Microbiology: Spring 2010

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Hello. Anyone out there taking Micro this semester? I thought I would start a thread for us to talk and discuss microbiology for the semester. I am looking forward to it.

What textbook are you going to be using? I am using Microbiology: With Diseases by Taxonomy - Robert Bauman. I am picking it up tomorrow.

I think it will be a great semester! :yeah:

Specializes in EMT-P.

Hmm, lets see if I can recall my chemistry. Looks like were talking about intermolecular forces. So it works like this.

Let's consider Hydrogen and Oxygen. Hydrogen is a slightly positive charge and Oxy has a negative charge. As you well know unlike charges attract. Okay so then what your asking?

Certain elements like Carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and fluorine are greedy. They always want a full octet (8) electrons in the outer shell, or valance shell. Well here oxygen is only having 6 electrons in its outer shell and hydrogen has this 1 outer electron. So these two atoms get together and share emails for awhile but guess what. Oxygen being greedy is not monogamous and wants another atom in his harem, so he invites another hydrogen thus filling his shell to an octet. Guess what, we got H2O. :) hope that helped, sorry for the bad humor.

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Michaelxy, thanks so much! Geez, is that all it is? My book was being ridiculous.. now I understand:) And the humor helped!

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To those of you who already took your first exam- how did it go?

:eek: I did HORRIBLE. I bombed it. (60%) I have never received lower than a B on all my tests for other classes. In fact, I have A's in all my other classes including Chemistry and Anatomy. How did I do so bad on this first test??? :crying2: I am scared.

Is there anyway I can still get an A??? The test was 50 points and the total points for the class is 650. (93% and above is an A.)

Any suggestions on what I can do would be great. The teacher says she doesn't believe in extra credit because we should do good the first time and extra credit gives you a chance to be lazy.

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I am glad I found this thread! I am currently taking a break from studying micro...I have my first test tomorrow! I am so nervous- I hate the first test in a class, because you just don't know the "style" of that prof until you take it. At least after that, you have an idea of what they feel is important, kwim?

I actually really like my prof, which helps, but like I saw mentioned here, he just goes over things so quickly I feel like my head is spinning! I took chem and bio 10 years ago when I was in college the first time so all this "review" material early on feels like I am learning it all from the beginning again. I really just want tomorrow to be over and done with- we are supposed to get a big snowstorm tomorrow beginning in early afternoon, and my test is at 3, but it takes me an hour to get to campus, so I am hoping for safe travels too. :)

Good luck to everyone!

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Specializes in Psych.

Good luck this semester everyone! I had Micro last semester and I absolutely LOVED it. We used the Tortora text as well. I thought it was really well written. Not as dense or dry as our A&P text (or some of our nursing texts now LOL). Lab was FASCINATING! I loved doing the metabolic tests and our teacher was really great too. The semester was over in the blink of an eye. Dont worry about your unknowns. Its FUN! Kind of like solving a mystery. I did really well in Micro, if anyone needs any help, feel free to PM me!

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Specializes in Stepdown.

Just started Micro this week. Taking it with Anatomy Physiology 2. Both profs warned us not to take them together. I guess I'm a rebel. :) Really nervous.

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Specializes in ICU / PCU / Telemetry / Oncology.

My first test is next Thursday. Covering chapters 1,2 and 4 of the Tortora textbook (plus the small section on staining procedures in ch. 3). I hope this goes well! My weekend will be consumed with preparing for this test, no life for me until the following weekend, which happens to be Valentine's Day/President's Day all in one so I guess it's a reward to look forward to :redbeathe.

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My instructor is huge on the chemistry. We have a chem quiz on monday. We have to memorize a bunch of functional groups. I took chemistry last semester, but we did not cover any organic chemistry. I am wondering if other instructors emphasize chemistry to this degree, or if mine is just unique.

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How many of you guys are going into Micro without having chemistry under your belt?

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Hi Everyone! I'm started my micro class and am feeling overwhelmed...particularly in lab as everything we do seems to be in hyper speed. Anywho, our lecture teacher gave us the following homework assignment:

An E Coli cell put in a test tube in optimum conditions will allow it to reproduce every twenty mintues. One cell divides to become two, twenty minutes later four, twenty minutes later eight and so on. How many cells will there be after 48 hours?

I'm not even sure how to start this - haven't been to a math class in quite a long time. Could anyone possibly give me any pointers? Thank you so much!

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Specializes in EMT-P.
hi everyone! i'm started my micro class and am feeling overwhelmed...particularly in lab as everything we do seems to be in hyper speed. anywho, our lecture teacher gave us the following homework assignment:

an e coli cell put in a test tube in optimum conditions will allow it to reproduce every twenty mintues. one cell divides to become two, twenty minutes later four, twenty minutes later eight and so on. how many cells will there be after 48 hours?

i'm not even sure how to start this - haven't been to a math class in quite a long time. could anyone possibly give me any pointers? thank you so much!

this is base on the exponential growth model

lets see if i can type the equation for you: x(t)= a x b^(t/r) this ^ means exponent.

  • a is starting so in this case a = 1
  • b is growth, since it double b = 2
  • t is time in minutes, 48hrs is 2880 min
  • r is rate in min, in your case it is 20 min

so our formula looks like this; x(t)= 1 x 2^(2880/20)

i will let you work out the rest you should get an enormous number.

let me know if your still stuck.

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this is base on the exponential growth model

lets see if i can type the equation for you: x(t)= a x b^(t/r) this ^ means exponent.

  • a is starting so in this case a = 1
  • b is growth, since it double b = 2
  • t is time in minutes, 48hrs is 2880 min
  • r is rate in min, in your case it is 20 min

so our formula looks like this; x(t)= 1 x 2^(2880/20)

i will let you work out the rest you should get an enormous number.

let me know if your still stuck.

hi michael! i really appreciate your response. i am getting 2.230074519+43. when i multiply that by 2880 i get 6.422614617+46. i'm not even sure what that means - i know, terrible. i always have been horrible at math. would you know what the +46 means? maybe if i could figure that out i could get this converted to scientific notation and be done. again, i truly appreciate how much you have helped me already!

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