Panicky Attempt to Boost Marks V.3.

I've done the method thingy already, right? Have I discussed my results at all? I gave you Excel screenshots, correct? Okay, here are some graphs. It's probably not correct to have data like growth in column graphs (that's for quantitative categorical, I'm working with quantitative continuous, right?), but it does help to visualise. They were originally going to be in my appendix, but I'm putting them just here.


Graph of mould growth in Trial 1, using mould from stale bread


Graph of mould growth in Trial 2, using mould from blue cheese

I figure a lot of errors could have occured here.

1. I couldn't get the EXACT same amount of mould on each slice. I'm only a clumsy human. The stale bread mould grew in round clusters, almost equal in size so I put one of those on each slice. But I don't know how many spores I ended up putting there, or their reproductive ability. The blue cheese had veins of mould that I had to extract, so it was even harder. Varying densities of the veins and all. I spread the mould out into two square centimetre shapes, but that was only equal to the nearest square centimetre, eh. If it grew, it grew.

2. Nature of placement.
Pantry: flat, side by side, high shelf. Dark unless someone walked in an turned on the light.
Fridge: flat, side by side, low shelf. Also dark unless someone opened the fridge.
Freezer: vertical, pressed one to the other in a pile. It's pretty crowded in our freezer. We haven't got a light, but I suppose the light from the kitchen would get in if anyone opened it.

Hence, varying exposure to light and oxygen.

Furthermore, there's varying humidity, which I couldn't control. Mould NEEDS moisture, but I couldn't give it to them. In the freezer it's very dry. But I could see condensation inside the fridge bags, which must have meant that they had moisture available. But ALL TEN slices that were either in fridge or freezer didn't grow at all. They didn't like me. :(

3. Limit of reading. I could only measure to the nearest square centimetre with my transparent grib. *wobble wobble wobble*

Thus it ends, my tasty tenacious little lemon drops.

"It has been shown in this experiment that surrounding temperature affects rates of mould growth. The hypothesis was supported in part by the results taken. Mould in room temperature thrives and mould in freezing conditions does not grow but remains dormant; these observations support the predicted results. However, mould kept at 4°C did not show any growth, when it was predicted that it would be able to grow at least minimally. If this part of the hypothesis is to be re-examined, human errors and errors of reading must be taken into account, and a more accurate method must be used. A general statement can be made that mould colonies find it more difficult to grow when the temperature of the surrounding environment is lower."

Guess what. No turtles. ;D

Panicky Last Minute Attempt to Boost Marks V.2!

I was going to upload some graphs that I decided to take out of my appendix, but it will take up TWO ENTIRE MGS OF MY ALREADY LAST-GASPING BANDWITH. This shall be done...soon...

While I'm here, I might as well summarise my research, because I haven't done that.

1. Moulds can not photosynthesise.
2. They need food, moisture and oxygen.
3. They grow by extending filaments called hyphae with more cells.
4. The body of a fungus is called a mycelium -think of the soild part of a mushroom- for mould the body can be called a colony.
5. They excrete hydrolytic enzymes and mycotoxins that stop competing organisms from growing. Nice.
6. They reproduce through spores; merges spores contain genetic material from two species of fungi; spores travel on air currents and can remain airborne indefinitely.
7. Mould at room temperature thrives.
8. Mould can begin growing at 4 degress Celsius, the temperature of a fridge.
9. Few species can survive outside of 4-38 degrees Celsius.
10. Blue cheese contains penicillium, which grows where it can access food and oxygen but will stop growing when it can not. Mould from blue cheese can be scraped off and stored to make another batch of cheese.

I referenced about three or four sources pretty heavily, and put in a few sentences from the others. Hmm.

I think I finished

Meow.

Well, I copied and pasted everything into one big Word doc, chucked in a hideous footer called Pinstripe, copied and pasted things into an abstract, and am prepared to get whatever percentage the Dark Gods determine on this blasted thing.

To infinity and McDonald's, yo.

Doo Ba Shi Doooo

"What kind of primitive beasts are responsible for this mess?"

