As a gardener with a thriving compost heap, I'm forever feeding my local microbes. I love the little blighters and so to my vegetables! Biology rules ok -redpeckhamthegreatwinkeye

hello, red, and welcome to the campaign! here's your complimentary cup of yoghurt , and you have a shiny badge awaiting you at A1001854.

now you probably remember that i've mentioned doing the occasional branding.... now you know where i do it. step forward, please.






oh, and leo - great idea about the probiotics article! (that was a big discussion issue in my food microbiology class. did you know lactobacilli will only remain in the gut for about 8 days after being ingested?) will you be undertaking the writing-up?

yeah, no probs. everybody look at my MRSA article please in writing workshop and criticise appropriately!

thanks for the welcome fellow enthusiast; I've seen the shiny badge but where do i get the dam code?

If you really don't know how to do it, see <./>Test1001854</.> (test shows the code for an A-number page and TestUserPage shows the code for a U-number personal space page).

Can't you make it a bit easier than that like all the other societies do. I'll get round to it sometime maybe. Or maybe I just won't bother - we're not all s

Well you had already managed to put your page into GuideML mode. Knowing about the test facility would have allowed you to find out about more things than just this. However, the simplest way of displaying the badge is by adding this code somewhere in your page:



There are extra things you might do to EMBED or CENTER it but that's the minimum.

you probably don't know this sef, but i took the *longest* time discovering that testpage stuff! i used to get blob numbers and table art codes from reading the page's *source code*....