Some lessons from biotechnology

I learned a lot during the biotechnology class today.

Biotech students were busy testing water samples from local restaurants, looking for evidence of E. coli bacteria. E. coli can sometimes make its way into restaurant beverages when ice has been handled with unclean hands, which I was not thrilled to learn.


The students also worked on a year-long transformation project in which they took a firefly's glow gene and inserted it into host bacteria, mass-producing the new gene, which glows green under certain lighting.


And I learned a bunch about genetically modified vs. organic produce. Here are some onion plants. I bet you can guess which side contains the genetically modified crop.