Trying to think of something interesting...

I find that, sometimes, if I just start typing, I come up with something good. We'll see how it goes. I'm learning about fungi and oomycetes (which are not fungi but used to be classified that way until people learned that their hyphae are coenocytic, their cytoplasm is granular (?), and "the apex is devoid of organelles other than numerous secretory vesicles." Geez, how could you overlook that obvious difference? Here's a picture of one that is very closely related to mine:

(http://www.uoguelph.ca/~gbarron/2008/pythiu1.jpg)

There are some good pictures of mine but they're not on this computer. Culturing fungus/oomycetes, it turns out, is only a little bit similar to culturing bacteria. This makes things fun. Culturing plankton is even less like culturing bacteria. Here's something else I've learned: If you want something to be infectious, you have to make it into a spore. If you want to make something into a spore, you need yet another protocol, meaning that, if your organism is new, you have to develop a new protocol. So, it's not just about culturing, kids. Oh, hey, Janet, maybe you know some good references about sporulation in eukaryotes. I'm a little bit unsure. P.S. To be considered a "spore" in a fungus or oomycete, you pretty much have to be nothing except sort of wandering around aimlessly, no requirement for a spore coat or heat resistence or whatever. Furthermore, people who are used to eukaryotes will constantly refer to "spores" in bacterial species. They do not like for you to stop them and point out that, if they're not heat resistant and don't have a spore coat, bacteriologists don't call them spores.