more observations

So, I have a lemon that grew white mold first with a green tinge, then the green creeping up and taking over. I set it aside to see what would happen. I washed all the mold off of it, which left a discolored yellow swath around the center of the peel. I set it aside by my sink. The white grew back with a tinge of green then the green seemed to take over since it became mostly dusty green with a tinge of white. I see this mold repeatedly. I wonder what type it is. I had some ginger root which yielded interesting results. Ginger has astringent properties, whihc I tend to associate with clean. However this ginger root develop a white fluffy mold in one spot, which seemed to have been a healed wound (perhaps where the root was cut) I cut it off and the ginger beneath seemed fine--thus perhaps a mold that develops and feeds on the skin of the root? or scar tissue of the root? It was slow developing.

Ah, and I bought tomatos from krogers the other day which seemed to develop weeping sores It was a whitish,pinkish weeping that screamed infection to me. I watched them for a few days and and the infection indeed seemed to spread, causing swelling of the tomato and a type of non-patchwork bruising that indicated that the contents under the skin were liquifying. With sadness at the loss of viable nutrients, at at the general concept of loss to the spread of infection, I settled the tomato into its compost grave.

In other news,I am the worst cook in the world. When I get super rich I am hiring someone who likes to cook and tossing this kitchen silliness out the door.

The Medical Library

Have you ever gone into a medical library to browse through books and be drawn in deeper and deeper into the texts as if enchanted. Fairies carrying your mind in, spiraling down dimly lit tunnels, until you are so deeply swathed in the texts of the library that you are cocooned by the world inside the books. Time fades away, and 'I swear only fifteen minutes' turns into an hour, then two. Wandering through the pages, your brain swells with information as if you have bitten a magic mushroom. Whispers you can barely here stroke you, bombard you, telling you the answers. You know if you can delve just a little bit deeper, read a little bit more, think, and think and think, as if drunk on the very act, then the whispers will turn to a shout of Eureka. So you do, and they do become louder. But a ringing bell draws you up up and out of that world landing you back at the wooden table surrounded by tomes and volumes. The library is about to close, and you've probably gotten a ticket since you parked in a thirty minute only spot. Wisps of that scientific world drift from your pores, and reluctantly you head toward the stairs, feeling an empty spot, a longing. An echo of whispers follows you down the stairwell and  you ache as you know you were only a few more minutes, a few more pages, a few more pieces of the puzzle before the click that would have transformed your hungry need from seeking to understanding.

God, I'm such a geek

Still a science nerd all these years later. Medical School/Graduate school better accept me, or I'm going to set up my own personal lab in my storage closet out of desperation. Try explaining that to the FBI. "No sir, this lab is for my own personal satisfaction. I swear. No, I didn't get those molds from Russia. I grew them on a banana."

Yeah, I need the science fix.

fungal nutrient broth?

Okay, to satisfy my own need for scientific investigation, no matter how amateur, I've begun inspecting any types of growth or organisms growing on foods accidentally left out (or stuff in unknown places by my children to be discovered later or left in the fridge to long). One of the interesting things is that plates with oil on them (we use olive oil and flaxseed oil) left out for the same amount of times having been used for similiar dishes tend to NOT visibly grow things (from mold to creepy crawlies) or develop nasty odors. However when I mixed straight vitamin C with flaxseed oil and water and accidentally left it in the spare room in a fit of absentmindedness it DID grow a particularly beautiful green white mold. It grew on the surface and not into the oil between the surface and the water. It seemed very healthy looking. I wanted to save some for microscope inspection but had no suitible safe place to keep it until I could do so. Sad:(. But it leads me to suspect (using experiential learning, not what I can go look up in a text book) that oil is a useful inhibitor of maggots, fruit flies, mold, and though I could not directly observe it without microscopic aid, I suspect bacteria. However, when the appropriate nutrients in the appropriate forms (such as dissolvable powder) are mixed, oil may be a suitable media or surface to grow specific fungi (and/or bacteria). Olives with garlic stored in vinegar(with possilbe sulfites) salt, water and lactic acid attract fruit flies. I was always under the impression that vineger (acetic acid) isa preservative. Perhaps its not a preservative in the case of fruit flies, but preserves against bacteria and mold (I believe garlic has been shown to be anti-fungal and anti-bacterial) or perhaps another ingredient negates certain preservative properties such as the lactic acid. Without proof, who knows. I suspect it doesn't significanty repel fruit flies, the preservative properties of the ingredients are limited to bacteria and mold.