Yeast Research Paper

Submitted By RavenousHydra
Words: 2309
Pages: 10

Light Sources and Their Effects on Yeast Cells

Introduction
Yeast is a common fungus that we rely on for baking fluffy bread. Since its so sensitive to light, its often stored in dark places so that light does not break apart the cell membranes and destroy them. Different colors of light destroy the cells at different rates. The point of this experiment is to which light source is the best for strengthening bakers yeast without rendering the bread useless. The reason that we chose this experiment is that that there is Bakery in Queens that is having trouble storing their bread during the day because they keep all of their food on display and the bread is being affected by the different forms of light in the room and it can not be stored in complete darkness. We decided to help this bakery out by finding out the best type of light to use while still looking good on display. In order to properly do this experiment we did some research on both yeast and lights. We found out that most lights give off heat as well as light energy. The higher the wattage of the light bulb the higher the temperature. For the first experiment we used fluorescent light bulbs so we wanted to learn what they did. A compact fluorescent bulb gives off very little heat because they do not use resistance and cause a light to glow hot. Fluorescent lights only transfers about 22% of the electricity it uses into visible white light. We learned that we can take the data we got from the experiment using the wattage of the bulbs we used and multiply the data to find out what a higher wattage bulb can do. For the research on yeast cells we wanted to find out what they were made of and how they reproduce just in case one of the lights increases their growth rate instead of expanding. We found out that the yeast cell is oval round and has a thin membrane. Under ideal temperature, it reproduces asexually. This was important to know because if the right amount of heat is applied to a yeast cell it can duplicate especially from UV­ rays which almost triple the growth and asexuality of

Light Sources and Their Effects on Yeast Cells

yeast cells. Using all this information we put two and two together and started setting up the experiment Hypothesis If we put 3 ¼ packets of yeast each into a different dish inside a cardboard box each containing either a white blue or red fluorescent light than the darkest color or the yeast paired with the blue light will kill the least amount of cells. Method and Materials ­ First experiment Materials ­
• Three espresso dishes
• One 660 watt lamp

• Two 75 watt drop lights
• One 40 watt blue light bulb
• One 40 watt red light bulb
• One 40 watt white bulb
• Three 7 inch.x 1ft. 3inch. cardboard shoe boxes First Experiment Method and Procedure
The goal of the first experiment was to find which of the three lights would kill the most amount of cells and which light would kill the least amount of cells. What we did in the first experiment was as follows: we poured ¼ ounces of yeast into each espresso dish. We placed the espresso dishes inside the three 7inch.x 1ft 3inch. cardboard shoe boxes. We placed the 660 watt

Light Sources and Their Effects on Yeast Cells

lamp on the floor
3 inches away from its respective box and did the same for the other two 75 watt drop lights. We left the yeast 97% exposed to the lights for 8 hours.
We made sure that no other light could enter the box besides the light emitting from