I apologize for the fact that lab work is very repetitive. But at least it makes you appreciate the little things, like using different strains of bacteria for the same procedure.

Lactobacillus is an interesting little bacterium. People use it commercially for quite a few things- digestive supplements, yogurt, and even a type of beer called "sour beer" which uses my bacteria, Lactobacillus delbrueckii, during the fermentation process.

My plates..and they all pretty much look the same.

 Although my Lactobacillus seemed to be hurt badly by liquid dish soap concentrations, the biofilm tests showed that there was virtually no effect of the dish detergents on biofilms of Lactobacillus. There may have been some tiny reduction, like 10%, but really not significant enough to be concerning. There could have been experimental error involving possible soap in the test tubes or a detergent stock that had less detergent than desired, but this is certainly good news for your gut. Feel free to take your probiotics, drink your sour beer(if you are at least 21, of course) and wash your dishes. The interesting thing is that you can only tell that there has been next to no reduction when you change the graph axis units to a logarithmic scale. On a normal scale, even this puny reduction showed a HUGE difference between bar sizes. And this goes to show the nature of bacteria. There are so freaking many of them in one particular area at one particular time, even killing 100 colonies isn't a big deal, because you have 800000000 more.

My plates!.. which pretty much look the same.

Plating the detergents showed that the Lactobacillus grew quite well in the detergent solutions, once again showing that the detergents wash away the colonies instead of killing them.

Detergent plates

 
For the last couple weeks of my project, I will probably re-do my e.coli biofilm test just to make sure I have good data. And if I still have time after that, I may investigate the effects of other common cleaning products that contain SDS, such as toothpaste or possibly use different kinds of plates. We'll see as my adventures continue.

Прощай!(Goodbye!)

Mackenzie