Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

If i wanted to change it so i can make it my own project could i use sugar, honey, and agave?

Hi Simba2436,

I have one clarifying question: When you say "yeast busters", are you referring to the brand or to a yeast buster in general?

You can use any source because you will need background information for your project; just make sure to cite the work that you retrieved from the other sources.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml

You can use salt, honey, anti fungal, or any other substance you want because it is your hypothesis. You determine whether or not your educated guess was correct after you go through the scientific method.

Make sure that you take safety precautions if your are going to work with fungus directly.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ines.shtml

If my response was not adequate enough, feel free to ask more questions. I'm here to help!

Hi,

Welcome to Science Buddies! Katm has given you some really good suggestions for getting started on your project along with safety suggestions for doing this project. I have some additional suggestions to help make this a unique project:

It sounds like you are planning to do this very interesting project from the Science Buddies website:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #learnmore

The project suggests testing commercially available antifungal medications, and I think you are on the right track to use something in addition to make your project really unique.

Since this is a science project, before you decide to use honey or salt, you should do an internet search and try to find out honey or salt has any antifungal properties. If salt or honey has been shown to inhibit fungal growth, try to find out what concentration of these substances would be suitable for use. Look for scientific references on this subject.

To get more ideas, you can also do an internet search for “natural antifungal compounds,” and maybe select a promising herbal remedy to try. For example, here is a paper from authors at the University of Madrid, who wrote a review article on antifungal substances found in natural sources.

http://www.arkat-usa.org/get-file/18667/

One other approach to making this a unique project would be to do a dose-response test to determine the optimum concentration for antifungal activity.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

Donna Hardy

i mean the project "yeast busters:stopping fungus with antifungal medicines."

Hi Simba,

My reply above was based on the "yeast busters, " project and I was trying to give you some suggestions for this specific project. Do you have have a question about proceeding with your project? Please let me know if you need more explanation.

Donna

can you help me find so websites i can use for sugar, heather (Erica sp.) organic honey, and Agave please help

donnahardy2 wrote:Hi Simba,

My reply above was based on the "yeast busters, " project and I was trying to give you some suggestions for this specific project. Do you have have a question about proceeding with your project? Please let me know if you need more explanation.

Donna

do you have any websites about how salt effects co2 from baker's yeast, how Agave effects co2 from baker's yeast, and how honey effects co2 from baker's yeast?

Hi,

In general salt, or sodium chloride, increases the osmotic pressure and inhibits the growth of Baker's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Agave nectar contains mostly fructose and honey contains fructose and glucose. Both of these monosaccharides can be used as a source of energy by yeast to product energy and carbon dioxide.

Here is a website that includes useful general information on yeast metabolism, including energy production:

http://biochemie.web.med.uni-muenchen.d ... bolism.pdf

The Wikipedia articles on agave and honey include information and references for these sugar sources:

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

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

Here is a reference that describes the optimum growth of Saccharomyces on molasses. The authors define the optimum salt, sugar, temperature, and pH for yeast growth.

http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/1451 ... 00029S.pdf

These are just examples of sources of information. You should do additional internet searches for "yeast metabolism," and "optimum growth conditions for Saccharomyces," to find more scientific sources of information and look at the references in the Wikipedia articles.

Please note that for your experiment, if you are comparing the effect of different sugar sources, you should keep all other experimental parameters controlled. So the salt concentration, pH, temperature and other conditions should be identical, and you should only vary the source of sugar.

Please post again if you have more questions.


Donna Hardy

Now i mean how does Honey, Agave or Agar, and Corn Syrup affect the growth of mold on bread?

Hi Simba,

I think I understand what you are trying to do now. One problem with growing mold on bread is that it is difficult to measure results; also you would be working with unknown microorganisms so this could be potentially hazardous.

Why don't you look again at the protocol in the Science Buddies project: idea. I think you could adapt your project idea to this one and it would be a unique experiment. This project uses Baker's yeast, which is safe to work with, and measures growth by capturing the carbon dioxide produced from metabolism. You could add the various sugar sources to a growth medium that did not contain any sugars (the control) and measure differences in the growth rate.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... _p012.shtm

Does this help? Please post again if you have questions. Also, let us know when your project is due.

Donna Hardy