bacteria identification

[adizzlybear]

I am doing a science fair project about bacteria in the bathroom and in everyone of my petri dishes there are red dot colonies. What are the red colred dots in my petri dish?

[staryl13]

Hi!
I'm not exactly sure what your project is, but this link might help to clear things up. Good luck!
http://www.micrologylabs.com/Food_Micro ... t_Swab_Kit

[Louise]

I am doing a science fair project about bacteria in the bathroom and in everyone of my petri dishes there are red dot colonies. What are the red colred dots in my petri dish?

If you look at this page (linked below), there are other ways to describe colonies besides the color. I'm assuming that the plate does not have an indicator; some plates contain a chemical to make colonies red.

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/project_ideas/MicroBio_Interpreting_Plates.shtml


If you can come up with a more complete description, then it might be possible to idenitify the type of bacteria. (If you can describe the morphology and the color, you can use a book like "Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology" or "Microbiology: A Photographic Atlas for the Laboratory" to id the bacteria. Note: this is not my area of expertise, so I don't know how easy it is to identify bacteria against the pictures) However, most identification is done by other methods, not by looking at the colonies.

Please be VERY CAREFUL with your bacteria. One red bacteria is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serratia_marcescens

It can make you very sick. Please dispose of all plates properly; generally you need to make sure all bacteria are dead before you throw them away.


The general instructions are:

Bacteria are ubiquitous, and live within the human gut, and in every corner of our environment. We come in contact with bacteria on a daily basis. Handwashing is 99.9% effective at decontaminating ourselves from bacteria which may reside on the skin. Thus, when the proper safety precautions are taken, colonies of microorganisms can be safely isolated from homes, yards, gardens, etc. The majority of microorganisms are non-pathogenic, but bacterial cultures or petri plates containing any type of bacterial colonies should only be treated with general safety precautions. Household bleach at 10% strength, or general common household cleaning reagents (409, Fantastic, Lysol, etc.), are effective at decontaminating all bacteria, and should be used at the completion of the study.

These instructions came from:
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/project_ideas/MicroBio_p007.shtml

I hope this helps, and good luck with your project.


Louise

[donnahardy2]

Hi,

Since your project is due tomorrow, you will not be able to identify the red bacteria. But you definitely should include the description of the colony type as Louise suggested, as this would be an excellent addition to your results section.

There are lots of red-pigmented bacteria and yeast, and these are especially common in soil and other environments where the microorganisms are exposed to ultraviolet radiation from sunlight. The pigment helps protect bacteria from DNA damage. Here are a couple of websites that explain this.

ttp://www.astaxanthin.org/carotenoids.htm

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0080-4622(19781130)284%3A1002%3C581%3ANFOC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y

You didn't do your experiments on the red-pigmented bacteria, so you can include this information in the discussion/conclusion section of your project, if you want to.

It sounds like a very interesting project.

Donna Hardy

[MeteroiteRCool]

I'm quite aware that this post is pretty old, but I'm working on a very similar project myself for school and this is what I managed to find. My project for class is to identify various types of bacteria through various sources and present concisely how they have an effect on our society. We wouldn't be handling the bacteria ourselves, but we would be responsible for going to the library and/or laboratories to observe for ourselves.

So basically, I want to know. . . . was that red bacteria ever identified? I haven't visited our local lab yet and I'm trying to get the ball rolling. I know someone here had mentioned that it could be a variety of germs. If it was ever identified, I wouldn't mind learning about how you came to that conclusion. I don't want to know EXACTLY what conclusion you came to (that would be stealing), but one of the proposed questions/activities was to find out how others went about THEIR experiment. How was it planned? What questions did you ask yourself? And of course, what was your initial hypothesis?

Thanks for all your help, guys! =D

Actually, I did have one more question. . . Has anyone ever heard anything about chrysalis school montana? I go to a standard high school, but I'm thinking of enrolling elsewhere and I wanna know how they are. If anyone does know anything about them, do you know if they have good science programs as well? I do want to keep experimenting in school. Thanks again!

[donnahardy2]

Hi,

I’m not sure if the red bacterium was ever identified. Here is an example of one red bacterium with some details about how it is identified:

http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php ... marcescens

Actual identification of a specific organism would be a complete science project by itself.

Your project is interesting, but it seems like a vast topic for one project. Most of the time people think of microorganisms as harmful, however, there are many beneficial microorganisms, and so many interesting ones that live in extreme environments. Here are some websites with general information about bacteria. I would encourage you to continue doing more background reading and develop a topic that is interesting to you, and that would meet the requirements of your project.

http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodive ... enaar.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile


http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/archaea/archaea.html

I am not familiar with the school in Montana. The best way to find out about a school is to talk to others who have attended, and also to visit the school and observe a class, if possible. There are so many different schools and you need to find one that right for you.

Please do post more questions if you have any other questions about your science project. We’d be happy to help.

Donna Hardy

[serevans]

Actually, I did have one more question. . . Has anyone ever heard anything about chrysalis school montana? I go to a standard high school, but I'm thinking of enrolling elsewhere and I wanna know how they are. If anyone does know anything about them, do you know if they have good science programs as well? I do want to keep experimenting in school. Thanks again!

My friend attended it but again, it's better to talk to him. I can give you his contact page on Facebook.