In the Moscow region, in the city of Pushchino, an unexpected event was observed at a school: an 11th-grade student accidentally came across an interesting scientific finding during a laboratory class. According to “MK”, the student Nikolai Ulikov, while working with fungi, noticed a bacterial strain that may stop the multiplication of mold and other fungi on plants.
During the lesson, the students tried to grow a hedgehog mushroom in Petri dishes. Since the mushroom was taken from the wild, it is assumed that various “foreign” microorganisms could also have entered the medium together with it.
After some time, Ulikov saw a strange picture in the Petri dish: a “halo”, that is, a sterile ring, appeared around a small bacterial colony. The most interesting thing is that outside this ring, other microorganisms did not grow.
Further observations showed that the detected bacterial strain releases a substance that suppresses the growth of fungi. That substance created a sterile zone around the colony and became a barrier to the spread of fungi and other microorganisms.
According to the student, this finding may have properties against certain fungi and may attract great interest for future research. The most important point is that such bacteria may be useful in agriculture to protect crops from fungal diseases. That is, by reducing heavy chemical agents, an opportunity appears to develop more natural and effective protection methods.
In short, a situation that started from an ordinary laboratory lesson may, in the future, turn into a larger scientific direction. In science, sometimes the biggest steps begin precisely from such “accidents”.
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