FGSC BLOG ARCHIVE

 

 

6/30/06
I am working on a chapter in the upcoming book "The Aspergilli: Genomics, Medical Applications, Biotechnology, and Research Methods." Edited by S. Osmani and G. Goldman. In doing so, I have compiled some interesting data. For example, the graph to the right show the number of citations published annually in the Fungal Genetics Newsletter Aspergillus Bibliography as edited by J. Clutterbuck.

6/26/06

Complete medium

Last week Rachel did a plate test to see if our lab was clean. She left minimal and complete plates open both in the main lab and in the transfer room to see what would grow. The plates were left open to the room for 30 minutes then were incubated at room temperature for a week. On the two plates in the main lab there were a total of six colonies on the complete medium and one on the minimal medium. Three of the colonies on the complete medium were fuzzy and three were mucoid.

The one colony from the minimal medium was green on the top and on the bottom. All of the colonies grew slowly, none being over 1 cm after 10 days.

There were no colonies on the plates that were left open in the transfer room.

Top

Bottom    

Minimal medium (actual size 12 mm)

 

6/21/06

Happy Summer Solstice!

Today the sun rose at 5:53 AM and will set at 8:47 PM. It always seems like the nights last longer later in the summer, but maybe that is just because they are hotter. Tonite will be hot enough. It is 90F here right now (32C). This is an appropriate start to summer. No pagan rituals here, however. This IS middle-america.

Well, last Saturday I did the short-course at the Topeka Tinman Triathlon. I managed a 1:05 finish which was good enough for 15th out of 37 competitors in my division. The USA Triathlon federation now considers you to be the age you will be on December 31st to avoid people changing divisions during the year. Hence I raced as a 45 year old, though I will be 44 for a couple of months yet. I can never remember my age so I just remember my twin brother's.

The Tinman was a decidedly mixed race. It is a good course and has a good history, but this year KML Marketing Solutions organized the race for the first time. I have raced both the short and long courses here (and have garnered 2nd and 4th place finishes over the years) and this was the worst race yet. There were nowhere near enough volunteers, the course was not well staffed, the goody-bag had no goodies, the after party consisted of Domino's pizza and Gatorade, and (perhaps most importantly) there were not enough porta-potties!

Because of the increased development in this part of Shawnee County, I have repeatedly decided not to come back to this race and maybe this year will be the last time I make the trek to Lake Shawnee.

 

6/16/06

Yesterday was my 11 year anniversary of working at the FGSC. Since time has flown, it must be fun.

During the period of 1/1/06- 6/15/06, the FGSC web-site enjoyed over 1.3 million hits. These came from over 130 countries.

I am always impressed when I see that people from places as diverse as Benin, Belarus, Bolivia, Barbados, Britain, and Brazil visit the FGSC site. We truly span the globe.

I spent last weekend in Beautiful Wichita, Kansas at a soccer tournament. Though the kids played well, for me a  high point was seeing a family of Mississippi Kites hunting along the edges of the fields. I think that the other parents thought I was a real bird-brain.


6/6/06
I am not superstitious and do not think that the number (or the date) 666 is meaningful in any context. It is certainly no more special than 555 or 777. Other numbers, like pi or Avogadro's number, are very meaningful. And speaking of numbers, I was canoeing on the 11 Point River this weekend and one of the other canoeists pointed out that he always sneezed twice. That got me thinking about sneezing.
I suspect that most people sneeze in prime numbers, once, twice, thrice and so on. This is mostly, I assume, because people usually sneeze a small number of times at once and prime numbers are more common among the smaller positive integers (ignoring arguments about negative prime numbers).

We spent one night at a campground called Hufsteadlers just East of Alton, MO. Must be a tough way to make a living. The second night we spent on a gravel bar along the river.

 
On Memorial Day I participated in the Amy Thompson Run to Daylight 5K with my Beautiful daughter and Handsome son. I had a pretty good finish, crossing the line in just over 26 minutes. Not bad considering it was hilly, hot, humid and the start was crowded with walkers, joggers, strollers, and talkers.
As far as family bragging rights, my aforementioned son was about 2 minutes faster than I and my similarly aforementioned daughter was a couple of minutes behind me.
The red shirt is from Garry Gribbles Running Sports. Since I participate in more than a few races per year, they give me free running gear.

The results of our unplanned test of filter paper stocks are in. Of the 96 stocks that I transferred from desiccated 96-well plates that were shipped to South America and back 91 grew after a weekend. Somehow even 94.8% viability seems like a bit of a problem. If anyone has a Perkin Elmer Apricot 96-channel pipetting robot they can send our way, we would be happy to make use of it.

 

 

The opinions and ideas expressed here are my personal opinions and do not represent the position of the FGSC or the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Any resemblance to persons, alive or previously alive, is purely coincidental, except when I mention living or previously living people explicitly and especially when I include photos of living or previously living people.

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