So, R.W.L. et al
After the COVID-19 pandemic caused research labs all across the country to shut down urgently in March, many graduate students were left with little time to secure valuable reagents, resulting in stolen ethanol, face masks, or gloves. In one researcher’s haste, however, he forgot to put away a flask of LB growth medium during the shutdown, and returned to the lab to find a white, fluffy, 1cm-diameter mould ball baby growing inside it.
“I was just tidying up my bench when I heard a voice whispering ‘Daddy, daddy,’” said Dr. Samuel Dickinson. “Then, when I didn’t see anything, it said ‘a little to your left, daddy.’ Dr. Dickinson looked closer at his flask, and that’s when he saw the most adorable ball of mould looking back at him.
As the LB medium does not have a preparation date written on it or proof it had undergone sterilization in the autoclave, Dr. Dickinson does not remember when or how Baby Mould Ball was conceived. However, he did tell our reporter that he will send his media to the autoclave immediately in the future, so accidents like leaving an unsterilized medium on his bench for over 5 months would never occur again – a promise he will probably forget by next week.
Meanwhile, Baby Mould Ball is delighted to have found Dr. Dickinson after only months of tirelessly swimming around the 4L Erlenmeyer flask in search of her birth father. The baby mould ball did make friends with a few pipettes and some lab sink algae while waiting for her father to return.
Due to the limit in research capacity to promote social distancing within the lab, Dr. Dickinson has delegated the delicate task of babysitting the baby mould ball to the unpaid undergrads.
