NOVEL FLAG FORMED OF COLOR-PRODUCING GERMS (Sep, 1934)

NOVEL FLAG FORMED OF COLOR-PRODUCING GERMS

Colonies of bacteria provided the colors for a living American flag grown in Montclair, N. J., by a bacteriologist. The germs were made to perform their remarkable trick by tracing the outline of the flag on a shallow glass dish, with needles previously dipped in germ cultures. The dish bearing the bacteria outline was then placed in a incubator. There the bacteria of various colors multiplied and rapidly filled in the proper areas of the flag. The blue field was grown from a pigment-forming disease germ, while a bacillus found in mountain streams provided the red stripes. The white stripes and the stars were supplied by a non-pigment-forming bacteria found in milk. The flag, when the colonies of bacteria had attained the proper growth, measured about six inches long. Miss Roberta Love, Montclair bacteriologist, is shown above, holding the flag during an early stage of its development. Even in its unfinished state, the resemblance of the bacteria colonies to the regulation flag was readily apparent.