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...