Re: Nominate the most beautiful biology experiment ever

"Dahd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 >
> An interesting exercise is to go to a good library and thumb thru papers
in
> J.Hygiene or Lancet dating between about 1912 and 1930.  Many of the
> manuscripts are, in hindsight, amusing.  Quite a few are AMAZING.
>
We have a complete set of Nature, which goes right back to the expressions
of concern being expressed for Dr Livingstone, who hadn't been heard from in
Africa, in vol 1. It's fascinating stuff.

> There was a lot of very ingenious work done back then that laid the
> foundation for what we know today.
> Those of you who teach (I don't) should make your students aware of some
of
> the amazing stuff that was done long before we all had computers and
digital
> everything in the lab.

Our students don't stand a chance, as they get me for microbiology prac in
year 1, and I get them to revive some of the experiments Beijerinck did for
the first time 100 years ago. Great fun. For example, I've a collection of
"pure" Lactobacillus cultures that were sold commercially between 70 and 100
years ago for yoghurt making. Unused bottles just stayed in the cupboard
until now. I wander in halfway through the prac and challenge them to work
out how to find if there's anything alive in there..... They love the chance
to design an experiment, and I'm always surprised at what they come up
with.... (And yes, after 100 years in a bottle at the back of a cupboard,
dried in milk powder, there's quite a lot still alive in there). Since this
is also where Beijerinck isolated Azotobacter for the first time, I give
them soil samples from the same garden, plus a scan of the relevant lab
journal pages, and they repeat his isolations.
We decided to put the fun back into microbiology after some students
commented that they couldn't see much difference between biochem and
microbiol these days, it was all just analytical machines of one sort or
another!
Lesley Robertson
http://www.beijerinck.bt.tudelft.nl