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Zapping Yeasts with X-rays
Moderators: AmyCowen, kgudger, MadelineB, Moderators
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acsci_researchers
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2012 2:24 am
- Occupation: Student:10th grade
- Project Question: Solar-powered Water Desalination
Digital Pinhole Camera
I don't really understand the concept behind the digital pinhole camera. Will the camera be inside or outside of the box? And how to capture the image reflected from the pinhole?
For the water desalination, since we're students we can't afford the Extech EC400. What are other possible replacements for this? I don't also have a quarter because I'm from Asia and our currency is Peso. - Project Due Date: March 2012
- Project Status: I am just starting
Zapping Yeasts with X-rays
We wanted to try this project idea and I think it would be easy for us with the help of our Microbiology teacher. But we wanted to have a background of this project. Should we have an experimental group of yeasts and zap it with different amounts of x-ray? And how to observe the growth of yeasts? How could we identify if they're still alive and growing? Please help me with this one.
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donnahardy2
- Former Expert
- Posts: 2671
- Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2005 12:45 pm
Re: Zapping Yeasts with X-rays
,Hi,
Welcome to Science Buddies! Is this the project idea you are interested in doing? This is a really great project, but it is really difficult:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p030.shtml
The project involves constructing an x-ray machine:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p083.shtml
And then using the x-ray machine to do an experiment on yeasts:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p005.shtml
To answer your question, you would adapt the instructions in the yeast experiment and measure the amount of carbon dioxide produced by yeast that had been exposed to varying amounts of x-rays. Instead of using different sugar sources as described in the project, you would use sugar and yeast exposed to different levels of x-rays.
Does this explanation help? Let me know if you have questions.
Donna Hardy
Welcome to Science Buddies! Is this the project idea you are interested in doing? This is a really great project, but it is really difficult:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p030.shtml
The project involves constructing an x-ray machine:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p083.shtml
And then using the x-ray machine to do an experiment on yeasts:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p005.shtml
To answer your question, you would adapt the instructions in the yeast experiment and measure the amount of carbon dioxide produced by yeast that had been exposed to varying amounts of x-rays. Instead of using different sugar sources as described in the project, you would use sugar and yeast exposed to different levels of x-rays.
Does this explanation help? Let me know if you have questions.
Donna Hardy
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djschlesinger
- Former Expert
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Fri May 27, 2011 1:00 pm
- Occupation: Director of Research Genomics
- Project Question: n/a
- Project Due Date: n/a
- Project Status: Not applicable
Re: Zapping Yeasts with X-rays
Dear acsci_researchers,
You might consider switching your project from X-rays to UV light. UV light and X-rays will have somewhat similar effects on microorganisms. Both will induce DNA mutations. UV lamps are cheaper, safer, and easier to work with than X-ray machines. For example, you could grow yeast in a Petri dish and then expose various parts to different intentness of UV light. You can do this by covering part of the Petri dish with cardboard (or anything impervious to UV light) and exposing the rest of the Petri dish to UV light. You can vary the intensity by exposing various parts of the Petri dish to varying lengths of exposure to the UV light. I did these exact experiments in grad school and they always worked very well.
I hope this helps.
-Dave
You might consider switching your project from X-rays to UV light. UV light and X-rays will have somewhat similar effects on microorganisms. Both will induce DNA mutations. UV lamps are cheaper, safer, and easier to work with than X-ray machines. For example, you could grow yeast in a Petri dish and then expose various parts to different intentness of UV light. You can do this by covering part of the Petri dish with cardboard (or anything impervious to UV light) and exposing the rest of the Petri dish to UV light. You can vary the intensity by exposing various parts of the Petri dish to varying lengths of exposure to the UV light. I did these exact experiments in grad school and they always worked very well.
I hope this helps.
-Dave