Science Scouts, now with more badges!

The Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique

The last time this one went around the blogohedron, I didn't blog, so, while I could have claimed quite a few badges, I couldn't brag about 'em. Now is my chance. They have added a few new badges and there are hints that the real thing may be available for purchase to adorn your lab coat. How cool would that be? so, here are the badges I have qualified for so far in life:

Talks about science badge. Required for all members. Yes, I talk about science, whether you want to hear about it or not. Neither rolling your eyes at me, nor that vacant look protect you from my talking science!


Blogs about science. Couldn't usta claim this one, but I guess I can now, eh?




Aw, heck, who doesn't qualify for the arts and crafts badge. I've made electron micrographs (scanning and transmission), light micrographs, plenty of photography, ceramics (I even built a few kilns), and some sumi-e (heck, I made the paintbrushes myself, too). Does that count?


Yes, I did grow up to be a marine biologist, but...





I kinda fu**ing hate dolphins. "Ooh, look at us, we're dolphins, cavorting merrily! Aren't we just super-cool charismatic megafauna? Don't you wish that you could study us like everybody asks if you do when you tell them you're a marine biologist?" I hate them so much. Why do they always wear that damnable smirk?

The "Don't quite know where I fit in" badge. Oceanographer, microbiologist, do I study corals? Well, yes. I am and do.




Any modern microbiologist worth his salt qualifies for the cloner badge.





The works with acid badge? You bet!





The works with too much radioactivity and still has no discernible superpowers badge? Well, I started out in a sediment dating lab working with 209Po, then in the micro lab with 14C and tritiated Lucine. Weak emitters, all. Maybe that's why I haven't been able to detect my superpowers?




The quack stomping badge. Not too much on the blog, but I have convinced my sis that "alt. med." is bunk and I'm working on Dad. And that leads us to:




The "I can sometimes be a real prick when it comes to science" badge. Yeah, well I ain't sorry.




The freezing stuff for the sake of scientific curiosity badges. Freezer (I), dry ice (II) and liquid Nitrogen (III).




The Experienced with electrical shock badges, level II: the shocking of a human and level III the shocking of oneself. Same event, too. See, my lab partner thought the capacitor was totally discharged, so tossed it to me. He made contact with both poles as he threw it and I made contact as I caught it. That hurt a bit, but the scar has faded. Electricity + sweaty hands + stupidity = pain.



Speaking of stupidity and pain: the "I've set fire to stuff" set. Set fire to stuff for general scientific curiosity (I), while aware of the combustion principles (II), and set fire to self while conducting experiments (IV). Cooking and drinking accidents do not count for the level IV badge, but I think setting fire to the ethanol used to sterilize instruments, panicking, knocking over the flaming beaker which set fire to the BSLII hood and then catching the flaming beaker as it rolled out of the hood, spilling flaming ethanol on my arm probably counts. The hood was fine, thanks, and yes, the arm hair grew back.



Because of, or perhaps in spite of the previous experiences with open flames, I earn the "Fond of highly exothermic reactions" (the chem prof blew up the fume hood with thermite in high school, so cool! Lifelong love, there.) and the "Comfortable around open flames" badges.

"Works with small and potentially dangerous organisms." Duh, microbiologist, remember?





The "I've eaten what I study" badge may be a little bit of a stretch, but I'm gonna take it. I've used microbes to make some delicious things, in fact, I'm making yogurt as I type this, I have some Acetobacter cultures making vinegar on the counter, and I have the supplies for the next batch of beer (future Microbes in the Kitchen posts, I promise).

I know what a tadpole is. Got a few in the pond, actually.





My training has made me able to fix household appliances. Especially if there is plumbing PVC involved, or anything with pumps.




I will gladly kick a sexual harasser in the nuts, if necessary.





I have used a telescope for general scientific curiosity.





I'm maybe a little too fond of invertebrates.





My job is such that I often have to wash my hands before I use the bathroom.






My science has kept me away from my bed for a night (I) and for over a week (II). Cruises, gotta love 'em.




I could probably qualify for a few others, like the MacGyver badge, but those would be a bit of a stretch (more so than the eating what I study badge), so I'll leave it at that. How about y'all?

What did Ella find today?

Let's play a new game. Here is the scenario: Ella goes out in the yard and digs up something one of the previous owners left behind.

Ready? Ella, go dig something up!



What did she find?



Give up? Click this for the answer.

Microbes in the Kitchen! (2 also with a minor Edit)

Greek cheese! Locally it's called Greek yogurt, and I think that's what most of the packaged products call it, but I've heard it called both. Either way, it's absolutely fantastic. At the end of this very easy process the yogurt you made in our last episode will be converted into a wonderful, light cheese very similar to soft chevre or cream cheese.

