werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (08/14/85)
I was recently culturing a strain of E.coli that was unable to grow on minimal media. The cause of the problem was that it required biotin to grow. Since our lab was out of analytical Biotin, I tried a quick solution: I went to the local health food store, and bought a bottle of 'All-Natural' Biotin. I was reading the label carefully to make sure there was no glucose in the mix. (The experiment is set up such that the bacteria must grow on lactose as their sole source of carbon - glucose in the vitamin mix sort of ruins this - we already know they grow on Glucose.) The saleslady told me, "Oh, those are very good vitamins." You should have seen the look on her face when I said, "Oh, they're not for me. They`re for a strain of mutant bacteria." Incidentally, each tablet weighs 240 milligrams, but contains only 300 micrograms of Biotin. The pills are supposedly free of sugar, starch, sodium, preservatives, yeast, corn, milk, lactose, and animal products. So, my question is what is the white sludge (when disolved) that makes up the 98.5% of the tablet that isn't Biotin? -- Craig Werner !philabs!aecom!werner "The world is just a straight man for you sometimes"