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

 I have completed my final project, my coup de grace , as it were. It is a magnificent, illustrious podcast of my own design, and I hope my attentive readers and loyal listeners alike enjoy it! The link to the podcast (discussing and analyzing the general summary of this semester's lab, entitled Sourdough Center Episode 2) is posted below this paragraph. I have also made a blog post with a transcript of the episode in the previous post.  https://anchor.fm/joseph-lewis65/episodes/Sourdough-Center-Episode-2--Finale-evfkcg This semester has been delightful, challenging, and, at times, tedious, but I have loved this course and making these blogs all the same. Thank you, all my readers, for sticking along. Love you guys!

  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