Update on our task at hand:

Yay, so much for Nicholas doing the updating on the blog.

Well anyway, at the task at hand, we're currently researching on natural herbs that are able to neturalize/kill the bacterias.

The bacterias are 

E-Coli was found on the notes/Currency.

Lactobacillus acidophilus was found on the toilet seat.

taphylococcus aureus was found on the sink.

Anyway, we've decided on using a couple of different herbs to start off first.

We've decided to use the

Clitoria Leaves,

Aloe Vera Leaves,

Mint Leaves and

Pandang Leaves

if i remember correctly.

So we've already taken the first step by using Clitoria leaves and Clitoria Flowers.

We've done this by firstly grinding each of the samples, than adding distilled water in so we can get the extracts and sort of "juice" of the plant. 

The Clitoria leaves ended up with a sort of green water, which was than filtered.

The Clitoria flowers ended up with a bluish water, (Which has quite a nice colour to it), and it was than filtered.

We also nurtured more colonies of bacteria from notes, (Therefore mainly e-coli?)

which is currently in the incubator. (We haven't started on nurturing bacteria from the toilet yet)

The notes used were old $2 notes and plastic ones.

We used the same technique to make the colonies of bacteria, only this time of plate streaking we first took a cotton bud and covered the bud (All 360 degrees) with the bacteria. Than we streaked the agar plate once, followed by disposing the cotton bud. Then we took a plastic inoculation loop (We didn't have a metal one). We used the plastic inoculation loop and streaked once at the end of the first streak we made, spreading the colony of bacteria. We than disposed the plastic loop (To keep it sterile. If we used a metal one, we'd have to heat the loop) We than repeated the step of the plastic loop twice-thrice more.

That's about all there is.

General Report

I have finally done up the general report, which summarizes EVERYTHING!

Although with this general report, do note that everything inside is NOT finalized yet! Please do take time and read through everything carefully as i've spent 3 hours on it.

Here's the link to download it:

http://www.box.net/shared/2zqrzvp5kl

Bacteria

I forgot to add on the results.

E-Coli was found on the notes/Currency.

Lactobacillus acidophilus was found on the toilet seat.

taphylococcus aureus was found on the sink.

I hope i'm right. Can't really remember.

Research on bacteria

This is the research on the bacteria that Ms Menon and Justin wanted.

Staphylococcus aureus is a spherical bacterium, frequently found in the nose and the skin of the person. About 20% of the population are long-term carriers of S.aureus. S.aureus can cause a range of illnesses from minor skin infections, such as pimples.

Escherichia Coli is a gram negative bacterium that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded animals. Most E.Coli strains are harmless, but some can cause serious food poisoning in humans, and are occasionally responsible for costly product recalls.

Lactobacillus acidophilus is one species in the genus Lactobacillus. Some research has indicated that L. acidophilus may provide additional health benefits, including improves gastrointestinal function, a boosted immune system, and a decrease in the frequency of vaginal yeast infections. Some people report L. acidophilus provides relief for indigestion and diarrhea.

Notes for the sciene fair

UPDATED:

Like I promised, after our CA, I would upload the screenies. Here it is.

Well, we went to the biotech fair a few weeks ago.
Due to the upcoming CA (Tomorrow!), we've not been very active on the blog. This will probably be the last update until the end of CA, so you can be sure that we'll be updating it frequently after the CA. Anyway, this are the biotech notes that we've taken down.


Thanks Nicholas for the notes, which he complied into a word document.

Here's the file link:
http://www.box.net/shared/2kvjjdvsn6


Like i said, after the CA, you can expect more things to be updated. So right now this file is only available to download. I'll post it up onto the blog using screen capture soon enough.

The procedures for Grain Staining

Apparatus used :

• Metal Inoculation Loop
• Glass Slide
• 4 Grain Stains; Iodine, Safranin, De-colorizer and Methyl Violet
• Bunsen Burner
• Distilled Water

Procedures :

1. Heat the Metal Inoculation Loop over a Bunsen Burner
   
2. Collect some bacteria and place it on the glass slide
3. Wash the Metal Inoculation Loop and heat it again
4. Use the Metal Inoculation Loop to collect a drop of Distilled Water
5. Position the drop of Water unto the middle of the Glass Slide
6. Evaporate the water over the Bunsen Burner
7. Stain the bacteria by using Methyl Violet and Iodine for 1 min, Followed by using the De-colorizer and Safranin for 10 seconds

Our progress on bacteria.

So well, we've already started our investigations and such. We've already taken the school toilet and currencies and tested them out in the science lab. As we speak, we're growing the bacteria on the alga- thingy. The one with alot of nutrients. (Haha, i don't know the name of it. :) ) So i'll update the results again on next coming monday where we'll get the results.

Our science center trip

Umm so our group has went to the science center today and has learnt alot of stuff about project work and so on, i hope we can improve on our project after this meaningful trip(although a little boring). 

