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Chemists Grow Soil Fungus On Cheerios, Discover New Antifungal Compounds
MTorrice writes: Many drugs that treat bacterial and fungal infections were found in microbes growing in the dirt. These organisms synthesize the compounds to fend off other bacteria and fungi around them. To find possible new drugs, chemists try to coax newly discovered microbial species to start making their arsenal of antimicrobial chemicals in the lab. But fungi can be stubborn, producing just a small set of already-known compounds.
Now, one team of chemists has hit upon a curiously effective and consistent trick to prod the organisms to start synthesizing novel molecules: Cheerios inside bags. Scientists grew a soil fungus for four weeks in a bag full of Cheerios and discovered a new compound that can block biofilm formation by an infectious yeast. The chemists claim that Cheerios are by far the best in the cereal aisle at growing chemically productive fungi.
Now, one team of chemists has hit upon a curiously effective and consistent trick to prod the organisms to start synthesizing novel molecules: Cheerios inside bags. Scientists grew a soil fungus for four weeks in a bag full of Cheerios and discovered a new compound that can block biofilm formation by an infectious yeast. The chemists claim that Cheerios are by far the best in the cereal aisle at growing chemically productive fungi.
What did the clown say to the mycologist?
"I'm a fungi"
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
And then they claim nature's ideas to be their own, and even get patent protection. How weird is this? I'll scrape now their research and claim it mine!
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Cheerios have a very large surface area relative to size, making them an ideal choice for growing bacteria / fungus.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Scientific Community
Cheerios are by far the best in the cereal aisle at growing chemically productive fungi
Blue Press
Cheerios discovered to harbor a wide range of funguses
The disease killing secrets the cereal manufacturers don't want you to know.
Not suprising, haven't oat flour mixtures been a growing medium of choice for a long time among many who culture more "recreational" fungi?
Sometimes having all the money to buy the best equipment doesn't lead to the best solutions. Turns out some necessity can drive invention. Might even be called its...mother.
I looked into magic mushrooms when I was in my 20s (its getting harder and harder to commit to that kind of experience these days....oh boy...6 hours eh?....yah.....) and its really amazing what people came up with.
One of my favorites, was to use an oven rack as a virtual contamination hood. Preheat the oven, then pull out the rack and use it as a work surface. The flames trying to keep the oven hot give you a nice stream of warm decently sterile air, which keeps mold spores and bacteria off your work.... believe it or not, it actually works quite well.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Biofilm is the scientific term that has been miss-used in the swamps of Louisiana referring to documentaries of the stagnant waterways locally known as, "bayou films."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Wondering if these same compounds, inside us after eating, would also enable fungal growth, leading to potential illness..? (Or superpowers? ;)
... for eating Cheerios off the floor.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Someone called you out on having moldy bags of cereal, and you're pretending that it is cutting edge research. Like anyone's going to fall for that!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
As the father of teenage boys, I could have told them Cheerios are great at growing fungus years ago.
Yay! Go cheerios + science. I'm a happy nerd.
You'll never believe what it grew!
Who knew that you could grow magical mushrooms in Cheerios?
Also, Cheerios overcame a common problem in growing fungi. Standard growth media varies in composition from batch to batch. These small variations can alter fungi growth, meaning researchers canâ(TM)t consistently produce the same set of metabolites with each experiment. However, one Cheerio is the same as another, box to box, batch to batch, today or years from now.
"Standard" media that isn't consistent sounds like a massive failure of quality control by the manufacturer.
Does no one make a quality growth media?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Cheerios are very good baby sitters too. Empty a small portion of them in the tray of the high chair and the infants will have hours of fun picking them one at time and inspecting them individually and find their mouth with their tiny hands by trial and error.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"Silly Fungi - Trix are for kids!"
I'm going to auction off my stinky pantry on eBay.
It's time to reveal my dastardly plot to destroy the world in 5 easy steps.
Step 1) Put a twinkie in a pot with some moldy bread and a UV light.
Step 2) Wait until something starts to grow on the twinkie.
Step 3) Release the growth into the wild and watch it destroy everything in it's path.
Strep 4) ?????
Step 5) Profit.
No wonder I never seem to have a cold or other infections. I eat them almost every morning.
Considering how much a 12 oz box of Cheerios costs, these guys must have a direct line to a consistent source of funding.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I mis-read this at first. Though maybe the orange powdery snack had some magic health-giving properties. No such luck.
The chemists claim that Cheerios are by far the best in the cereal aisle at growing chemically productive fungi.
I wonder how much spin the marketing team at General Mills will have to put on this to be able to use it in advertising. I'd buy them for having the quote above printed on the box.
you know that in labs that have actually been working on this for decades, they dozens and dozens of growth media, and they try all their new bio samples on lots and lots of diff media; I bet there are even HTS papers on this
In other words, MIT hype
Slashvertising was bad before, but now we're shilling for General Mills? That's it, I'm out.
Not sure why you're joking, that is absolutely true. Well, except the part about showering; showering hardly hurts your skin flora at all. (Unless you're showering in bleach or something.)
This supports their notion that Cheerios have a large amount of natural ingredients. If Cheerios were mostly artificial they wouldn't likely grow much of anything. It would be interesting to try Cheerios vs store brand, regular vs honey-nut (or other varieties) and see how they do.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
... also makes you less attractive to parasites that use CO2 to find you, such as mosquitos.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Sexual Partner Repellant == 96%
...repeated attempts to get ANYTHING to grow on a Big Mac have predictably met with failure.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
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I wonder how good they are for psilocybes, sure would be easier to find than rye berries or rice flour.
Generally soap doesn't kill anything, it just makes things that are not water soluble, soluble in the water-soap solution, and thus easy to wash away.
> it just makes things that are not water soluble, soluble in the water-soap solution
Like... cell membranes? Lots of surfactants have antiseptic properties: for example, cocamidopropyl betaine. In fact, I'd guess that most surfactants are at least mild antiseptics.