Just a lil gal.

Well in a previous post I show my little proyect and you all like it a lot, so i decide it that its a better idea to turn this into a educational tool.
- Change the whole UI
- Added Statistics and Measurement
- Enhaced the expandibility (easy way to add more things without the necessity of re-compile)
- Staining stuff
- More params
- Enhaced optimization (kinda, still unstable) (LOD)
- Export and Import
- Fixed reproductibility

TODO to finish MVP:
- Culture mode & controlled experiments
- Replicates, batches & statistical analysis
- Controlled seeding & dilution
- Chemostat experiments
- Dose-response experiments
- Time-based temperature & light programs
- English as main
- Accessibility
- Scale bar, snapshots & time-lapse export

If anyone has any other ideas or suggestions, feel free to share them
P.S.: Does anyone have any idea which license would be best for this project? I was thinking about GNU copyleft, but I'm not sure.

Hi guys, Im working on a research project regarding metalloresistant bacteria. After a long procedure of metal enrichment, im growing the samples in TSA with a high concentration of copper (II) sulphate. The plaques are normally greenish and ive already isolated around 50 bacterial colonies. From these a couple of them have presented a very interesting behavior. They turned the plaque completely brown.

Im a chemist, and I currently dont have a major in microbiology, Im new to this world. Ive taken courses on general biology, molecular biology, bioinorganic chem and biochemistry tho, so I know the basics.

I wanted to ask you If you have seen this behavior before in bacteria or if I could assume there was a redox reaction with the copper (II). Thanks!

Today at university, I had a microbiology lecture where we discussed cyanobacteria, specifically the structure of heterocysts and their role in nitrogen fixation.

While looking back at some photos I had taken with my microscope, I came across this spherical, filamentous thing. After a quick search, I discovered it's a cyanobacteria that belongs to the genus Nostoc.

Could anyone tell me if this larger cell (circled in the second pic) is a heterocyst?

Thanks in advance

Learning about endospore formations right now and really intrigued to know its only formed by gram positive bacteria, my first theory is that due to cortex of endospore is made of peptidoglycan which is dominantly in a gram positive cell wall it somehow results in them having the ability but i am not sure.

Happy Friday, Micro Friends!
Enterobacter cloacae complex. Pseudomonas putida group. Staphylococcus intermedius group.
We frequently hear the terms group and complex in the clinical microbiology laboratory. But what do they mean? And when should we report an organism at the group or complex level versus identifying it to the species level?
🎙️ Find out in Episode 248* of Let’s Talk Micro: MicroMinutes: What’s in a Name – Bacterial Groups and Comp*lexes.
🎧 Available now! Add it to your playlist and enjoy!
🔗 https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/43316319
#LetsTalkMicro #MicroMinutes #ClinicalMicrobiology #MALDITOF

Disclaimer: This is just for a culture report assignment for our class.

Is this bacteria or just a contaminant? All we can see in the Gram stain are yeast, and this is the only field where we saw something like this. HELP PLS

Can someone explain what exactly urine culture does? is it possible to identify more than one organism?

🦠 Episode 248 drops tonight at 7 PM ET!
MALDI-TOF gives you multiple possible species. What next?
In this MicroMinutes episode, we explore bacterial groups and complexes, their members, and when species-level identification matters.
#LetsTalkMicro #MicroMinutes

Hi, has anyone used m-FC agar plates for water sample fecal coliform CFU counting? The plate contains aniline blue that turns from purple to blue when fecal coliform ferments lactose, so the blue colonies would be the fecal coliform colonies. Labmates suggested that we only count those that make the agar blue AROUND the colonies but ignore those colonies that are blue themselves.

I don’t understand why we ignore the blue colonies if they don’t turn the agar around them blue, and also the product notes explicitly say counting the blue colonies (see https://www.dalynn.com/dyn/ck_assets/files/tech/PF27.pdf). I would appreciate it if people with experience in water sample testing using this kind of plate could share how you interpret results. Thanks.

Hi! I work in shelter veterinary medicine and need help identifying what fungal species this is. Pt is a kitten who had a spot of hair loss, apparently staff at time of assessment weren’t sure whether the lesion was woods lamp positive or not. DTM was collected on 10/2. Pictures of microscopic findings are on 10x and 40x. With ringworm we usually (or only ever) see M. Canis, M. Gypseum, or Trichophyton spp, haven’t seen this one before. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Concerns about the lab where I have joined as a PhD

I have joined the lab of this PI as I quite liked the project and had a good 2-3 interviews with the PI.

For context it is a microbiology lab

I have now finally joined the lab and I am not able to adjust to some of the practices in the lab.

