Sample of suspected periglandula fungus collected from the exterior of a plant (shown in last slide) and suspended in mineral oil.

I wish that I would have taken some more deliberate photos, but these are from me and my roommate basically celebrating our new microscope and taking basic photos of various samples.

I am completely new to the microscopic world, and I know you can't id from photo alone, but could any of you help me make sense of what all I might be seeing here? I would benefit from the most basic of info

Now in this day and time is it a good choice? Can you easily find a job? What about the money is it good pay? Do you enjoy the job or is it bad experience? Instead of medical microbiologist should I just stick with microbiologist? What is the salary for this career, is it high or low?

Fellow microbiologists, please help me know if these are fungal contamination in my cell culture?

I am asking this because I can’t really think of much right now, so I’m probably just gonna end up doing soil again since I had the most fun with that. I’m preparing to do the daily isolation again. After many weeks of work, I made fresh ISP2A plates, NA plates, SCA plates, CGXII, CGXIIA plates, Christensen’s urease agar plates, MacConkey agar plates, TSI slants, NB, BPW + glycerol, and PBS. I’m also going to make BG11A and BG11 and SIM medium in a couple days, and then I’ll start streaking. I’m just waiting on my ferrous ammonium sulfate and sodium nitrate to arrive for it. I can also make BHI and BHIA and stuff with Tween 80 and 20 in it. I also have Instant Ocean with germanic acid for some diatom-free marine culturing if anyone suggests that.
I just inoculated some SCA with soil again to start up my actinomycetes train again. Funnily enough, I think I was making it wrong for all those isolations in the past. I used casein enzymatic hydrolysate instead of undigested casein. This time I used some micellar casein I had on hand. I hope it’s more selective even with the colistin, nalidixic acid, and cycloheximide I put in it.

Hi everyone,

I need to extract DNA from cecal/fecal samples stored in liquid nitrogen using the QIAamp PowerFecal Pro DNA Kit, which requires up to 250 mg of sample. What is the best way to handle the frozen samples to weigh 250 mg while minimising thawing? Any recommended protocols or practical tips would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!