Hilarious Memories on the Trip

Group Quiz #4
Fall, 1999

-- All I want is to understand. (Jonathan Reizer) --

.....Waiting once again for the older members of the group to arrive, Jason sat in the Vegas Hard Rock Café talking over some jolly times in the past. Jason sat wistfully staring off into space, and then started giggling "Ya know, I was thinking about the time when my sister brought some apples into lab - how they had little warts on them." "You mean," continued Wilbie, "those that she picked off the tree just outside of the lab window?" "Yup, those," grinned Jason. "Oh, yah, that was a good one!" added the chum. "Well, I always thought that warts were sort of cancers, and that cancers are genetic accidents and are not contagious. But Mary Lou insisted that one of the apples originally was not warty."

.....What they were remembering was this: several months ago Mary Lou had spied what at first looked like a delectible apple hanging from a branch just outside of the lab's first floor window. But after she reached out of the window, grabbed it and brought it inside, she discovered that it had lots of warts on the side that had been away from her. In disgust she had thrown it into the nearby wastebasket. She then noticed that another luscious candidate hung within reach of the second story window. Up the stairs she went in a flash and - oh, oh - she couldn't quite grab it. It was just beyond her grasping it - but not beyond her fingertips' being able to touch it and spin it around. It was perfect, but ungrabable. Everyone wondered a week later how the apple had become warty over much of its surface. Was it that Mary Lou's fingers had 'spread' the wart disease? Was it that cancer is contagious? Some thinking had to be done. Fortunately both apples had been saved in separate plastic bags in the lab's refrigerator.

.....It was at this time, both boys started having a hard time containing themselves with snickers and giggles, snorts and chokes as their minds raced ahead.

.....Anyway a couple of weeks later, our group was on their way to watch Mary Lou give a practice talk about her previous "DNA is the Genetic Material" work at a regional science conference. It was a beautiful morning as they drove along the Atlantic City Parkway from Philadelphia, when Jason let the cat out of the bag: today was Mary Lou's 21st birthday, and plans were immediately made by the group to celebrate it at Planet Hollywood on the Boardwalk. After checking into the Showboat, they strolled the Boardwalk. Mary Lou said that she had to buy something in the Ocean One Shopping Mall and would then meet them all in "the Planet" at the appointed hour.

.....But first she walked back to her room to change into something appropriate for dinner. Then she took a rickshaw back to Caesar's, where she found Ocean One just across the Boardwalk. She got what she wanted in the Pink Flamingo next to the Oriental Massage Parlor on the second floor, which in turn was next to the food court, and just down from The Gap. As she was leaving Ocean One and stepped out onto the Boardwalk with her little pink shopping bag, she found herself in a huge throng of rubber-necking people. Suddenly some guy took her by the elbow and scolded: "What are you doing over HERE?" He guided her away: "Make way for all the women with pink bags." She suddenly found herself being herded along with lots of beautiful women. They were brought to a stop in front of the Convention Center, where some other frantic guy, who was all wired up with a headset, rushed over to her and pushed her up onto a little stage under the War Memorial archade. "Here, all you have to do is read the script on that teleprompter." Hundreds of people were looking at her. Taking the opportunity to ham it up before the mistake was discovered that she wasn't the real announcer, she began reading. Three TV cameras were on her! She read on about what an honor it was for Atlantic City to once again host the Miss America Pageant - and, ad libbing, this time on such a beautiful afternoon. She soon turned the mike over to the mayor, and then was ushered offstage with some commendatory comments and a pay envelope!

.....Finally Mary Lou made it over to Planet Hollywood. As she went in, some people began to oooh and ahh, and clap. Cheryl squeeled, and congratulated her: "You were on TV! Look up there: you were on that big screen!" Jason wondered: "How didŠwhy were you there?!" "I don't know. Just got swept along in the crowd." Then remembering - "I think it had to do with the fact that I was dressed up and was carrying this little pink bag.

