On Tuesday, I plated E. Coli and tested the effectiveness of 4 samples to kill the bacteria. The sample included , Aloe Vera gel (store bought), Windex, Tap water, and 70% Isopropyl Alcohol. This experiment was pretty much used to keep me busy as I haven't yet been able to start a project. However when I came in Wednesday, I found some interesting results. The zone of inhibition was basically 0 for every sample, including the isopropyl alcohol. Although the tap water, being the control, and the Windex doesn't jump out as a surprise to me, the 70% Alcohol does. Originally I had two hypothesis's on why this occurred. One being that because E. Coli is a gut bacteria and therefore is built to withstand alcohol. The second theory suggest user error such as the letting the alcohol evaporate to much before I was able to put the disk on the plate. Because of the results on Wednesday and with the first hypothesis in mind, I chose to do another plate instead with Staphylococcus. I chose staphylococcus because it's most commonly found on the skin which we would use 70% Isopropyl alcohol to kill to prevent infection. Today, Thursday, when I went in I did notice a physical significant difference in the zone of inhibition between the Staph plate and E.coli plate. I went ahead and attempted to measure the diameter of the zone of inhibition for both plates.
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| E. Coli Plate 3/22/23 |
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| Staph. Plate 3/23/23 |
Justine,
ReplyDeleteWOW! This is incredible. What a crazy cool project. Staph is no joke haha. Pretty serious stuff! I am happy that you got to get going with something while you wait for your actual project to cook. I am also waiting since I cant collect bugs until it heats up, this has been without a doubt the longest winter I have every experienced. I just need the sun to be out already!
What do you think you'll do for your project when you pick something?
Alex S