Hello everyone! 
I noticed that there are some (4 in the following photo) unidentified black materials on some of our NGM plates with worms.
They doesn’t look like fungi, and I’m not sure whether it is counted as contamination or not.
Anyone has idea on this?
Thank you
fascinating. have you checked it with the tricorder?
simplest test is to pick up a few bits with your pick and transfer to a new NGM plate (E. coli will come along with the transfer, which is fine).
if it tribbles (multiplies) then it is alive. if not, it probably isn’t. formal possibility is that it requires some growth factor from worms
so you could also try transferring to a new plate along with some worms.
it looks like a slime mould…tipped mound stage??
The picture doesn’t really prove it one way or the other, but given the description I’m guessing salt crystals.
ok, so we agree then?
just that, taking the jpeg, blowing it up and then adjusting the contrast-brightness reveals a suspect prominence in the middle of these dark areas. But who knows, without a better photo like you say, not definitive,
I agree, looks like salt crystals.
we need the guys at the CIA to take a look, but a (3D) ‘something’ sitting on the agar surface in a depression to my mind is not going to be salt crystals…
maybe it is some bits of crud that were in the seeding culture?