.....A couple of hours later, Mary Lou, Cheryl, Jim and their professor went inside the Taj Mahal while the minors - Jason and Wilbie - were ensconced in the activitity park across the Boardwalk. "Look here, I'm winning already!" giggled Mary Lou as she picked up a 50¢-piece from the gawdy carpet. "Oh, look: let me put it in this slot - " She pulled the handle, the reels revolved: a red seven, then a white seven, and then a blue seven. Lights blinked, bells rang, sirens went off. The professor clued her in that she had just won eleven hundred 50¢-cent pieces. "Wow! Let me put one of 'em into the next machine." One clown, another clown, and, and, and a third clown! Six hundred more. She was so excited! How easy it all was!

....."Two jackpots in a row! Hard to believe," said a new, rather familiar-looking guy, who had just come up behind her. He was accompanied by several other well dressed gentlemen. "Weren't you just on TV?-You were very good! My company might be able to use you. My name is Crump, Ronald Crump. But first: why are you trying to take all my money?" he joked. "I've got to try to stop that. Why don't you and your friends come with me. Some snacks in the coffeeshop on me won't do nearly as much damage as if I were leave you here." Mr. Crump helped her put all the coins in plastic cups. Staggering under the weight, she was shown where to cash them in for paper money - she insisted on getting it all in one dollar bills! The group then made their way to the restaurant area. "Lady Luck must really be on your side." "Well," admitted Mary Lou, "my friends do occasionally say that my middle name is "Miss Fortune." "She really means it this way," said Cheryl scribbling a note to Mr. Crump: "Misfortune!"

.....After eventually getting back together with Wilbie and her brother, Mary Lou told them how, over some lox and bagels, Crump had become interested in what the group of youngsters was all about. He finally reached into his jacket and took out a thick stack of $100 bills. "I'm the type of guy out looking for opportunities, Mary Lou. How 'bout you: are you looking for opportunities, too? You need help with your project. Here's a little stack of real money, and over here is a little scrap of paper with a phone number on it. Both can help you and your friends. Now you must choose one or the other. Which will it be?"

.....Her gang was aghast: she had chosen the little scrap of paper. But WHY!? "Well, I already had a stack of bills higher than his," she proudly pointed out. They couldn't believe it! Of course her stack of dollar bills was thicker than his stack of C-notes. But, butŠ How could she be so stupid!?

.....Back at lab a week later, Mary Lou found the scrap and called the phone number. "Robert Maheu's office." "Mr. Ronald Crump asked me to call this number if I needed help." "I'll put you right through." A gravelly, but authoritative voice came on: "What can I do for you? Name it." Audaciously, she told him what the group needed. "That's sure a strange request from Ronald. But, okay, let me see what I can do. I'll get back to you if I have any problems."

.....Two days later, an express package arrived. In it were packages of empty, sterile petri plates, some bottles labelled nutrient agar powder, some microscope slides and cover slips, and a wonderful new microscope - one better than any the school already had. They added the nutrient agar powder to water as per the directions of the bottle, and sterilized the solutions in the autoclave before pouring the hot liquid into the plates to solidify. They then took some sterile cotton swabs and rubbed them over the warty areas on the apples before swabbing "X's" with the cotton on two fresh apples - still on the tree and reached by using a ladder the grounds department loaned them-, and several of the agar surfaces in the newly made plates. After debate, it was decided to put some of the plates in their usual 37°C (human body temperature) incubator, and others in a cabinet at room temperature. This is what developed over the next week:

..... Warty blemishes grew on the new apples, and all sorts of different organisms grew on the petri plates - both those at room temperature and at 37°C. (Of course, large amounts of growth on the agar plates was expected since the apples were not sterilized and almost everything in the environment is coated with microbes of various kinds.

..... Please help the group answer the following questions by posing additional experiments:

1. Has the group proved that the warts were communicable by some sort of microbe? Or could the warts be due merely to touching the apples with either fingers or the cotton?
2. Suppose that touching was not the cause of the warts, but rather some pathogenic agent that was carried over with the touching. How could you prove this?
3. What one experiment would need be done to determine the exact identity of the pathogenic agent? (Hint: Robert Koch.)
4. All pathogens make use of a strategy for gaining a foothold in a new host. From the story line, can you see an analogy that would be applicable for explaining how some pathogens work a strategy? And think of two other strategies.