11/20/13

This week, I got to officially start on my very own experiment!!!

 As mentioned in my previous post, my experiment revolves around potassium. My mentor and I decided to incorporate this very metal via the agar plates. Rather than the usual set of ingredients used to create the standard agar plate, I added a particular amount of potassium bicarbonate to the mix in addition to the regular components. As shown in the picture to the left, I prepared 3 separate mixtures--one of which is the control medium.

(Here is a bonus picture! :D) This is me in the compete lab gear head to toe. (except my sterilized clogs aren't shown here). In this image, I am preparing plates (moving the spore onto the agar plates) as mentioned in the post below.

11/13/13

        Due to the fact that now I have basically went through the general process of growing the mushroom product they produce at Ecovative, my mentor told me that we would be moving on to a new project. This time, she gave me full rein. My next assignment/opportunity was to create my own experiment. She asked me what I would like to experiment on/about and that once I had a set topic, I would get to carry out the experiment, like how an actual scientist would him/herself. First, I started with a word bank of vague and broad ideas that I was interested in and that which would be feasible for me to carry through. After reading several papers that she printed out for me and researching on the web, I decided to base my very first project on the workings/effect of potassium on the growth of mushrooms and also on the inhibition of molds/bacteria of the growing strains. This topic, my mentor and I agreed, would give me various pathways to take even after performing the experiment. For instance, not only would I be able to do the actual experiment, but also I would be able to get to use the Dinoxcope program (program that allows one to use the microscope via the computer screen) to analyze and save my results later-on.

      Aside from deciding my project, just to practice and better my plating skills, my mentor left me all by-myself to 1) wipe down the hood, 2) get the materials 3) perform plating plates 4) clean the hood. In short, she basically left me to do my own things while she took care of her other projects. I felt so accomplished, content, and most importantly: independent by the end of my internship. I can't wait for the coming weeks when I get to actually start my project and see how it takes shape!

11/06/13

In addition to the things that I did last week, my mentor and I also set up agar plates around 4 different places in the lab to see what kinds of molds are in the atmosphere. I placed one agar plate near the sink, one near the cookers (the pressure cookers), one near the incubation rack, and one near the compressor shelf. Coming in today, I was really curious as to see the different kinds of molds that should have formed over the past few days while I was gone. To my great dismay, not that many molds or bacteria formed on the plates--this is a good thing in the company's stance as that means their lab for the most part is a sterile environment--which is what they aim to attain. However, the agar plate next to the pressure cookers showed three groupings of mold that had begun to take form. In addition, the agar plate that was placed near the sink exhibited a blob of bacteria. My mentor taught me how to tell the difference between molds and bacteria. Contaminants that look watery and slimy are most likely to be the latter group (bateria) while dry and fuzzy substances the former (molds). After seeing these, I finally understood the reason why my mentor stressed ever-so-much the concept of sterilizing every single tool and person before conducting experiments. Even in this seemingly-pristine environment, there are still contaminants in the air that can harm the products.

This is bacteria

These are 3 molds

 As well as that, today I was able to take home my first test-product-mushroom-packaging product!! After I took the picture of the teddy bears posted in my previous blog post, my mentor and I put them in the dryer to absorb all the moisture and thereby prevent the mycelia from further growing and fruiting mushrooms. Had these objects simply been left out in the humid atmosphere, they would turn into something like the picture below.

<-- The protruding object circled in yellow is the beginning of a mushroom. Left over time, this would eventually grow into the mushroom we know and imagine today.

I got to take these three products back with me!!

 Upon showing my first test products to my friends, they all believed me when I lied and told them it was styrofoam. When I told them it was actually made of compost materials and mushroom mycelium, they were very surprised. :) 

10/30/13: MUSHROOM TEDDY BEARS :)

Last Wednesday, I continued with the next step in the process of making my very first mushroom test-product at Evocative. In the previous post, I shared my experience in putting together a bag of growing medium (compost) for the mushrooms to grow on. After these bags show signs of inoculation (also as stated in the prior post), one would open them up and throughly mix them together--and this is exactly what I did. 

After my mentor and I decided that the two bags we had left to inoculate were sufficiently ready, she informed me that my next procedure would be to pour the compost, now covered with newly-grown fungi, onto a flat surface and to completely mix it so that it would give off a homogenous appearance rather than only the surface portion of the bag containing the white mycelia. (this is shown in the picture to the left)

After accomplishing this task, I got to choose the type of mold to pack this compost in--I went with the teddy-bear shaped mold. As mentioned many times before, the mycelia (white things that appear during inoculation) acts as a glue for the compost materials. Thus, when the mycelia-infused medium is tightly inserted into a plastic mold, over a time period of three to five days the agricultural waste transforms into a durable material. Depending on the type of strain of mycelium used in the prior step (the step that I explained in my previous post), Ecovative is able to make a variety of different kinds of the final product. For example, one type of strain would produce a water absorbent product while another would produce a dielectric final packaging product. In this way, the company is able to meet the requests of many different types of companies and each of their products (ie: computers, wines, etc).

Before

After 3~5 days