Hello,
I am doing a project on which animal that a human owns has the dirtiest mouth. I am using a human for a control. I am wondering what websites would be good for me to do research on. Any feedback would be helpful! Also where to find petri dishes cheap w/o buying 500 of em. Transporter swabs would be helpful too
Hey michael,
thanks for your help i am just starting my science fair project and i appreciate your help...
But do you know where to findpetri dishes and transporter swabs w/o buying 500 cases of petri dishes?
I cannot seem to find any transporter swabs; hahaha i looked on carolina.com and other science material websites but i cannot find a transporter swab! any help finding some swabs online for my project would be greatly appreciated! i just can't find them lol
Hey michael,
i have a question... I am going to test 10 trials for 3 animals. I am using a human as my control. do i need to have 10 humans for my control or do i just stick with one? I feel stupid... I completely forgot what number of things for control. Do you do the same # of trials like your IV or do you stick with one...
Hi Derek,
I'm assuming that you would need a BSL-2 lab as one of the requirements of your science fair? In any case, these are the guidelines of what regulations a BSL-2 lab must follow- http://bmbl.od.nih.gov/sect3bsl2.htm
I would suggest you ask your science teacher for help in locating such a lab. Best of luck!!
"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere." -Isaac Asimov
Hey Derek,
Here's a link that might help you refresh on controls and variables- http://www.fair.science-resources.org/sci_meth.htm
You are basically going to use the human results as a standard by which to compare your other results with, so if you have the same amount of humans as you have in the experimental group (animals) you should be able to get some good comparisons. Hope this helped, good luck!
"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere." -Isaac Asimov
I found some petri dishes on amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Polystyre ... 584&sr=8-1). A set of 20 dishes is about $10. You can also find other petri dishes on amazon just by going to the website and searching petri dishes. As with the transporter swabs, you might just be able to use Q-tips (like the one's you use to clean your ears that you can find in supermarkets and other stores). You can also find different sized swabs by searching "swabs" on amazon.com. If you need swabs that are bigger or smaller than regular Q-tips you can make different sized swabs just by wrapping cotton (with you can use from cotton balls) around toothpicks. Good luck.
Hello I am doing a project on bacteria in different types of human and animal mouths. I really need some good research websites! [color=#FF0000ALL HELP IS APPRECIATED!][/color]
honestly,
i think the first one was most helpful. Thanks. If you find anymore research sites please notify me because i need all the help i can get. Thanks
Staryl13, thank you soooo much for your help! i really appreciate it! If you find anymore websites, please notify me because i need all the help i can get. I also need to find a Bsl-2 lab for my project, otherwise i cannot do my project as it involves growing of bacteria. That's unfortunate because it leaves me the trouble of trying to find one. I'll take your advice and talk to my teacher about the lab. Thanks for your help,
Hi Derek!
Great to hear that the links helped. I found one more: http://www.labtechnologist.com/Products ... uman-mouth --> this talks about a database you might be able to use
Those were some of the best sites I've seen so far, I wish you good luck with finding the BSL-2 Lab, feel free to post back with anymore questions!
"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere." -Isaac Asimov
I really need some help on how to grow animal bacteria in a petri dish!!! I am trying to do a procedure and am not having any luck doing it scientifically! I really need help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Need info back by today! PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!
I would be happy to answer your question, but first I need to know: are the bacteria that you are using starting out frozen or are they fresh and non-frozen?
I have merged all of your threads into a single thread to help the experts better help you. In the future, please keep all your posts in this one topic. Please also note that experts only check the forum once a day and that experts are in many different time zones so it may take 24-48 hours to get a response; this is not a chat room where you will get an immediate reply to your question.
In any case the Science Buddies microbiology section has a great deal of information about growing bacteria on petri dishes. Please read through the following links and then post back with any questions:
Please keep in mind the safety warnings that other experts have already brought up about handling microbes, and make certain you speak with your teacher about this project; you may need to get special permission in order to work with bacteria.
