S-STEM Scholar Jaime Carreon's Blog

Bacteria in my daily life For this blog I choose to talk about E. Coli since in my previous blog I talked about Deinococcus radiodurans. I recently became interested in learning more about other bacteria such as E. coli. I will provide a little background on why I decided to talk about E. Coli. I work in the food industry in a fast food restaurant. I was required to obtain a food handler card. During my training, I learned how easily food can be contaminated especially, if people do not know how to properly prepare food. I believe that being aware of the science behind cooking would be more beneficial if this training was accessible to more people.  In a common household like mine (I share a house with my siblings) cross contamination can occur because they do not have the knowledge on how to properly handle food, for example when cooking  meat and vegetables. For instance, when they cook they do not pay much attention that they often use the same cutting board for different...

  Extracting DNA from fruits 🍌🍓🥝 Materials Dish liquid soap 10 ml Water 110 ml Alcohol 20 ml Half teaspoon of salt Stainer Tweezers   3 measurement cups Ziploc bags  Ice Banana* Strawberry* Kiwi* Reagents and samples Banana* Strawberry* Kiwi* Dish soap  Water Alcohol  Salt Procedure Prepare the lysis solution : Mix the water, the dish soap and the salt. I prepared the same amount of solution to use on kiwi, strawberry, and banana. Mash the fruit in a Ziploc bag with the lysis solution. Mash very well to release the greatest amount of DNA from the cells. Filter the mix, this liquid contains the DNA dissolved in it. Precipitate the DNA! With alcohol. Add alcohol to the mixture and wait for 5 minutes. The alcohol has to be cold; we can put it in the fridge for fifteen minutes or either keep it on ice during the procedure. And finally here it is! That white slime forming in the middle of the alcohol layers is DNA. More DNA can be seen from the banana...

  Homemade  Solid Culture Media  Away from the laboratory, I was curious to create agar plates with ingredients that we can find in our kitchen.  Ingredients 2g Table Salt (NaCI) 300 ml of boiling water 1.5g Yeast extract paste 6.25g Gelatine Sterile Plastic Petri Dishes Procedure  First, mix the table salt with the water. Allow the table salt to melt to create a solution.  Second, add the yeast extract to the solution. Mix it until it is dissolved.  Third, add the gelatine to the solution. Mix it until the lumps disappear. Plate      Pour the solution into the dishes very carefully to avoid bubbling. From the solution, 15 plates of 20 grams each are obtained. Conclusion To conclude, with these procedures agar plates can be created at home. It does not mean that these culture media can sustain bacteria such as E.coli and D. radiodurans. I haven't put them into practice yet, but I'm excited to see if I can get bacteria growth on these hom...

  Deinococcus Radiodurans and its Guinness World Record I am pleased to present a few interesting facts about Deinococcus radiodurans ( D. radiodurans) . D. radiodurans were discovered in 1956 by Professor Arthut W. Anderson in Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station, Corvallis Oregon. While Arthur W. Anderson was sterilizing canned meat to omit its decomposition; the emergence of various reddish colonies made a presence. One may wonder how something like this could have happened? The explanation for such an event is that the meat cans were exposed to high doses of radiation; These high temperatures of radiation were supposed to be enough to eliminate all known forms of life. For this reason, this bacterium should be given the appropriate name that would honor its ability to survive in extreme conditions. These radiation-resistant organisms were granted with the name of Deinoccocus Radiodurans. D. radiodurans literally means the "strange battle that endures radiation."  D. rad...

  Introduction                On my first day at the lab, I met Jonathan and my team; we introduced ourselves to each other. Right away, we set ourselves to practice with micropipettes. We learned the Dos and Don'ts of micro pipetting. There were steps to follow among these procedures, such as not utilizing the pipette without a tip attached and not exceeding the volume limits. Also, we were not to jam the pipette into the tip, given that our mentors let us know that micropipettes are expensive equipment that we can easily damage if not treated with precaution.               After getting to know what micropipettes are and how to implement them in the scientific field, my team and I next goal was to make LB and TGY broth. Beyond a scientific definition, what I understood about broth is that it is used as a food for bacteria. In other words, it is a place where bacteria can ...