1. You isolate a thermophilic bacterium and discover that its generation time is 2 hours under optimal conditions. On Monday morning at 9 a.m. you inoculate 102 organisms/ml into growth medium. Assuming logarithmic growth and no lag, on what day and at what time could you expect to harvest 108 cells/ml of this organism? The growth equation is:
2. (a) The fastest-growing bacteria have generation times of around 15 minutes. If a culture starting with a single cell (N0 = 1 = 100) were able to grow at this rate for 48 hours, how many cells would you have? Express your answer in exponential notation to the nearest integer, e.g. 1012 cells, not 1011.7 cells.
(b) the mass of a single bacterial cell is approximately 10-12 gram. What would be the total mass of bacteria from the question above after 48 hours of exponential growth? How does this compare with the mass of the earth (6 x 1024 kg)?
