Today, that will be remedied! Prepare yourself for an explanation of SOIL WASHING!!!
Soil washing is more than simply the most oxymoronic process we have. It is also a method of turning this
Into this
If you can't tell, there is a bit of mud at the bottom.
Now, bear with me here for a minuet, I know what your thinking, "So, you turn dirt into a small test tube of dirt?"
Well, yes kinda. But it is cooler than that. What we do is take a sample of Antarctic soil and wash it to collect all of the microscopic fungus. Once we have the fungus concentrated we can extract DNA from it and then run an ARISA to figure out what sorts of organisms are in it.
Here is how soil washing works.
First, we take a soil sample and put some water into it. Then we take the whole thing and put it into a nifty device called a shaker.
SUPER ADVANCED SHAKING TECHNOLOGY!
The shaker does exactly what it sounds like it does. It shakes the sample around. This causes small particles of mud and fungus to become suspended in the water.
After the soil has been shaking for half an hour we take the soil out of the shaker and pour the muddy water water into a test tube. We then put the test tube into a machine called a Centrifuge.
Yes, it is taped to the table.
A centrifuge is a device that works along the same lines as spinning a bucket of water in a circle without any water falling out does. The centrifuge spins the samples around at high speeds. This causes everything to be forced to the bottom of the tube. The suspended yeast and mud collect there forming a mud pellet.
Look at all the mud.
We then dump off the left over water and repeat the process about 20 times to make sure that we get all the mud and fungus out of the sample.
And that is how you wash soil.
By Ben Segee
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