Survey Questions

Here are a bunch of survey questions that we’ve thought off.
1: How often do you visit the toilet?
2: Do you think currency or the toilet is cleaner?
3: Do you wash your hands after you use the toilet? If yes, do you use soap?
4: Do you flush the toilet after using?
5: Do you use anti-bacteria products in the toilet? If yes, what do you use?
6: Do you think the toilet bowl or the sink is cleaner?
7: Do you close the toilet bowl lid after using?
8: Do you wash your hand after coming in contact with notes?
9: Do you come in contact with others in the toilet?
10: Do you use tissue paper in the toilet? If yes, Do you use the tissue paper in the toilet or your own? Handkerchief/Your own tissue paper
11: Do you think the automatic tap or the push-button tap is dirtier?
12: Do you prefer using the squat toilet or the seat toilet?
13: Do you clean the toilet seat before using?
14: When there is a puddle of water in the toilet, do you avoid it or just step over it?
15: Do you avoid dirty looking toilets?

The Plate Streaking Procedure can be found here.
It is a very thorough flash animation about plate streaking.

Gram Staining

A. Slant Cultures

1. Prepare and heat-fix smears.
2. Prepare the smears of S. epidermidis and N. sicca on a second slide. Heat-fix.
3. Stain the slides as follows:
a. Flood the crystal violet for one minute.
b. Pour off excess dye and wash gently in tap water and drain the slide against a paper towel.
c. Expose the smears to Gram's iodine for one minute by washing with iodine, then adding more iodine and leaving it on the smear until the minute is over.
d. Wash with tap water and drain carefully. (Do not blot.)
e. Wash with 95% alcohol for 30 seconds.
f. Wash with tap water at the end of the 30 seconds to stop the decolorization. Drain.
g. Counterstain with 0.25% safranin for 30 seconds.
h. Wash, drain, blot, and examine under oil.
i. Draw the cells showing morphology, grouping, and relative sizes. Color a few of the cells of each bacterial species to show the Gram reaction.
j. Save these slides and the ones from parts B & C of this exercise to use at the next lab period.

B. Broth Cultures

1. Because the smear made from the broth will be a thin smear and nearly invisible to the naked eye even after staining, it may be advisable to draw a ring with a felt
open on the under side of the slide to mark the area in which the broth smear will be made. Also, when making a smear from broth do not add a drop of water
to the slide.
2. Hear-fix the smears, Gram stain them with the above procedure, and examine them. When focusing the broth smear use the technique suggested for thin smears.
3. Compare the appearance of the cells in the two smears.

Update following the previous update

Well actually. This isn't really considered an update. But to go on task. The previous things and such will be put on hold since it's CNY holidays. So the task at hand will be put on hold probably till next week. Sorry!

Update on our task.

Hey, Justin here.
We’ve decided to drop the idea of checking the classrooms for bacteria as we don't have much schools to have access to, and we’ve also decided to change the idea of checking the amount of bacteria to the type of bacteria and finding something to kill the bacteria, even though we'll still roughly do the idea of amount of bacteria. Oh, and an extra idea of comparing currency and the toilet to see which has more bacteria and which is more dangerous, or something around that line.
Therefore the previous powerpoint we did may be quite off from the actual task we’re doing. Yes we know it’s effort wasted, but it’s good effort wasted.
And also, here’s a look on what we’re all doing:

Me (Justin Ng)- I’ll be doing on overall research. I’ll be compiling, researching and telling the rest what to do.

Ian Ng- He’s going to be the one coming up with a survey question to ask random people, and he’s also the one going to do the “dirty” work.

Nicholas Seet- He’ll be doing research on the toilet things.

Edmund Ng- He’ll be doing research on the currency.

That’s probably all we have to update at the moment. You can expect by this week a research report by Edmund and Nicholas and the survey questions from Ian. I hope they don’t delay it.

Our Roles.

Hi,im Nicholas. Im here to introduce our roles.

Index 28- Edmund Ng (Time-Keeper)

Index 39- Ian Ng (Secretary)

Index 30-Justin Ng (Group Leader)

Index 31- Nicholas Seet (the prestigious research leader)

That will be all.

Our group introduction slide show!

After spending 1 and a half hours (Yes thanks Edmund the time keeper :) ) of hard work, we have done up a very simple slide show to show what we're going to do for our research. Though it's a power point, please don't expect much since it's only a introduction.

Here's the link to download it :

http://www.box.net/shared/svumghlmdn

Oh and if the worksheet on grace (The below post) was 

unaccessible, you can go to this link to download it:

http://www.box.net/shared/hg5izbqqpr 

(For the group formation sheet)

http://www.box.net/shared/qc5c64gais

(For the group meeting thing)

Justin and Edmund were the ones who done the power point up as Ian and Nicholas were busy, but they did contribute some ideas.

Our group worksheet

This is our group worksheet. We were "abit" late submitting it up online. Our apologizes. If it seems abit big, please do double click it. :)

Deciding on our topic

Hi! Justin over here.
We're still in the midst of deciding over a topic. I'll settle this issue once and for all tomorrow (Thursday) in school. By this friday, or maybe even tomorrow i think i can be able to do the items uploaded on the G.R.A.C.E website, though i haven't even seen it yet.

Hey!

It's the first post of this blog.

We are still thinking of a topic..

it will most probably be about life science.

and our group name is VFNS

which stands for :

V Formation of Ng's and Seet.

haha.