Back to The Sourdough! Dir. by Joseph (De)Lewis

  Sourdough starters are mystical, inexplicable… but one must attempt many impossible things for science! This, my dear listeners, is our sole mission. Welcome to Sourdough Center… (Cue music, ominous or calm).  Firstly, allow me to introduce you to the subjects of our time today: the starters themselves. These curious little habitats are simply environments of liquid, flour and yeast. Now, I did mention that these are habitats, and you may be wondering: What are these concoctions actually hosting? Small, super tiny, (possibly really cute) organisms called microbes. Microbes exist to help the sourdough bread rise and maintain its scrumptious taste! For this podcast, we will be examining, analyzing, and confronting the harsh realities of one experimental venture into sourdough starters: my own venture, actually! The overall question of this experiment was to discover how the genetic composition of these microbial organisms (our baby, darling microbes…. Awwww, they’re just so cute that I

 I have reached the pique of scientific comebacks! I have returned from the depths of long overdue work and, finally, have caught up! Nonetheless, celebratory affairs should only go on for so long, and we have a TON to talk about! This week your digital guide has been busy analyzing a fellow classmates' starters! I analyzed samples 55 and 57, the former of which being the control starter (just flour) and the latter holding blueberries. In the fruit sample, a unique microbe under the species name Pediococcus pentosaceus was found. Interestingly enough, this very same microbe is used in natural and additive fermentation to release flavor compounds into various food groups such as meats and dairy! Even more exciting, the fermentation of blueberries with this microbe helps to unlock the probiotic potential of the fruit... scrumptious! This was found in a study linked below (in citations!).  Now, in the actual process of fermentation, this microbe does its best work. They perform phosph

Attentive readers, you do not even know! You don't even understand the energy and excitement coursing through my veins as of this moment! I have been tasked with creating a project to discuss the findings of this very blog, and oh boy am I excited! Let's start off with a quick glance at the various forms of science communication used today!  Initially, I looked at various science Tiktoks, a form of visual and auditory communication sometimes used to discuss science. I enjoyed it's multi-faceted nature, and how broadly it can be utilized, but I was not a fan of the necessary brevity in each video. The medium is just not meant for long discussions or in depth explanations, but instead to quickly accumulate views and provide short-term entertainment. I have linked the article that I used in my research below.  https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/the-science-community-shows-off-on-tiktok Afterwards I turned my attention towards the a science account of Twitter, which utilizes alm

  Hello again! I have once more returned to write and create the scientific journey of a lifetime for all the attentive readers out there! This week we will preview the research questions asked by fellow classmates, and discuss them. Hopefully we find some new ideas and thoughts, and maybe we'll even revise our own questions! To start us off, a fellow classmate proposed that there may be a correlation between the status of the fruit (I.e whether the fruits are jarred, canned, or fresh) and if the time of year both have an effect on the microbial composition of the starters. Both of these are fairly reasonable to analyze given the information students have access to, and each should be easy to compare microbial data between sets with. Another question that was proposed included location in the variables, and whether or not the area in which the fruit was obtained affected microbial composition. Again, this is feasible and not very difficult to compare with other starters, although t

  This week, we'll be focusing on the research questions generated by our starters! Unfortunately, my starters are no longer alive and well ( pauses for a moment of silence), but we are still scientists, and we must continue to work!  So, the burning question on my reader's mind is probably "What should I have for lunch today?", but the question they should  be asking is "What is he sequencing exactly?"! Well, my dear patrons, we are sequencing the 16S (a portion of the ribosome of the cell) rRNA gene and the ITS region, not the entire genome of the starters! The rRNA genes we sequence encode the RNA amount of the 16S location on the ribosomes of bacterial cells, while the ITS region works much in the same way as fungal cells. A benefit of only sequencing these specific regions of DNA is that it enables a researcher to have an easier time sorting through potential differences and similarities between DNA by limiting the amount that one has to sort through. O

  Unfortunately I have been gone for too long! I had an unexpected passing in the family, but am just now continuing (from the week of 2/15) to catch up to the course and my classmates! Get ready for a ton of information and updates! Back in February, I took a week off from my starters to attend to the affairs of my family, and while I was away for these events, the starters unfortunately died off. Shortly before I left, however, the starters had not yet switched over to a 12 hour feeding period, but they had developed a film-like layer on the top of them. The starters had been growing for approximately two or three weeks at that point, and were being maintained on a constant schedule up until my break. When I came back, I tried to reinvigorate them, but it was to no avail and they were thrown out.  Talking about the rising rate experiments for the course, since my starters are now in sourdough heaven, I have been privileged enough to compile some of my classmates' data into a grap