(November 16, 2011)      One week later and my mushroom cells had covered the entire petri dish! The entire dish looked like a fluffy cotton ball, which means that it is super healthy. I only lost three out of fifty petri dishes to some sort of bacteria, which is apparently really lucky of me. Who knew?
       I really got down to business this time. I had to inoculate some jars full of chia seeds (Remember those fast growing chia pets? Yeah, these were the seeds that I was working with!) and some regular bags full of other grain/wheat seeds. Each petri dish can be cut into either ten "pizza slices", which can inoculate ten other seed bags, or it can be cut in half and each half can inoculate a chia jar.
       In order to inoculate seed bags I had to carefully cut the media in the petri dishes into "pizza slices", while keeping my scalpel extra sanitized in order to not contaminate the seeds. I scooped them into my prepped bags, and then learned how to use the sealer machine to seal them. I then had to shake them for awhile in order to get all the media evenly distributed throughout the bag. After another employee showed me quickly how to do this, Amanda let me finish another set of bags by myself.
       In order to inoculate the chia seeds I had to cut the media in the petri dishes in half. I then mixed the media with some of the liquid/seeds from the chia jar. Yes, I was making a media milkshake. This process was a lot easier, since I was dealing with jars instead of the bags.
       Hopefully, by the time I come back from break I will see my mushrooms growing all over the seeds!

(November 9, 2011) First official day at Ecovative! My mentor Amanda showed me around the lab a little bit before we sanitized everything and started on our petri dishes. 

            She had mixed up a warm liquid consisting of MEA (malt extract agar) and I learned how to use an electronic test tube to fill in my petri dishes with the liquid. We worked under a vented hood that had to be completely sanitized at all times so that there would be no contamination in the petri dishes.

           After we let the liquid cool down, she cut into another petri dish that was made on October 31, 2011. This was completely white and fluffy, which meant that the mushroom was growing good and healthy. After they were cut into little pieces I transferred them into the petri dishes that had the media in them already. We then had to close and secure all the petri dishes, and I even labeled them with my initials, so they are officially mine now. Hopefully by next week I will see some white in the petri dishes, which means that everything is growing properly! 

          Amanda also talked about some other projects that Ecovative is working on right now. Maybe I will even think of a product that they can sell by the end of my time there!