Microbe Growing At Home

[Dave Potts]

Hi,

I was showing my boys the Flickr pictures of the Manchester Microbe Map plates and they were really keen to have a go at growing things from round the house.  The problems is that we have no equipment or experience (but plenty of enthusiasm!).  What advice do you have for:

(1) How we get some suitable medium to grow the stuff in?

(2) How we then go about it?

Thanks,

Dave.

[Asa Calow]

> Hi,
>
> I was showing my boys the Flickr pictures of the Manchester Microbe Map plates and they were really keen to have a go at growing things from round the house. The problems is that we have no equipment or experience (but plenty of enthusiasm!). What advice do you have for:
>
> (1) How we get some suitable medium to grow the stuff in?

The guys at Biologigaragen in Copenhagen were making theirs out of mashed potato powder which apparently works well! http://wiki.biologigaragen.org/index.php/Agarplate.

> (2) How we then go about it?

The instructions are there on the wiki, it's super simple - no need for a pressure cooker even. You can get petri dishes off eBay for cheap too.

A

[Martyn Amos]

Without wanting to be the voice of doom, you should be quite careful
about doing this at home (especially if young kids are involved).
There is actually quite a good chance that you will culture something
nasty, which is why we immediately sealed the plates with tape once
they'd been streaked when we did the Manchester Microbe Map. The
important thing is not to open the dishes while the cultures are
growing/once they've grown, and to bleach them carefully when
disposing of the dishes.

Martyn

--
Dr Martyn Amos
Reader in Novel Computation
School of Computing, Mathematics and Digital Technology
Manchester Metropolitan University
WWW: http://www.martynamos.com

[Dave Potts]

Hi,

Thanks for the responses.  I think we'll try to carefully have a go with the potato and agar recipe.  We will tape up and bleach at the end.  If still alive at the end of the process I'll report back.

Dave.