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Something I first noted way back in my post-baccalaureate microbiology lab classes: different family of bacteria have distinctly different smells. For example Actinomyces Streptomyces both smell like fresh turned earth. (In fact, they are what give fresh dirt it's smell. It's a good sign.) The 'swarming' coliform Proteus smells, like, well, shit (and particularly foul ordure, at that). Another coliform of a different family, Salmonella (the genus for the food-poisoning bug S. typhimurium) smells like creamed corn. (I have never allowed straight creamed corn to pass my lips since then... bad, bad, bad association.)
It's also a simple trick I use when assessing quickly how the lab's cultures are doing. Helicobacter only possesses a faint, slightly musty smell. If that's not what I smell when I open the incubator, then I know that the incubator's dirty, or our cultures are contaminated. So this morning when I'm checking the water level in there, I sniff, and get a walloping dose of over-sweet, slightly fermented creamed corn. I think about it for a sec.
"Hey, J, are we growing any Campy?" Short for the coliform Campylobacter jejuni, AKA dysentery. I told you we worked with the fun stuff.
*cue puzzled look* "Uh, yeah, why?"
"Just checking. Thanks." Okay, so that's not a problem.
Yes, yes, make all the jokes you want about how normally I can't smell anything nice, like perfume or flowers. My sinuses work in strange and wondrous ways... I only wish I could smell floral scents consistently.
It's also a simple trick I use when assessing quickly how the lab's cultures are doing. Helicobacter only possesses a faint, slightly musty smell. If that's not what I smell when I open the incubator, then I know that the incubator's dirty, or our cultures are contaminated. So this morning when I'm checking the water level in there, I sniff, and get a walloping dose of over-sweet, slightly fermented creamed corn. I think about it for a sec.
"Hey, J, are we growing any Campy?" Short for the coliform Campylobacter jejuni, AKA dysentery. I told you we worked with the fun stuff.
*cue puzzled look* "Uh, yeah, why?"
"Just checking. Thanks." Okay, so that's not a problem.
Yes, yes, make all the jokes you want about how normally I can't smell anything nice, like perfume or flowers. My sinuses work in strange and wondrous ways... I only wish I could smell floral scents consistently.
