Field of Science

Scanner Woes

How many times have I heard it on deviantart.com? The continual cry of "Oh noes! The scanner ate my picture!" And now I'm making the same complaints about mine.

Actually, my plate pictures haven't been too bad. Although a couple of them are somewhat ... darker and fuzzier than they could be. As there are no labels for anyone to pinch my results with, I think I am justified on posting a few on here:

That one's alright. A bit dark though. At least the contrast can be seen. In case anyone was wondering, what you are seeing is bacteria streaked across the plate and left to grow (marked by the black line across the plate) and the another bacteria grown on top of it, which has subsequently been killed.

But as this may turn into a paper (oh please! *crosses fingers and hopes*) I can't be any more specific.



This one (on the right) hasn't really come out at all. meh. There's not much I can do except tell people what they should be seeing and hope it all works out alright. So what you should be seeing is a patch of dead overlay (the light bit) that follows the line of the mould (crosshatched black pen), but is not actually present under most of the mould.


I have a dissertation to write up based on these! *panic*

On the plus side, my scanner seems to have also created some results of its own. Take a look at this bioassay:

See the white lines around the circles on the first two rows? They were not at all obvious in the photo. Although when I squint at the photo now I can kind of see them.

Yes, that is my handwriting at the bottom of the photo. Which was taken by yours truly in the (very old) lightbox, narrowly avoiding getting an accidental blast of UV light as well (UV light is used to take pictures of gels, and nobody bothers to switch the switch back to 'white light' when they've finished; noticed just in time)

I am very proud of all my results :) Which has probably confirmed for a Certain Special Someone that they are indeed going out with a very nerdy little thing.

=D

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the (possible) dissertation topic! :) So, do you ever get those funny wrist tans where your coat and gloves don't quite meet?

Lab Rat said...

The dissertation topic is certain, I have to write it up for my course. The possibility (and excitement) come from whether this stuff will actually make it to a publication or not.

I don't use UV light except for sterilizing the laminar hood, so thankfully haven't spent enough time around it to get tan lines. I do worry about the light box though, open it at the wrong time and it will blast UV light right at your face.

Anonymous said...

That sounds unpleasant. Ours were open face, so you could just stick the gel on and flip the switch. Had to wear what looks like a welder's mask, though, which was lots of fun!

Getting your dissertation into a journal would be pretty sweet. Good luck with that!