Documenation of the main Workshop 04.11.22
Plan for today (04.11) and tomorrow (05.11):
- cultivate first organism (mushroom)
- lab safety (how to work safely in the lab)
- getting to know the lab equipment
- Redesign the lab experience for our own home (How to make our own Diy-Biolab)
- lab ethics and values
Materials and manual for growing first organisms:
Different organisms need different things to grow
examples:
- Algae can photosynthesize; they need light and salt
- slime mold (unicellar organisms that expand in search of food; they're neither fungi nor mushrooms)
- bacteria
Building a Diy-Lab at home
Resources :
Equipment:
local shopping
-> hardware store (tables with a glass or ceramic top)
-> bricolage market
-> artists shop
-> pharmacies
online shopping
-> amazon; new equipment
-> Ebay; used equipment
-> Aliexpress; quick and cheap
consumables (cottonswabs/gloves etc.)
-> amazon; for small fast delivery
-> aliexpress; for cheap batch delivery
-> alibaba
-> specialised onlineshops; more or less specialised producers and retailers
chemicals
-> Buying at local stores (check cross-application; check purity grade according to use)
-> online shopping (check if law allows private purchase)
-> maybe extract your chemicals from mixtures (know what you are doing and with whom)
Growing our own mushrooms
For the Mycofabrication session we used Reishi (Ganoderma Lucidum)
what do we need?
1. Mushroom/spores where can you find it:
online shops -> Pilzmännchen.de -> MycoGenetics the forest: -> on the ground -> on dead logs or living trees
2. Substrates (mushroom food):
buy at local stores or online -> Bricolage market (saw dust) -> Pet shop -> Carpenter
3. Knowledge
Books:
Mycelium running: how mushrooms can help save the world (2004)
Organic mushroom farming and mycoremediation (2014)
Radical Mycology: A Treatise on Seeing & working with Fungi (2016)
The fifth kingdom; An introduction to mycology Bryce Kendrick (2017)
Academical knowledge
first -> wikipedia and sources (gives good overview; sources; scientific papers)
second -> academic papers (google schola; unpaywall.org; if behind paywall: ask for copy; wikipedia.org/Sci-Hub: grey area of copy right)
"if you have a big goal break it up into small goals you can achieve"
Ethics and values in the lab
-> respect for our creatures
-> respect for lab partners
-> don't take criticism personally
-> only go to the lab when you are healthy and in the right mood (concentrated; healthy; good mindful mindstate)
-> respect time and projects of others (name everything; report when things run out or get broken)
How to respect our creatures and each other:
-> what is the specimen? (mushroom parts still thrive even if you take parts of it for example)
-> destroy things that aren't from here
-> nothing leaves the lab alive unless it comes from the natural habitat outside
-> we work to help understand more for everyone (goal: sustainability)
-> respect experts from other fields (everybody can provide value)
-> be inclusive; everybody is equal
05.11.22 10 am to 2 pm
Plan: Projectdraft
Presentation of some organisms
-> Brainstorming to one organism in groups of 3-4 people (what can we do with it? how can we present that idea?) and create 5 ideas
Creatures:
slime mold: one big cell that grows toeards the food. What experiments can be done with it? Idea: how would slime mold plan rail networks
Euglena (Algae): can photosynthesize and reuse CO2 ; moves slowly towards the light
Mycelium: Idea: modular bricks for building structures
Glow in the dark mushrooms (pomellus stipticus): idea: exitlights/nightlights filled with mushrooms
Combucha (yeast and bacteria living together) creating paperlike structure when dried
One hour to make up 5 ideas -> Why? How? What?
1. Exit signs from glowing mushrooms (brightness?lifetime?)
why? no, electricity but importance of finding the exit how? glowing mushroom jars What? exit signs and emergency paths
2. Animation with Euglena (filming them moving towards the light; making templates that partly block out the light to create pictures etc.)
why? for entertainment how? templates, light, experimentation what? animations, music videos, stop motion animation etc.
3. Lampshade from dried Combucha for interesting light effects
why? warm light and interesting patterns
how? dry the combucha, make patterns for the lampshades
what? lampshades; windowshades
4. plates with slimemold layered to create interesting paintings
why? new technique for artists; new medium
how? slime mold grown on transparent plates, layered behind one another
what? layered paintings
5. Pens made from mycelium
why? less plastic is used how? develop case for pens out of mycelium what? compostable pen cases; maybe Diy Kits for teens
- 20 Minute break -
Group session 2
-> Develop one of our ides further; chosen idea: glowing exit signs
structure:
why?