Step 1: place a colander or strainer in a bowl. There needs to be drainage room. Line the colander or strainer with a few layers of cheesecloth (unless your strainer is very fine). Then put your fresh yogurt into the colander. (Still with me? It's easy, I swear.) (EDIT: Optionally you can lightly salt your yogurt at this point to get a cheese that will last a little longer and taste a bit different. Longevity of the product has never been a problem around here, though. It never lasts the week.)

Cover the whole thing with loose cling wrap and put it in the fridge. (Whew, tough. Grab a beer while you're there, you've earned it.) Let it sit in the fridge overnight.

The lactic acid and water will drain from the yogurt while it sits, making thicker and thicker yogurt as it goes. Since the lactic acid goes out with the water, the flavor mellows too. It gets nice and creamy without so much of the yogurt "bite".

If you want a softer (think neufchatel, or Greek yogurt, if you've ever had that) and tangier cheese, remove it from the cheesecloth in the morning. If you want a more thick, mellow cheese, wait until you get home in the evening.

You can either just pour off the juice that collects in the bowl, or you an collect it and drink it. I have heard that with a little salt and or sugar it can be very refreshing on a hot summer evening. I haven't tried that yet, but I'll let you know what I think of it when I do.

Serving ideas? Why yes, I have a few, thanks for asking. The SO makes a great banana nut bread and this stuff is a fantastic spread on it. The softer version (the Greek yogurt) is delish on its own or with honey. How about a schmear with lox on a bagel, why not? Or maybe on toast points with cucumber for tea? Lovely, that. Hmmm... I think I could use a cuppa with some cuke sandwiches.

'Till next time, then! Enjoy.

Stitches

Removing stitches was far easier than I thought it would be. I swabbed everything with alcohol, snipped and tweezed and it was done. Swabbed with alcohol again, just in case, and I almost have my finger back. Cool.

Microbes in the Kitchen! (with minor Edits)

Eeek! No! Not germs in the kitchen! Grab the bleach, where is the steamer? LYSOL ME!

OK, calm down. It's all going to be fine. Trust me, I'm a microbiologist. We all know (or we all should know) that bacteria and fungi are everywhere. Almost literally everywhere on Earth's surface and even fairly deep into the crust. Don't worry about it too much, they were here first. It's their planet. We merely provide a few new niches for them to grow in. Sometimes they find a nice niche in us and can cause harm, but that's not the kind of thing I'm going to be talking about in this, the inaugural post of the Microbes in the Kitchen mini-series.

I'm going to talk about the niches that we make for bacteria and yeasts intentionally. Food. Good food. Spoiled rotten food that's supposed to be spoiled rotten and will make you feel spoiled rotten eating it. And making it, too.

Let's start easy. Yogurt. After reading this, you will be able to make your own delicious spoiled milk product. The thing that makes it work, this time, is one of many species of Lactobacillus. As the name implies, it eats lactose, and it's a long rod shape (the bacillus part). It's Gram positive (maybe I'll get into that later, if anyone is interested, but basically, it tells us about the cell wall), and it's a facultative anaerobe, meaning that it generally prefers low-to-no oxygen in the environment.

As it eats the lactose, its main by-product is lactic acid. It's the lactic acid that does the work to make milk into yogurt. It also puts the sour in sourdough and the distinct sourness into a good lambic, but those are subjects for later posts. A nice side-effect of this lactose munching is that people who don't express the lactase gene into adulthood (the true lactose intolerant folks) can generally tolerate yogurt just fine, thanks.

OK, so with that intro out of the way, let's get cookin'. I promise that this one is super easy. If you can boil water successfully, you're well on your way to making good yogurt. First we'll need to get a high quality Lactobacillus culture. Fortunately for us, we don't have to call the ATCC for this one. Believe it or not, you can procure a very high quality culture that has been selectively bred for centuries for this specific purpose at the local grocery store. Just buy a little tub of plain yogurt. (I told you this would be easy, don't you trust me?) Heck, it doesn't even have to be plain, since all the sugar and fruit and stuff will be diluted out anyway, but I started with plain. This time, though, all we had was strawberry fruit on the bottom, since I ate all of the last batch.

Lactobacillus culture? Check.

Now we need Lactobacillus food.

While you're there in the dairy isle, grab a 1/2 gallon of whole milk. (BTW, how do you get the internet in the dairy aisle? It never works for me.) The lactose sugar in the milk is our friendly bacteria's food. The milk fats and protein, once denatured by the lactic acid will stick together and get all intertwined to give us that great yogurt texture. If you're worried about using whole fat milk, well, I suppose you could try low-fat or maybe even non-fat, but I make no guarantees that it'll work and, frankly, if a little bowl of 4% fat yogurt in the morning doesn't fit into your diet plan, well, I pity you.

