You leave two open Petri dishes out overnight in the lab: on…

You leave two open Petri dishes out overnight in the lab: one containing a complex medium like tryptic soy agar (TSA), and the other a chemically defined medium like glucose salts agar (GSA). On which do you expect more growth the next day, and why? Please briefly explain, and be sure to compare and contrast these two types of media as part of your answer.

You sample some surfaces using a sterile cotton swab moisten…

You sample some surfaces using a sterile cotton swab moistened with sterile water, and streak the swab onto the surface of two different types of media: one Petri dish containing the complex medium tryptic soy agar (TSA), and the other the chemically defined medium glucose salts agar (GSA). Following incubation, on which Petri dish do you expect more growth, and why? Please briefly explain, and be sure to compare and contrast these two types of media as part of your answer.

You treat the following five cultures of bacteria with penic…

You treat the following five cultures of bacteria with penicillin: Bacillus subtilis, E. coli, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycoplasma genitalium, and Staphylococcus aureus. Assume all are “wild type” and have not acquired specific resistance to penicillin (i.e., resistance has not been selected for in any of these strains). Which of these is most likely to survive your treatment with the least harm, i.e., is the most intrinsically resistant to this treatment of penicillin?

You have a culture of E. coli growing in log phase in a chem…

You have a culture of E. coli growing in log phase in a chemically defined medium containing glucose as the sole source of carbon. You take a small sample of cells and transfer them to another chemically defined medium that contains lactose as the sole source of carbon. In this new environment, you would predict these cells would first enter what phase of growth?

Microbiologists estimate we have grown and studied less than…

Microbiologists estimate we have grown and studied less than 1% of all prokaryotes present on Earth. We have been estimating this same number for at least the past two decades. What is the most likely explanation for why this number has stayed relatively constant at 1%?