The MD Course, the Volta Experiment, and Other Stuff Steve Zinder Microbial Diversity June 12, 2013
Ralph Wolfe June 11, 2012 at Cedar Swamp collecting gas for the Pistola di Volta
Holger W. Jannasch 1927-1998 1997 1977
C. B. van Niel (1897-1985)
Antony van Leeuwenhoek
Martinus Beijerinck (1851-1931) Root nodules prepared by Beijerinck and preserved in alcohol
Sergei Winogradsky 1856 -1953 Beggiatoa with With Selman S o granules Waksman 1933
A. J. Kluyver and van Niel
General Microbiology Summer Course Hopkins Marine Station, Pacific Grove, CA 1932-1962
MD Course 1973 Directors: Jannasch + Wolfe & Leadbetter
MD 1981 Director: Harlyn Halvorson
MD 1985 Directors: Ralph Wolfe and Pete Greenberg
MD 1993 Directors: John Breznak and Marty Dworkin
MD 1997 Directors: Ed Leadbetter and Abigail Salyers
MD 2002 Directors: Carrie Harwood and Alfred Spormann
MD 2006 Directors: Bill Metcalf and Tom Schmidt
MD 40 th Anniversary 2011 - Directors
MD 40 th Anniversary 2011 - Faculty
The future: 2014- Dianne Newman Jared Leadbetter
Leadbetter II Newman 2014- 13 Winogradsky
Wolfe’s Laws of Academic Research • First Law Unpublished data do not improve with time. • Second Law If you are first on the scene, it is easy to make discoveries. • Third Law The emotion generated in scientific discussion increases proportionally with the softness of the data being discussed. • Fourth Law If you join a parade, you become one of the marchers.
Wolfe’s Laws of Academic Research • Fifth Law They who skate on thin ice must skate fast. • Sixth Law Never stop in the middle of an experiment. • Wolfe’s Last Law Each new brick in the wall of knowledge will withstand the weight of all future knowledge only if it is the full truth. • Another Wolfe saying after winning the ASM Carski undergraduate teaching award in 1971 Research and teaching are like oars on a boat, you need to pull with each to follow a straight course (paraphrase)
Alessandro Volta 1745-1827
Flammable air • Ben Franklin wrote 1n 1774 to Joseph Priestly: “When I passed through New Jersey in 1764, I heard it several times mentioned that, by applying a lighted candle near the surface of some of their rivers, a sudden flame would catch and spread on the water....New Jersey having many pine- trees in many parts of it , I imagined that something like a volatile oil of turpentine might be mixed with the waters from a pine-swamp. but this supposition did not satisfy me… ” • Thomas Paine wrote that in 1783 George Washington tested this flammability on the Millstone river in NJ, having his soldiers disturb the sediments with poles and he “set the river on fire” with a torch John Dalton (1766-1844) collecting marsh gas. From: Parkes, Nature 401:217 (1999).
Volta - 1776 Woodcut accompanying a collection of Volta’s letters showing him collecting gas
Original Wolfe
Carbon flow to methane – e. g. Cedar Swamp 1787 – Lavoisier: “hydrogenium carbonatrum” Volume of pistola ≈ 400 ml How much CH 4 should I add?
R. Wolfe & S. Zinder – Pistola 2011 Carie Frantz- ‘09 Student, ‘11 TA .. as the movie shows, we are really a couple of clowns. Thank you.----Ralph (email from 12/12/2011)
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