Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am doing a science project for biology on the effects of essential oils on dust mites. How do I obtain dust mites?? Please help. I am desperate to conduct this experiment. It is for a part of my biology mark and I am already behind by a month!

Thanks.

I am doing a science project on the effects of essential oils on dust mites. How do I obtain dust mites?? Please help. I am desperate to conduct this experiment. It is for a part of my biology mark but I am hoping to submit it to science fair and I am already behind by a month!

Thanks.

Hi,

Here is a good overview on dust mites:

http://www.ehso.com/ehshome/dustmites.php

This paper disucsses isolation of dust mites from the houshold environment:

http://www.cieh.org/library/Knowledge/P ... ethods.pdf

Here is a paper(unfortunately mostly in Japanese describing isolation of dust mite. The abstract is in English. Figure captions of the main paper text are in English.

http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110003817613/en

These papers are in English and describe collection and isolation procedures

http://www.cieh.org/JEHR/extraction_met ... ation.html

http://www.bioline.org.br/request?se08035

http://www.allergythai.org/APJAI2007/De ... 2Oct07.pdf

Here is reference on how to culture dust mites:

http://www.cababstractsplus.org/abstrac ... 9970503538

http://www.ptat.thaigov.net/contents/PT ... 6N2-VM.pdf

I hope this gives you enough to get started. Best wishes for a great project!

Best regards,


Barrett L. Tomlinson

Note: I posted this before I realized you had posted the same question elsewhere. Please only post your questions in a single topic, and stick to the Life Sciences forum as that is the appropriate one.

Barrett has given you some excellent resources to help you culture dust mites. Good luck!