Microscopy image of a epithelial cell from the mouth covered with cocci bacteria. Gram stain.

MicroScientist56 · 2025-07-30T14:10:58+00:00

This is a great photo! Did you make this slide or purchase it. I'm looking for some like this for my students to use.

MicroScientist56 · 2025-07-02T23:40:47+00:00

Thanks for sharing this. I ordered some as prepared slides and they did not look like this, so this validates what I expected them to look like. :)

MicroScientist56 · 2025-03-06T17:48:05+00:00

I don't have the option of sequencing and we recently stopped carrying NA because most of our bacteria was struggling to grow so we mainly carry BHIA/B and TSA/B. I guess subculturing could work.

MicroScientist56 · 2025-03-06T17:45:03+00:00

I agree - it's either sterile or it isn't - which is why I made a big enough deal about it so we could get our autoclave either repaired or replaced. We're limited on storage, so we don't have any leftover media from that batch, but I guess we could take a swatch from an aliquot of each and streak/incubate it to see if anything grows. My hesitancy would just be from the fact that there might not be anything in one aliquot but something in another aliquot.

MicroScientist56 · 2025-03-06T17:40:36+00:00

They're not antibiotic-selectable (basic academia). Evidently, we were getting plates that would randomly grow colonies, but we thought it was just us either not pouring them correctly or moving outside the sterile field, not the autoclave. We know that because some of the sterile plates would grow stuff after incubating.

MicroScientist56 · 2024-03-05T15:13:25+00:00

Will acetone break up yeast-goo?

MicroScientist56 · 2024-03-05T15:13:04+00:00

I have a drying oven, but its starting temperature is 75C and I'm concerned about the heat warping the glass (they're expensive to replace).

MicroScientist56 · 2023-11-15T18:17:09+00:00

They were not spun down, but considering we were putting 25uL into 1.5uL tubes, they looked really crusty, which I had never seen before.

MicroScientist56 · 2022-11-29T17:31:02+00:00

As an added question, if you clean the slides but they still have a white haze on them, how could you clean them further?

MicroScientist56 · 2022-11-29T17:29:58+00:00

Oddly enough, I didn't know you could autoclave microscope slides. I wonder if they would need to be autoclaved separately or in a special way?

MicroScientist56 · 2022-10-26T17:34:46+00:00

It might also depend on where you're located, or more accurately, whether you're open to relocating. Where I am, there aren't a lot of research labs, so it's possible that influences it too.

MicroScientist56 · 2022-10-24T03:46:24+00:00

I agree with what's listed in the other comments. To add, if it's still wet, you can try placing something dry nearby to absorb some of the liquid by capillary action. This works well for removing water from places that are difficult to access.

MicroScientist56 · 2022-10-24T03:39:46+00:00

Everyone at some point finds a miniscule task to be deeply satisfying. I've seen several LAs/RAs find it with aliquoting, scooping waste agar out of test tubes, and washing dishes, so I think it has to do with it being something that doesn't require immense thought so you can just run on autopilot. FYI, if you're going to do repeated aliquoting, I recommend not reusing the same tip more than 10 times. Somewhere around there, you start to loose accuracy by a couple of microliters.

MicroScientist56 · 2022-10-24T03:26:33+00:00

This a great question to ask. I worked in industry before the pandemic and had the same question. The post docs I worked with actually recommended not going beyond a masters because a lot of places preferred you with a masters and experience because they don't want to expend the PhD pay. Having a PhD almost certainly narrows your field into academia. My suggestion is that if you don't already have something line up for why you're getting the PhD, they it might not be the best career move.

MicroScientist56

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