Okay, the second trial ended last week. The fridge and freezer mould: NOTHING. Again. The pantry mould...how do I explain? In the first trial, the pantry slices showed no growth for three days, before it grew SHOCKINGLY fast in the next three days. The second time round, there was no growth for FOUR days. A longer plateau period. I kept it for an extra day out of curiosity, but I didn't record the results. If the plateau period was a day longer, it should have gotten to the Empire stage eventually, right? Not really. Day 6, the mould covered a bit less than half of the slice. Day 7, it wasn't even three quarters, nowhere near the ALL OVER EVERYTHING stage of Trial 1 - Day 6.

I'll put some screenshots of my Excel sheets here.

Reborn

Threw away old bread. Started again with blue cheese. This time I drew 2cm square outlines onto the bread, so if the mould grows out of those lines I'll know from sight.

I also know why I couldn't find my photos. The SD card was locked. Oi.

Some Things

Who deleted my photos of the first few days of growing?!

Look, here's the deal:

on Monday and Tuesday I observed no visible change in all of the slices.

On Wednesday, the mould on the pantry slices had doubled or tripled. Things were good. Nothing going on with the fridge and freezer slices.

On Thursday, the pantry slices had between 10-16 square centimetres of mould on them. I counted the squares of concentrated, dark blue mould. There were thin, pale 'tails' of mould spreading out from the source, on both sides of the slice. Again, nothing with the colder samples.

On Friday, I came home to see a veritable EMPIRE of mould on the pantry slices. I would have said the mould had now taken over an entire side, but there were some empty bits. Between 90-100 square centimetres, I counted. It's got most of the other side, too. Once again, NO GROWTH on the fridge and freezer mould. But with just these five slices in room temperature, THIS happened:



Now, my hypothesis was that the pantry mould would grow the fastest, the fridge mould a bit slower, and the freezer mould not at all.

But the pantry mould is growing SO FAST, my experiment is over in five days. The fridge mould is growing not at all, when I'd have thought there'd be SOME. A LITTLE. A TEENY bit. I mean, I've found mouldy food in the fridge before. Why can't my bead mould grow there then? Freezer is what I expected though. Nothing.

I'm probably going to do a second trial to compare with this one. Three slices for each or five again? I'll have to use the blue cheese mould, since I HAD to throw away the Evil One.

I'll be forced to make it an equal five day trial, so that leaves me three weekends to finish up my introduction, organise my data (probably be forced to handdraw the graphs and tables TT_TT) and write my report.

When what I really want to do is watch a Disney marathon.

Good Omens

It begins.

Armed with only a pair of tweezers, I used up an entire loaf of bread. I took a tweezer pinch or mould and spread it out to cover about 2 square centimetres on the slice. Here's a batch:


I'm fairly confident that the mould was evenly distributed, because each time I took one clump. The mould on my source bread had round clumps of more or less the same size. ALL OVER IT. Want a peek?



It looked and smelled positively evil; in fact I'm sure the foul soul of my grandmother corrupted her bread before she left. Say hello to the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness.

...That was technically copyright of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman...

A New Hope

At the risk of sounding as if I seriously misjudged the date of Star Wars Day, I have a new hope.

Bugger the tomato and butter mould. The blue cheese mould has...sort of paled? I can't tell if it actually grew or not, maybe by a millimetre.

But THANK YOU gran, for going overseas and leaving your wholemeal bread in teh fridge where no one could see it... There's a mould zoo on that thing.


The mould I was looking for.


Strange fluff between the slices.


My working station. I've adopted the method of blue cheesemakers; I'm taking a pinch of mould and pressing it into a depression/hole on the bread.

Now grow, my precious, GROW!

As soon as I have a nice colony (thus proving that mould can be transplanted) I'll start my Experiment. Also, thank you gran for leaving behind an empty unit complete with fridge and freezer and pantry.

Cheese

I threw out the bakery cheese. The smell got to me.

I've dug a pair of tweezers into Danish blue cheese, and pressed what I removed into a slice of bread. My research just says, "At some point, the mold population on the cheese grows to a point where there is nowhere for new spores to latch on to both food and oxygen; the aging process slows to a stop," so I assume they just package and sell. I'm not sure how reliable a website such as this is, though: http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5270633_cheese-mold-growing-process.html

I've also found some black tomato mould, which Mum says started off as white-green (in her wisdom as a family cook... O_o). It didn't look like normal 'furry' mould, more like a black spot. I scraped it off and put in on some bread. Hope aren't high for this one.