In the lab eppendorfs and tips for micropipette are reused. Had this been done in the lab it is still fine but the same practice is done in tissue culture as well. After using the tips they are supposed to be dunked in a detergent and then autoclaved. I assume this might even kill the bacteria but what about the DNA.

Is this normal , does this happen in other labs, it certainly did not happen in the lab where I did my master's.

I am doubting if this is the right lab for me. It's been a short while only but at this point I am thinking of quitting this lab as it somehow goes against the research practices I have so far learnt.

Can someone please guide me what to do. I am panicking a lot.

I needed some phytoplankton for feeding my amano shrimp larvae and finding phytoplankton in my area is close to impossible so, brine shrimp are locally collected from salt lakes and frozen to sell as fish food.

I bought some, crushed them into a paste and added it into salt water and left it in the sun, after a few days, I had different types of algae in they bucket, I took a sample and started to culture it indoors and this is the algae which I am able to maintain, rest all types vanished.

The first picture is 100× second is 400×, the salinity is 1.018 SG and I had it in 1.024 SG also and it survived effortlessly between any salt range.

The third picture is the colour of the tank.

Location is India

Please help me Id this phytoplankton and can it be fed to my shrimp larvae?

Im growing a mold culture of Penicillium chrysogenum for a school thing, and im buying a tube from Wards Science (all being run with proper safety precautions and with teacher). I then plan on creating a spore/sterile water solution to inoculate potato dextrose agar plates (60 of them). My questions are: do i absolutely need a surfactant like tween 20 to prevent the spores from sticking together in the water, will one tube be enough for 60 petri dishes (0.01ml of solution per dish, im thinking), do i need an inoculation needle or can i just use a boiled needle/wire, and how difficult is it to successfully inoculate a culture? Also any tips?

Hey! I've been working on a small sim of a drop of pond water, seen through a brightfield microscope.

Cells are soft bodies made of particles, so they swim, eat, divide and burst because of the physics, not because of animations. The water has no inertia (low Reynolds), and I tried to keep everything real: Paramecium, Euglena, Amoeba, Volvox, Hydra, rotifers, diatoms, nematodes, fungi, cyanobacteria, phages, even sand grains and silica.

There's a sandbox where you can spawn anything, turn yourself into another species and force reproduction. There's also an explore mode: click any organism and it tells you what it is and why it's moving the way it is.

I built the whole system with Claude Opus 5.5. I'm going to put it on GitHub as open source soon.

I'm still not sure if this should be an educational sandbox or an actual game. What would you add? Species, behaviors, tools, anything. Criticism is welcome too

I know that these two majors aren't even really comparable but I can see myself studying both. I want to do some kind of research in the future, whether in a lab or at a desk. I'm leaning Microbio as I'm more of a science than math kinda guy but I'm afraid a BS in Microbio won't make me too employable as I'm not currently planning to go to med school. What do yall think?

Hi! I'm curious about getting a professional opinion, because my dad and I disagree on the matter.

I insist these are insect casings, and to me they look like that of a mosquito. These are at the bottom of my cat's running water dish, they have stripes across them and look to be hollow cylinders, but they come in all different lengths. Some of them look to be slowly chipping off the bottom.

Any opinions would be appreciated! Thanks!

I'm thinking M. xanthus or some member of the family Porinaceae? Really curious lol I've never seen such a thing before in my life. It's growing directly on coral frags that I water with oxygenated distilled water, plants in association are Pinguicula sp.

4th image is Porina leptalea

5th image is relative size since images make them appear larger than they are (I did not use this slide)

6th image is under 10x, smooshed under cover w/ water

7th image is 100x

8th image is 40x

9th image is 10x but without a cover to get a view of the capsule?

The balls themselves are incredibly hard and rigid. Not soft, squishy or slimy. There does appear to be a cell wall of sorts, definitely not an egg as I would've seen the contents within. Maybe even some kind of testate amoeba? I have no clue lol. It is to be noted it's growing exclusively in areas near algae, and some algae can be seen in image 8, which made me think maybe crustose lichen? Image 10 is Centropyxis aculeata for comparison. Not included are blurry images I have wherein there could have been ascospores. I don't really expect a definitive answer here but I've racked my mind over this and I'm curious what others might think based off the little I can provide.

Hello, I’m a senior in high school applying to university and for a while I’ve been pretty set in eventually attending med school to become some sort of doctor (likely an oncologist?). My first choice university has a microbiology and human immunology major that sounds very interesting, but I’m worried I might be putting myself through more trouble than I would have if I majored in regular biology or premed. I really do enjoy learning about different pathogens and what the latest research has been on them (sometimes I’ll spend hours reading studies about things like prions or hiv alone). I’m just a bit nervous I might be making a major mistake (pun intended) and somehow will struggle to get into med school with this major. Am I just severely overthinking things?