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From 2012.igem.org

July
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
						[http://2012.igem.org/J/1_July_2012 1]
[http://2012.igem.org/J/2_July_2012 2]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/3_July_2012 3]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/4_July_2012 4]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/5_July_2012 5]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/6_July_2012 6]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/7_July_2012 7]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/8_July_2012 8]
[http://2012.igem.org/J/9_July_2012 9]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/10_July_2012 10]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/11_July_2012 11]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/12_July_2012 12]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/13_July_2012 13]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/14_July_2012 14]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/15_July_2012 15]
[http://2012.igem.org/J/16_July_2012 16]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/17_July_2012 17]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/18_July_2012 18]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/19_July_2012 19]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/20_July_2012 20]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/21_July_2012 21]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/22_July_2012 22]
[http://2012.igem.org/J/23_July_2012 23]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/24_July_2012 24]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/25_July_2012 25]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/26_July_2012 26]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/27_July_2012 27]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/28_July_2012 28]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/29_July_2012 29]
[http://2012.igem.org/J/30_July_2012 30]	[http://2012.igem.org/J/31_July_2012 31]

Day Twelve

(10:00 am) Started looking at the colonies and taking photos until the camera died after 11. The other 16 will have to wait until later.

(10:30 am) Playing around with polystyrene and acetone to see what works in dissolving the polystyrene into a smaller state than EPS to put in agar as a carbon source.

• Insert video here.

(13:00 pm) Finished photographing all colony plates as the camera was charged.

(13:30 pm) The next stage to make new plates which have polystyrene as the sole carbon source in an attempt to isolate the microbes from our normal agar colonies that use polystyrene, it's a way of purifying our colonies. This may take a while for the colonies to grow so our computer scientist will run simulations of what the degradation would look like over a period of time that exceeds the running time of our project. The new plates consist of a very small amount of agar so that when this carbon source runs out they switch to the expanded polystyrene which we have melted with acetone to produce a molten polystyrene suspended in the acetone. To maintain the liquid state of the polystyrene we will use the orbital shaker provided by Heathrow scientific for which the team is very grateful. The polystyrene sludge is then placed as a layer in the glass petri dish with a thin layer of agar on and around the polystyrene to start the growth of the bacteria, but will quickly be used up on top of the polystyrene, and will support and outside colonies that spread past the edge of the polystyrene.

(14:30 pm) If this doesn't work for some reason, members of the group are testing out the dissolving power of other solvents on polystyrene. 50%, 66% and 75% Acetone (diluted with still water) had no effect on the polystyrene. Pure methanol is the next target, and also had no effect on the polystyrene.