Mum just found some grey mould on the butter, which I've also extracted and put on a slice of bread.

Not only that. I've got a small amount of pho noodles in its own plastic bag, with those three aforementioned bags, on that shelf.

Stupid how I encounter this problem, really. I can't the mould I wanted! In fact, I haven't witnessed the visible expansion of any mould colonies yet. Mould needs food, oxygen, darkness and moisture. I've given all the trials bread, holes in their bags, a high pantry shelf. Maybe I'd better start watering them and sprinkling sugar over them too or something.

NB. Will upload photo as soon as the SD card gets sorted out. Apparently the computer can't read a 32 gig card...or something...

I think I'm beyond caring about this SRP.

...

Yeah. I am.

Climate Graph

...You don't care about my Europe holiday, do you? You don't care that Goofy kissed me in Hong Kong... You don't care that I am way too jetlagged to do this and the fluid still hasn't gone out of my calves. :(

This is what you want, isn't it? This THING!



I might as well explain my method in more detail too. It's easier for me to use plain English to communicate instead of Step 1 and 2 ect. so I'm going to do that now.

It has been stated on Wikipedia that mould will enter a dormant, non-growing state when conditions do not allow growth. One of these conditions is temperature; between 4 to 38 degrees Celsius is the ideal growing rate. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold and http://www.realtor.org/realtororg.nsf/pages/moldfaq

My hypothesis is that the lower the temperature is (ie. the colder), the slower mould will grow (perhaps not at all). My aim is to find out whether the above statement, as well as my hypothesis, is true.

Right now I have a small handful of cheese (thanks, my aunt-who-owns-a-bakery-in-Mortdale) inside a plastic bag, sitting on a shelf in my dark pantry. After school I basically come home and handle it. I can't remember if bacteria helped food to mould or not, but I'm trying to help it along; there are little spores floating around everywhere and I must have SOME on my hands. Since mould also needs oxygen, I've cut little hole in the bag. Since it also needs moisture, I cough and breath into it as well. It smells dreadful and feels utterly disgusting. I hope that mould grows soon. If this fails -it is bakery cheese, so it may have more preservatives than supermarket cheese- I shall buy some blue cheese to obtain my penicillium.

(Note: Research if/how cheesemakers stop the mould from spreading on blue cheese once it is ready for sale and consumption. If they don't, we'd be eating more mould than cheese. That would be stupid.)

Just to make sure my mould can reproduce and spread, I'll tweezer a sample onto one slice of bread. If the mould grows, I'll transfer equal amounts onto fifteen slices of bread. Five will remain at room temperature. Five will go into the fridge, at 4 degrees, the edge of survivability. Five will go into the freezer, beyond the point of possible growth. I've mentioned the zip lock bags, haven't I?

Each day I'll check on them, possibly take photos, and measure the area of bread covered by mould. I'll do this with either a transparent square centimetre grid, or if the mould grows concentrically I'll use a pair of compasses and the pi x r squared formula. I know this is rough, but what choice do I have? Tables will be filled in. Quantitaive graphs will be created.

I'm not sure how FAST the mould will grow, so the duration of my experiment is TBA. I'm stuck with this project anyway. But I do believe I have things under control.

You still don't want to hear about the Italian guitarist and the French guy stalker photo and Disneyland? Right.

Being Nerdy - Source reccomendation to all of youse

Looks nice, eh? Not only that, it PROVES...er, HELPS the validity of my research topic. I need data that is measurable, and that concentrically-moulded pear has lifted my hopes. (Come on, Ms Zhang...you can't stop me now...I've written half the introduction already...Anthony Warlow fan to Anthony Warlow fan? :3 )

My Dad keeps bugging me to ask the school library to subscribe to New Scientist. The stuff they discover is brilliant. I may not always understand the jargon, but I like New Scientist anyway. Especially articles on the animal/human psyche. :D

I remember reading this article a while ago: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14119184.300-still-life-in-mouldy-bread-two-biologists-studying-a-bread-mould-from-a-small-town-in-texas-discovered-clues-to-the-evolution-of-modern-life-from-its-most-primitive-beginnings.html

It provides the vague connection between mould and other organisms I need to justify my experiment! Muahahaha!!!

