A book some of you might find useful

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 6:14 am

The International Society of Protistologists has recently posted a free .pdf of their lab manual, Protocols in Protozoology...655 pages, crammed with info. on cultivating, fixing, staining protists!

http://protozoa.uga.edu/pub/Protocols_i ... oology.pdf

Just a few days ago, I went looking for a copy, and found one on Abebooks...for $140.00! Glad I didn't order it.

specious_reasons · Post by **specious_reasons** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 9:53 am

Thanks for the link! This is something I like to keep an eye out for, because I have absolutely no biology training, and I often don't even know how to search for such material.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 10:23 am

Many thanks for the link!

For the benefit of others, I'll add that the .pdf appears to be a fax-quality scan of the paper version, but it's also been OCR'd so that the text is searchable in the pdf reader and extracts can be copy/pasted. 33 MB download. An astonishing lot of information distributed free to the end user!

Bruce, I'm curious about the name(s) of the organization(s). The cover page of the pdf says "SOCIETY OF PROTOZOOLOGY", copyright by "Society of Protozoologists", and the web site says "International Society of Protistologists". Are these all the same thing?

--Rik

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 10:58 am

rjlittlefield wrote:Bruce, I'm curious about the name(s) of the organization(s). The cover page of the pdf says "SOCIETY OF PROTOZOOLOGY", copyright by "Society of Protozoologists", and the web site says "International Society of Protistologists". Are these all the same thing?

Yes, they "internationalized" the name a while ago. Whatever they choose to call it, ISOP has been wonderful about making scientific material available to the general public. I believe all the articles in the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology can be downloaded without an academic link resolver (VPN connection), so they are accessible to readers without an institutional affiliation.

One-year trial membership is free, if I'm not mistaken...and members get a price break on their 2 vol. Illustrated Guide to the Protozoa. (For the record, I have no connection with ISOP...I just like the way they roll.

)

discomorphella · Post by **discomorphella** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 1:47 pm

And if you join officially, you get a subscription to the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, with some of the latest research on protists, usually with spectacular LM and EM images. I have the Protocols lab manual, its got a lot of very useful staining techniques, and culture methods. Most importantly, its got some of the best-tested silver staining techniques. With some improvising, an amateur can try out some of the silver methods.

David

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:32 pm

discomorphella wrote:With some improvising, an amateur can try out some of the silver methods.

David

That's something I was wondering about.

discomorphella · Post by **discomorphella** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 10:49 am

Hi Bruce--

You can obtain AgNO3 from suppliers on ebay (in fact you can probably find all the reagents you need on ebay), distilled water from most stores, and formalin from aquarium suppliers, if you can't find it on ebay. The developing chemicals can be found in photographic supply stores, again if web sources are not available. If you've had some training in chemistry none of the procedures are very difficult. All you need is a dense culture of protozoa. A centrifuge is useful for concentrating the suspension, but not mandatory.

David

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 6:09 pm

Thanks for the info, David. I've had no scientific training at all, but the challenge interests me.

discomorphella · Post by **discomorphella** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 7:16 pm

Hi Bruce-

You can easily learn all you need to know to prepare the reagents for silver staining, without a formal chemistry degree. Most important is having very clean glassware, but you can get gallons of distilled water at any of the larger grocery stores (at least in the US) and repeated rinsing and soaking of your glassware will help with that. When you look at the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, the Ag stained preparations are really striking, so I am keen to try them as well.
Good luck, I am sure if you get stuck the combined knowledge of this forum should be more than adequate to help you...

David

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 9:11 am

discomorphella wrote:Good luck, I am sure if you get stuck the combined knowledge of this forum should be more than adequate to help you...

David

I won't undertake it for a while. I have more elementary stuff to master, first...such as: drawing out micropipettes & reliably cultivating the organisms that interest me. I'll be sure to ask for help when I get to that point, though.