Hi everyone, well, I have a bit of a request to make. As part of my course at University I need to do something called 'Science Communications' which means I have to engage in a 'dialogue' or do some science type teaching aimed at non-scientists.

I have decided to do a series of science-related blog posts and I have uploaded the first one to my website. This isn't quite the same as asking you to do my homework for me but I'd be grateful if someone could leave a comment, ask a question, suggest a topic for a future article.

I don't think I've got the level quite right for the first one – it dives into chemistry a bit soon without much background, but it will do for starters.

Thanks in advance.

Mike.

Toffeeapple said:

Thanks Mike.  I wonder how they isolate specific yeasts, as in the pombe one?

My understanding is you put a dilute solution of growing culture on an agar plate, which is a kind of jelly made using the growth medium, and leave the yeast to grow for a few days. After that you pick out individual colonies, which will usually have grown from single yeast cells. There is likely to be 100s of colonies of various types depending on what is present.

You can then do whatever tests are required to identify them, which these days will often involve some kind of genetic test. If you are wanting to brew wine or beer you can make trial runs with the different colonies to see how they affect the flavour. This is probably how they ended up with the different wine yeasts where you can buy yeast 'optimized' for different types of  red or  white wine.