Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi, I am Mayukh Datta. i want to do a science experiment to see if bacteria grow faster with different types of music. I know that bacteria can't hear, but I have read it happens due to the vibrations produced. I have seen other people do this experiment. They used different genres of music. I, however, want to see if the tempo of the music affects the growth rate of the bacteria. The only thing I can't decide is that should I have fast tempo and slow tempo music(the genres of these music don't matter), or should I do different genres like everybody else. Please Help Me!!!!

Hi Mayukh,

I think you should do whichever experiment you are most interested. If other people have already looked at different genres of music, and you are more interested in the tempo, then that is what you should test. You definitely don't have to try to be like everybody else; do what interests you! Just make sure you design a well controlled experiment. For example, if you don't want to test genre, you'll probably want to make sure that the fast and slow tempo songs you pick are all from the same genre, or that you have a large variety of fast and slow songs from many genres. Also, how many duplicates will you do? If you only pick one fast song and one slow song, you are really just testing the effects of those songs, not fast v. slow tempo, so you'll probably want multiple songs with a fast tempo and multiple songs with a slow tempo. You'll also need to define how fast is fast and how slow is slow. Make sure you think about all of these controls to design a solid experiment, but I don't see any reason you can't test the effects of tempo on bacterial growth if that is what you are most interested in.

Good luck!
JMP

Thank You jmp. I know you said this already, but I can have songs from multiple genres right. I was thinking of playlist of songs that one might consider "Workout Music" and "Relaxation Music". I am sorry if this sounds stupid.

Hi Mayukh,

You can have songs from more than one genre, but make sure you are only testing one variable. If you have a workout playlist and a relaxation playlist, what will be the differences between the two playlists? Only tempo or both tempo and genre. If the genre and the tempo both differ between the two playlists, you won't be able to tell if your bacteria grow differently due to differences in genre or differences in tempo. The easiest thing to do would be to only use songs from one genre and vary the tempo between your playlist. Alternatively, you can have songs from multiple genres in both playlists as long as they are controlled against each other. What I mean by this, is that your workout playlist might have two rock songs, two country songs, and two pop songs, all with upbeat tempos. Then your relaxation playlist should also have two rock songs, two country songs, and two pop songs, but all with slower tempos. This way, you can tell that the only difference between the playlists is tempo.

I hope this helps!
JMP

Thanks again! I decided on having songs from multiple genres but decided on having the tempo at or over 180 bpm and having slow songs at or lower 100 bpm. Pls tell me if this is fine. I will appreciate it.... Thanks

I think that will be fine as long as you control for everything else, as we discussed.

Hi Mayukh,

That's an interesting hypothesis you plan to test--that the growth rate of bacteria is influenced by sound. I do have several questions, however. Which bacteria are you going to use and how are you going to measure growth? Do you have access to a microbiology lab and someone to help you with culturing bacteria? If you have never done this before, it will take quite a bit of training.

Let us know the details of how you plan to expose the bacteria to the sound. How long will you expose them to it and at what volume? This will be important as the loudness of the sound may have more affect than the tempo. Bacteria have several growth stages. You probably should measure their growth rate in a broth culture in the stage known as logarithmic. We can help you with how to do this but you need access to a lab to do measurements like this accurately.

Please post again with a clear explanation of your experiment so we can guide you in doing it scientifically.

Good luck!

Sybee