Pharmacist Blog about what I encounter and find useful/interesting

Behold, a picture taken through a lightmicroscope of two bacteria tribes, cultivated on a petri dish; it was simply taken with the camera of my phone. Shown are two tribes of bacteria, and they can be visualized using the Gram staining.  For the theory behind it and the protocol I'd like to reference to  HERE . Basically on my picture: Red rod-shaped bacteria are bacilli: these are Gram NEGATIVE. Purple spherical bacteria are cocci: these are Gram POSITIVE. You can further visualize the bacteria in terms of how they group up, with how many they group up, their specific form, do they attach to eachother, etc. and thus determine using references and literature what species they are from and what type of bacteria they are.

"Coca-Cola Life" Recently the Coca-Cola company released a new beverage: the Coca-Cola Life drink. It should contain less sugar than the normal Coca-Cola drink; a part of the sugar is replaced with the recently approved sweetener from the Stevia plant (stevioglycosides). It's being sold as a 'natural' drink, but those stevioglycosides are as natural as the chemical sweetener aspartame found in Light and Zero drinks. However it is true that the amount of sugar is much lower (being reported as 33%, some say it's around 20%); yet approximately still 3-4 sugar cubes / 33 cl can (5-6 in a normal can). I bought it myself and found that the flavor has not really changed from the original Coca-Cola, however it does taste more "flat" - but definitely true it yourself. The outside of the can has the colour green. I personally do not associate this "healthy - natural" colour with Coca-Cola, but it's growing on me. In sum...