Culture? Check.
Culture medium (bacteria food)? Check.

You do have a thermometer at home, right? No? OK, fine, grab that little instant-read one over there. I hesitate to ask this, but without a thermometer in your kitchen... you do have a pot that can hold a half-gallon of milk, right? Whew. And some plastic containers to hold the yogurt? Yeah, that Chinese takeout soup tub'll work fine, it'll hold a 1/2 gallon, wont it? OK, we can use 2.

(EDIT, PLEASE NOTE: I didn't mention this earlier, but it is very important that your containers are as clean as possible. Wash them in VERY HOT water, or, if available, use the sanitize cycle on your dishwasher. If your hot water doesn't darn near scald you, use a 10% bleach solution to rinse the containers. Give them a good rinse with the bleach and let them sit for 10 minutes, then rinse with clean tap water (nothing too nasty in there if you're on a city supply.) If you're not on a city supply (well, etc.) boil your containers and lids for 10 minutes.)

Back in the kitchen we have everything we need, so let's get going. Put the milk in the pot (that's the hard part), then put the pot over medium to medium high heat. Check the temperature every now and then, but if you notice the milk almost starting to boil, with some nice steam you should be about there. Your target is 180 to 190 degrees F (80 to 88 ish C). (EDIT: This step is to re-pasteurize the milk. It makes sure there is nothing too nasty in your milk. Gotta be careful when we're playing with bacteria.) (EDIT: If the milk ever forms a skin, just scoop it off. It can leave little harder curds in the yogurt if you don't) Like so:



When it gets there, remove the pot from the heat and let it cool to 120 F (~49 C). This will feel very warm, but you can leave your hand on it for a while. Like so:



Now put 3 or 4 big spoonfuls of the starter culture (this time, the yogurt you bought, next time some you made) into the plastic container (the Chinese takeout tub, in this case) and add about a half cup of the warm milk, thusly (the color is the strawberry, don't panic):



and:



Stir them together, so that the starter is nice and thin so it'll mix evenly into the rest of the milk. Then pour the starter and milk mix into the warm milk and stir it well. So:



Pour this into as many soup tubs as necessary to hold it all and slap on the lids. Good.

Now we have to keep them warm for a while, so put them in the oven with the oven light on but don't turn the oven on. Yikes! When was the last time you cleaned that thing? I'm not putting my new yogurt in there. Just wrap them in a clean towel. That'll keep 'em warm. All that's left now is to wait. Give the Lactobacillus 4 or 5 hours to grow, multiply, eat lactose and pee lactic acid. All comfy in their warm place:



Again, wrap 'em up tight and leave them alone. After that time, unwrap and check that the yogurt is relatively set. Gently tilt the container and see if the yogurt stays pretty much in place (good and thick). If so, put your new yogurt in the fridge to set up over night and you'll have some great plain yogurt in the morning. No sugar, no preservatives, no binders and stabilizers, just yogurt. Like mama never used to make. Without all the additives, it will leak a bit of liquid. Just pour it off, it's water and lactic acid. This stuff should be good for a week or so.

I like it with a little honey and granola. It's the best yogurt you've ever had (if you're my typical American reader who gets everything pre-packaged and over processed at the store).

Next up: Greek cheese using the yogurt you just made.

I'm Back.

Hey, y'all. Thanks for waiting. Life seems to be a bit more under control, now, and aside from a sliced up right ring finger (2 stitches, lost ~1/3 of the fingernail. Don't mess with rosemary, it's delicious, but it'll get you if you get distracted), all is well.

So catching up, I have a new series of posts that should start this evening on Microbes in the Kitchen.

Ella is doing very well and still comes to work with me every day. She's a great little pup and I don't understand how anyone could have let her end up in the pound.

Jake is well and wedding plans are progressing. You all may get the rare and cherished chance to see me in a kilt.

Finally, the good folks a Galileoscope need your business. If they don't get more orders, they may have to halt production, according to Phil Plait. So go buy a few scopes, some for gifts, one for yourself, and a few for donation, why not? They haven't started shipping, yet, but when I get mine, I will post a review. Until then, how about this video of the moon through one?

Catch y'all later.

Sorry!

Life has been a little bit odd, frustrating, and busy lately, so I haven't had the time, desire, nor energy to post lately. (Was that too many comma addenda?)

I'll get back on the horse soon, I promise. Until then (whenever that may be) I am afraid that blog silence will last a while.

I want to come back, but hell... I'm tired.

I need a beer.

And some bacon.