Hello Derek, if you going to test 10 trails for 3 animals, I would suggest you test the same number of trails on human as well. The easiest places to find a BSL-2 lab are at colleges and hospital's laboratories. Since you are working with normal flora and not pathogen, I think a BSL-1 lab would be sufficient, and most high school labs are equipped with a BSL-1 hood. http://www.nsela.org/publications/safes ... cle18.html you should check with your science teacher to determine whether it is necessary to use a BSL-2 lab for your project. There is two streaking methods to streak petri dish, the four-way streak method (fig 1), and the urine culture method (fig 2). (See the link below) If you are using a swab to streak, you will be using the four-way streak method, but if you plan on quantifying bacteria from a solution, you can use the urine culture method.
During the course of the experiment, the hypothesis was in fact, incorrect. The project seemed to result in the cats being the cleanest and the dogs being the dirtiest; leaving the humans in between. This project can teach people about taking care of animals’ mouths and their hygiene. It would be nice to further this experiment next year by identifying the different types of bacteria that are in the animals’ mouths and having a BSL-2 Lab to grow them in. Identifying bacteria in animals’ mouths could really open up a new branch of looking at dogs, cats, and humans. When the response came from the Scientific Research Committee, the swabbing started of people’s mouths right after approval. At the time, the scientist (Moi) didn’t know that he had streptococcus mutants (strep throat) when he swabbed himself, so lots of interesting things grew in his Petri dish. It is very important to take good care of your pet’s dental hygiene. You can buy a simple toothbrush and some veterinarian toothpaste, and brush your pet’s teeth once a day; every day and see significant results in their breath and teeth color. This project was so great, further research will be done next year on identifying the different types of bacteria.
Hypothesis
If a dog, cat, and human are all tested, then the cat will contain the most bacteria of the three tested subjects because it grooms itself all day.
Research Notes
In this experiment, I am testing two household pets; dogs, cats, and not a household pet, humans. When I was thinking about topics, I heard that dog’s mouths were cleaner than humans. I thought I could do a test where you could test cats instead of dogs. Then I figured I could test different types of household pets compared to humans.
“Bacteria live on or in just about every material and environment on Earth from soil to water to air, and from your house to arctic ice to volcanic vents. Each square centimeter of your skin averages about 100,000 bacteria. A single teaspoon of topsoil contains more than a billion (1,000,000,000) bacteria.”
In the mouth, there are huge quantities of bacteria. That is why I chose to grow cultures in the mouth. I read many different websites that told me that dog’s mouths are dirtier than humans. My research also indicated that cats groom themselves all day, therefore I stated in my hypothesis, cats mouths are the dirtier than humans or dogs.
“Bacteria, however, work for this luxurious lifestyle by performing such tasks as eating each other, fending off bad species of bacteria, etc., manufacturing different products, and eating the food that becomes lodged in parts of our mouths.”
Agar, a substance used to make bacteria grow, is needed in the experiment. It is a powder that you mix with distilled water and then boil to make sure it is dissolved. You gently glide the surface of your swab (that is covered with bacteria from the inside of the subject’s mouth) across the surface of the agar without tearing the agar mixture; then quickly superglue the lid of the petri dish on so you do not get any air contamination in the petri dish.
“Would you rather be bitten by a dog or a human? According to a widespread notion, a dog bite is the better choice since a canine mouth is cleaner than a human mouth. Unlike dogs, humans typically do not eat raw meat, garbage, and small animals in various states of decay. But generally, humans are immune to most dog germs. So a bite from a human mouth full of harmful bacteria may very well be more damaging than a dog bite, even if the dog's mouth is full of harmful dog germs.”
Dogs lick themselves in places that humans don’t lick. Also cats lick themselves for most of the day and explore everywhere around the house. In fact, most humans don’t really lick themselves… but cats lick themselves the most, therefore, I based my hypothesis on the information I have gathered from this experiment.
In order to conduct the experiment correctly, one must grow the bacteria in a warm, dark place during the incubation period. I will test a total of 55 subjects, 25 cats, 25 dogs, and 5 humans.
When you divide the petri dishes into four quadrants, you will see growth in most of the quadrants, but not quadrant four as shown:
“Bacteria are unicellular microorganisms that have. Despite their extremely small size, significant beneficial and harmful effects on humans.”
Any feedback would be helpful! Also where to find petri dishes cheap w/o buying 500 of em. Transporter swabs would be helpful too
i just can't find them lol
i just dont know where to find one! 
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