Students Discover Update
Overview: Over the last five years we have worked to develop citizen science projects that reach out to the public but also that, more specifically, [...]
The Sourdough Project Yeast Results are Here!
The Sourdough Project has some exciting updates to share today! Here is your chance to see some of the data for your individual sourdough starter, [...]
Getting the measure of sourdough biodiversity
We have good news. From the 568 sourdough samples our participants sent us we have completed the first of many stages of identification of the [...]
From the Bench: Nick Kamkari on the Sourdough Project
Sourdough is a bread made from dough that has been fermented with bacteria and yeast. One of the oldest sourdough breads dates back to over [...]
The Search for Lost Microbes
I spent several years writing a book about the value of biological diversity to agriculture, Never Out of Season. In doing so, I gained a [...]
The Stories of Sourdough, the Next Step
Recently, we asked you to share your sourdough starters and stories and you did. You shared them not just from the United States, but also [...]
March, 2017. The month you got to name a new creature.
Help us in this long honored tradition of naming things of importance. We have dozens of yeast to name and we want each of them to have a story. Tweet us your suggestion and an explanation of why you have chosen a particular name. If you need more than 140 characters, screen capture the text. We will decide what names make the most sense for our particular yeasts and include them in a future peer-reviewed manuscript. Forever after these yeasts will have these names. These names you helped create.
#NewYeastName Activity
Educators: We’d love to have your students help us name our new yeasts. Here’s some information to start the discussion with your students so that they can learn about the science of yeast.
Getting Sourdough on the Map
A quick update on the Sourdough Project! We are currently up to 300 samples (and counting) and we’ve got a fantastic team of undergraduates working on processing and characterizing our samples: Kinsey Drake, Nick Kamkari, and Shravya Sakunala. Check out the map of our where the starters we have processed in the lab.
What’s your flour type?
The Wolfe lab has been working to pinpoint just what makes sourdough starters so magical. It turns out that each flour has its own microbial “signature.” Tufts undergraduate Nick Kamkari has been plating out and characterizing different brands of-off-the shelf flours to learn more about what we should expect to find in each starter fed by that flour, to better be able to pinpoint what are the extra (delicious) microbes that make the starters successful.
Sourdough Stories: Patty Ellis
We will begin a series of sourdough stories wherein we highlight the oral history that accompanies many different sourdough starters. For many, this starter becomes [...]