A true science horror story

boing
21

PETB better not hear about this.

22

I must be in the wrong field (psychology) because I thought that sounded awesome!

23

Plate plus time equals coercion.

24

Heh.

Huh.

Wut?

:wink:

25

Gee. I guess now we know why cancer patients get so skinny.

26

I and just about every grad student that I respected would have kept it as a lab pet, feeding it new media every so often.

But yeah, it was probably a fungus, but whatever it was, the insides of the sphere was probably dead since nutrients/oxygen wouldnā€™t be able to diffuse all the way to the middle, nor the waste out. Since the bottle of media was probably made of plastic, would have been interesting cutting the thing out of it and bisecting it.

About the only scary growth that Iā€™ve encountered was a golf-ball sized fungus growing merrily in a 1L glass bottle 3/4 full of 10N NaOH.

27

Donā€™t forget Chicken Little. He/She/It was being a hideous cell-cultured blob/mass comestible hive organism thing back before that was coolā€¦

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28

Are you demonizing fungi who have the misfortune to endure difficult childhood circumstances? Classist. Base Classist!

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29

Possibly delicious.

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30

ā€œWaitā€¦ this picric acid is how old?ā€

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31

Meanwhile, downstream at the wastewater treatment plantā€¦

As a side note, I created a new account via facebook to comment here. Why does boing boing need to see my friend list, for me to create an account in this manner? It feel a bit hypocritical, considering all the posts about privacy (especially regarding facebook) that I often read here.

32

Eh? I thought you could create an account exclusively within the confines of the site without requiring any interaction with Facebook at all.

33

I think that is just a standard feature of the sign-in with Facebook option no matter what site.

1 Like
34

As long as itā€™s not crystallizing in the threads of the screw-on cap itā€™s not too old.

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35

Or a cure for world hunger.

Or, she may have just flushed some nasty down the sink.

I know how this story goes. It proliferates by assimilating more organic matter, and grows, and comes up through the plumbing to assimilate more organic matter, and eventually it absorbs the entire city. This always happens.

36

Iā€™m not sure I get the point of this story - the author found a contaminated flask and for some reason had a full blown panic attack?

Also there is no point in grinding up the contents of the flask. Just add an equal volume of bleach or Wescodyne, let soak a while, pour off the liquid and put the flask in the biohazard bag.

37

ewww, gross. Thatā€™s gross Stan.

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