GMU:DIY Biolab “Driver’s License”/Eva Walch

BACTERIA INTERACTION WITH PAINTING

Goal: to combine drawings/paintings with bacteria

FIRST TRY:

• Cluing the drawings on some stable underground, to prevent them from rolling when they are getting wet

• Cooking medium (source: Miga’s protocol)

Glucose – 10 g

Peptone – 2.5 g

Yeast extract – 2.5 g

Na2HPO4 – 1.35 g

Citric acid – 0.75 g

Distilled water – 500 ml

Agar – 7.5 g

• Putting the medium on the drawings

• Putting them into a box

• After 3 days:

-->Maybe the water with the nutrients was soaked into the paper

-->Maybe there is no need for the agar in the medium, because the bacteria are growing good just on the paper (see second try)

• After 2.5 weeks:

• Painting just the shape of a foot:

• the idea was to use different kind of bacteria on different parts of the paper. so I used some darker, blue bacteria for the mushroom (1) and some green/white looking ones for the surrounding

--> it did not really work, maybe I also have to use different kind of media, for not letting the bacteria mix on the paper

SECOND TRY:

• Cooking the same medium but without agar

• Just putting the medium on some paper to see what happens without agar

• After 2.5 weeks:

-->There was probably not enough liquid, so it did not really work without agar

Making different kind of media to create different kind of bacteria fields :

one way could be to change the PH value (source: Wikipedia [1]):

"Unter Selektivnährboden versteht man einen Nährboden, der das Wachstum einer bestimmten Gruppe von Mikroorganismen, beispielsweise bestimmter Bakterien, begünstigt während er die Entwicklung anderer Mikroorganismen unterdrückt. Dies geschieht aufgrund der Zusammensetzung des Nährbodens, da Mikroorganismen unterschiedliche Bedürfnisse hinsichtlich des Kulturmediums in puncto Nährstoffzusammensetzung, pH-Wert etc. besitzen und da einige Stoffe andere Mikroorganismen in ihrem Wachstum hemmen."

• I tried to cook media with different kind of acidity

1. in the first petri dish there is the medium for the Growth of Gluconacetobacter but without citric acid
2. in the second petri dish there is the standart medium for the growth of Gluconacetobacter, which includes some citric acid
3. the third petri dish contains the medium for the growth of Gluconacetobacter, but with the double the amound of citric acid

Coloring bacteria:

In this experiment I try to color bacteria after they grown

• just cooked media for the Growth of Gluconacetobacter, but used Fructose instead of Glucose

after 1 week

putting red pigment to the bacteria

after one week:

PUTTING COLOR INTO THE MEDIUM

in this try I was putting ink into the medium, so that it became blue. But after heating it up in the microwave the blue color disappeared. But still the bacteria were growing different than on the normal medium, somehow more intense, maybe because there is more bakteria inside with the added ink

Further steps:

1. making the bacteria on the paper permanent, with maybe lack
2. using different kind of media to create different kind of bacteria fields
3. creating pictures with more controled media
4. putting color into the medium