It's all is nothing to do with rain! It's your colectors! Plus there is dust in air even in rainy day! So this should be done somewhere in area like far away in some rainforest 😉
I have always wondered if there was life in rain, however as the rain collected in the splash pool could some of the creatures have been dormant in the dust and debris in the pool and activated due to the rain? If you examined pure rain water would you get the same result as the sample could have been contaminated by the surface of the pool?
It’s possible, but I tried my best to account for that. The pool had never been opened or taken outside before the video, and it was only out there for about two hours. There wasn’t any visible dust on it when it came out of the package. Also, I didn’t put it out until after the rain had started, and it was a pretty light drizzle. I could try other collection methods though for sure! Maybe as another experiment, I can take the dry dust that the rain left on my car and put it in some water.
@@fantasticmicrobesThanks for your reply. I was under the impression the splash pool was outside long enough to be contaminated. Rain drops need nucleation sites like dust particles to form drops. The particulate matter in the sample must of been from that. You could try collecting dust of surfaces on a dry and windy day, add some pure water, leave it for a couple of hours to see if the is any life. You could take the sample of rain water and let it dry out and then re-hydrate it to see if the life survives. Thanks for an interesting channel exploring the everyday unseen life.
(Loved seeing the creatures moving around via cilia in this video. The recent EVNautilus video of a red ctenophore made me think, "Ciliate, writ large!" So I had to come back and watch this video of yours again. ^_^)
Do the microbes actually "fall from the sky" and "travel with rain"? I thought rainwater was relatively clean of life, as it forms from evaporation and microbes don't evaporate. Couldn't it be that microbes were just introduced to the pool by the wind?
While microbes don’t evaporate, they do get carried by wind up into the atmosphere with small dirt particles. These dirt particles attach to water and rain back down. Here’s a review of a 7 year study of rainwater microbes… they found stuff similar to what I did: eos.org/articles/microbes-rain-down-from-above-to-the-tune-of-the-seasons
It would be interesting to do a bacterial culture and see what happens
Very cool. One of the first microbes I found was a rotifer in rain water.
That’s awesome! Yeah I was hoping for one of those or maybe a tardigrade, something multicellular. Maybe next time!
It's all is nothing to do with rain! It's your colectors!
Plus there is dust in air even in rainy day! So this should be done somewhere in area like far away in some rainforest 😉
I have always wondered if there was life in rain, however as the rain collected in the splash pool could some of the creatures have been dormant in the dust and debris in the pool and activated due to the rain?
If you examined pure rain water would you get the same result as the sample could have been contaminated by the surface of the pool?
It’s possible, but I tried my best to account for that. The pool had never been opened or taken outside before the video, and it was only out there for about two hours. There wasn’t any visible dust on it when it came out of the package. Also, I didn’t put it out until after the rain had started, and it was a pretty light drizzle. I could try other collection methods though for sure!
Maybe as another experiment, I can take the dry dust that the rain left on my car and put it in some water.
@@fantasticmicrobesThanks for your reply. I was under the impression the splash pool was outside long enough to be contaminated.
Rain drops need nucleation sites like dust particles to form drops. The particulate matter in the sample must of been from that.
You could try collecting dust of surfaces on a dry and windy day, add some pure water, leave it for a couple of hours to see if the is any life.
You could take the sample of rain water and let it dry out and then re-hydrate it to see if the life survives.
Thanks for an interesting channel exploring the everyday unseen life.
(Loved seeing the creatures moving around via cilia in this video. The recent EVNautilus video of a red ctenophore made me think, "Ciliate, writ large!" So I had to come back and watch this video of yours again. ^_^)
I LOVE the EVNautilus videos! The deep sea and microscopic world are both so alien, I could watch either of them for hours
Do the microbes actually "fall from the sky" and "travel with rain"? I thought rainwater was relatively clean of life, as it forms from evaporation and microbes don't evaporate. Couldn't it be that microbes were just introduced to the pool by the wind?
While microbes don’t evaporate, they do get carried by wind up into the atmosphere with small dirt particles. These dirt particles attach to water and rain back down. Here’s a review of a 7 year study of rainwater microbes… they found stuff similar to what I did:
eos.org/articles/microbes-rain-down-from-above-to-the-tune-of-the-seasons
@@fantasticmicrobes That's cool. Thanks!
Wouldn't some of the microbes be from the container (pool) as it wasn't sterile?
love your videos! :) keep it up
Thanks!
What if you just collect one drop falling from the sky? Is there something in there too?
"One does not simply teleport..."
Microbes: "Uhh hold my yeast enhanced beverage."
Aka Sky 💦 🥜