• Question: How do u make these bacteria colours or die it seems impossible

    Asked by to Naomi on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Naomi Osborne

      Naomi Osborne answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      Hi keight!

      It may sound impossible, but it isn’t! Not all bacteria are the same – in fact, they can be very different from each other, including what they like to ‘eat’ for an energy source. To kill certain bacteria we don’t want to grow, we use antibiotics, just like the ones doctor’s use to treat patients when they’re ill – antibiotics don’t kill all bacteria, they just kill certain ones.

      To colour bacteria, we use enzyme substrates that look like sugar to bacteria, so they take it up and break it apart which releases a coloured product making the bacteria appear certain colours 🙂

      Hope this makes sense?

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