-> saving electricity
-> sustainability
realisation process
-> grow fungi (panellus stypticus)
-> inside glass cube
-> run some tests on when the mushroom glows
-> setup gives mushroom food and moisture
-> find out more about mushrooms biorythm
Plans for setup
-> reuse old exit-sign cases (test if it works with the plastic and color)
-> fill it with substrate and grow mushroom in there
-> install mushroom case
where do we want to exhibit it? Showcase 3 places here in Weimar
-> University
-> Lichthaus Kino
-> Jena botanischer Garten
Necessary tests:
-> biorythm testing
-> longtime study of mushroom lifespan
-> temperature? Is roomtemperature okay?
-> Nutrition? Is moisture in the substrate?
-> when does it glow? How does it decide to glow? Can it be used during the day?
-> examine exit signs; Are there brightnesslevels that have to be achieved? Is the case a suitable home for the mushroom? Who to ask for permission to install the mushroom cases
Chosen Organism: Euglena
To-Do's
- grow Euglena
- care for Euglena
- work out a creative Projekt using Euglena
Process of growing Euglena:
I met with Alessandro on the 16th of November to start growing Euglena gracilis.
Making the substrate
For the substrate we followed this guide.
We decided to make 500ml of the solution so we could have a few tries from the beginning in case some of them failed. Working with live organisms is a lot of trial and error. For that I first did some calculations and multiplied all the necessary ingredient times five, since the recipe was originally for 100ml of solution. I wrote everything down to make it easier for myself once I actually got to weigh everything with the scales.
I got into the lab equipment which consists of a lab coat, gloves and goggles. I sterilised my hands before and after getting on the gloves, as well as my workspace and all my materials to minimize contaminations that could jeopardize growing the culture of Euglena. I prepped my workspace with the necessary tools: a highly accurate scale (for the tiny amounts of chemicals you need), the necessary chemicals in order of the recipe, distilled water, a tiny spatula, tin foil as a base to put the chemicals on for weighing, my bottle for the finished solution; sanitizer and papertowels to clean the spatula between going into the different chemicals to prevent crosscontamination of products. I made the base solution and solution one with the help of Alessandro. Solution 2 and 3 were kindly provided by Miga. In the base solution I then dropped the extra solutions 1 and 2 as specified in the text (5 times 8 drops for each) before they go to be autoclaved in the pressure cooker.
After preparing the solutions in their respective bottles we put them in the pressure cooker to kill off any spores or bacteria that might have landed in them while working (Make sure the lid of the bottle is on the bottle but not screwed all the way shut to prevent the glass from breaking in the pressure cooker. Also make sure somebody is there to watch the pressure cooker for workplace safety. Alessandro kindly did that for us while we went and got lunch).
Once everything was nice and sterile we prepared our workbench for making the actual substrate and put some Euglena in there for growing. We prepared all the solutions and put them where I can easily reach them. I also got the worksheet ready so I know how much has to go in the base solution, the vitamin solution and the Euglena sample to make sure I can work quickly and efficiently without having to search for things when I'm already working on it. Then I desinfected my hands, put gloves on and desinfect them again. Since we made more of the base solution I also had to take that into account when dropping in the other solutions. After the full substrate was done I filled four plastic containers until about 3/4 full and added a few of the drops with Euglena in them. Then we put all the tubes in a stand near a window to make sure the Euglena could photosynthesize and grow. Since it's winter Alessandro put up a UV lamp for them.
Ideas for using Euglena
Footage of the grown Euglena
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Problems/Difficulties that occured during the process
The first thing that happened that didn't turn out to be too big of a deal was that only one of the four tubes with Euglena that we made was actually usable. The others had contaminations and/or didn't grow. Which is a good reminder that these things can happen when you are working with living beings. So always have a backup and check in regularly to make sure they're still thriving.
Second thing was that I had a few problems with taking photos and videos from the microscope since I didn't really know how to make the camera take fluid and good quality videos. It was a little frustrating to look into the microscope and see so much color and life in the euglena only to see that the camera can't really pick up on these images as well as I'd hoped.
In general I noticed that one semester is way too short to grow organisms and also have enough time in the end to produce a satisfying art project with them. So I hope I'll get the opportunity to try again when there's more time and not a praxissemester coming up.