X-Message-Number: 15082 Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2000 16:25:32 +1100 From: Damien Broderick <> Subject: Petri dish antics Forgive this quibbly question. Bill Walker sez: >If you have a bacterium that >doubles in number every day in a petri dish and it takes 10 days to >completely cover the dish - then on the last day, the petri dish is still >only 50% covered! It's always been a nice image, but is it true? I've never grown bugs on glass or plastic, but intuition tells me they can only readily spread from the circumference of their territory (unless they send spores jumping out through the third dimension). Once they've eaten their substrate, don't the guys inside the perimeter have some trouble replicating? Damien Broderick [not a biologist] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15082