Notes

One technique used to identify microorganisms that I talked
about is Gram staining which is staining that is used to
differentiate the species of bacteria into 2 main groups, gram-
positive and the gram-negative bacteria. An advantage of this
is that it may help determine appropriate treatments for
infections on humans which is beneficial in many ways as it
may help someone survive and become a lot healthier. This is
because in a lot of cases it may be hard to determine whether
an infection is caused by bacteria or a virus. These need to be
determined as they both have very different treatment and if
the wrong treatment is used it will have a negative affect on
the human. This is where gram staining comes into this as it
helps determine what type of microorganism is present.
Another advantage of gram staining is it gives quick results
when examining infections which is beneficial as this may
speed up the treatment process as doctors will be able to
identify the problem much quicker. It is also quite a simple
procedure and cost effective which is beneficial for the
patient. However, one disadvantage of gram staining is it has
limitations when used for environmental microbiology. Since
this method cannot identify bacteria to the species level, it is
not recommended as the only method for bacterial
identification in most medical situations. Which shows that it
may not be effective in certain scenarios. Another
disadvantage is that it has its side effects which may not be
safe for the individual as it may affect their health. One side
effect could be bruising because of blood draw. Overall, I
think that this technique is effective enough as is many
occasions it benefits humans such as identifying types of
infection which without this may be impossible, even though
it has its drawbacks it is still worth it in my opinion. 2
Advantages and Disadvantages of Gram Staining_
ConnectS (connectusfund.org).
Another technique I talked about which is used to identify
microorganisms is Colony morphology Colony morphology is
a method that scientists use to describe the characteristics of
an individual colony of bacteria growing on agar in a Petri
dish. An advantage of colony morphology is that it's a method
used in the microbiology laboratory for identifying
microorganisms. Colonies must be well isolated from each
other to observe the characteristic shape, size, colour, surface
appearance, and texture of each. Colonial Characteristics
(edc.gov). A disadvantage is that it may be difficult to detect
double-infected nodules when the small colony type
represents only a relatively small fraction of a nodule's overall
population when colony morphology is used as a marker for
strain identification in competition experiments. Wordtune
Your thoughts, in words. Overall, I think that colony
morphology is not as effective as gram staining as gram
straining has more to offer such as helping identify different
types of infections and speeding up treatment procees.