Seriously. If you need a non-internet source, check out New Scientist. Do it. Right now. It makes you feel so, so amazingly nerdy. XD

Anthony Warlow remains the fine Captain of the Pinafore. There are still no turtles.

Panicky Pre-Marking Attempt To Boost Marks 1.0

1. I've got four/five solid internet sources. I tried looking for more but they all said basically the same thing, and they're not exactly what I'm looking for. A lot of websites focus on "mould-related health hazards" and "how to get rid of mould in the home". I did find a website that helped you identify what type of mould you have, though. It turns out that the green-blue-white mould I've seen on pizza cheese and peaches (my intended source) is penicillium, AKA the antibiotic source and the genus from which "yummy" cheese moulds come. Will go to library tomorrow for books.

2. I feel all right with my proposed method. Though I may bump up the number of bread slices to give a wider range of results. Four or five slices for each condition, maybe. Also, I'm going to check the mould every day and document the area of spreading. I smell graphs... Another thought. Should I do anotehr trial with another mould species? Though from what I got of the webpage, the black moulds are particularly unhealthy. I'll see if I can find the emerald green mould in the bathroom or something...

Variables
Variables to be controlled:

• Growing ground for the mould; the bread slices will be taken consecutively from the centre of the same loaf so that the bread is the same age, consists of the same ingredients and subject to the same cooking method.
• Period of growing and time of analysis.
• Mould source/species of mould (may do another species other than penicillium)

Independent variable:

• Temperature of surroundings during test period.

Dependent variable:

• Growth rate of mould during test period.

IS THIS HALF-HEARTED ENOUGH?

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." ~Arthur C. Clarke

"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced." ~Gregory Benford

"There are no turtles anywhere." ~Ponder Stibbons

Small Step

...Okay, I've actually done some Googling on mould in general and how temperature affects the growth of mould. It turns out that some girl from America has done something like this before. She has an entire webpage about her mouldy bread. BUT my aim is different to hers. She focused on the bread; I'm going to be thinking more about the mould itself, delightful little microscopic unicellular asexual/sexual organisms they are...

By next weekend, I plan to have read aforesaid Googled pages...

The week after that, I plan to have done the introduction, maybe.

And then I'll forget about it for two months, and get all panicky and stressed out and sleep-deprived like everyone else.

I actually should be working faster than everyone else since I'm leaving for a six week holiday soon. When I return in May I'll start growing the mould. By the end of June I should have finished all the writing bits.

...

Oh bollocks.

"There are no turtles anywhere."

The Possibilties of Mould

I would LOVE to do a project on evolution, psychology, or deep space... As it is, my best idea so far is fungus.

How To Kill Mould
with different temperatures

Step 1. Extract sample of mould. (Will probably come from pizza cheese or a peach; they are reliable sources in my experience.)
Step 2. Carefully grow mould onto nine slices of bread -as similar as I can get. Leave for five days until about equal growths of mould are seen on all the slices.
Step 3. Place three of the slices into the freezer (each in separate plastic freezer bags to protect surrounding food), three into the fridge, and the remaining three in room temperature conditions as a control.
Step 4. Examine differences in the rate of growth after a further five days.

I wanted to see how heat would affect mould, but due to recent spikes in electricty and gas costs I can't exactly leave the oven on for a week.

I've done some research today. Apparently:
1. Heat is often recommened to kill mould. Above 60 degrees Celcius would do.
2. Lukewarm conditions will allow the bacteria to grow faster.
3. Cold temperatures will not kill the bacteria, but will stop it from growing.
4. When temperature does not allow growth, mould can live in a dormant state before dying.
5. Different mould species very enormously in their tolerance of temperature and humidity.

"Moulds produce through spores, which can be asexual or sexual. Many species can produce both types, and many are able to survive extremes of temperature and pressure."

Still sounding good...?

"There are no turtles anywhere." ~Ponder Stibbons

Hello World

Hello, er, world.

Lilian T from 10S1 here.

I like Anthony Warlow.

Er.