Everyone say “Hi!” to Scott

Madison students discover the fun of photographing bacteria with a cell phone, separate dyes and protein with gel filtration chromatography, and raise money through the power of sugar.

While we were learning how to stain slides in Micro, Scott experienced a moment of true genius and got his phone to take pictures through the oculars of the microscope.  He kindly shared the pictures with me and allowed me to share them here (the colors are a little off from being taken through the lens and then sent to me via email):

Simple Stain using methylene blue

Gram negative, Escherichia coli

Gram positive, Bacillus megaterium

(Scott’s got everyone calling this Bacillus megatron)

Endospore stain

Thanks, Scott, for sending these my way!

In Chromatography, we’ve begun learning Gel Filtration.  We separated a sample containing blue dextran, hemoglobin and vitamin B12:

In other news…

Biotech Club held a fundraiser offering folks a choice between Krispie Kreme and Dunkin’ Donuts, Thursday February 28^th to help fund some of our Club activities.  All of us were up at between four and five in the morning to pick up donuts and get the sale rolling by 7 a.m.  The sleep sacrifice paid off, though, because we nearly sold out after about four hours!

Allison, justifiably enjoying the fruits of our labor.

See you next week with news on the Sustainability Summit!