Beer & Bread (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) Giant Microbe Plush Doll
Come and get it! This microbe is a baker, and a brewer -- and a scientist to boot. Pretty amazing! Learn about the secrets to its success.
Giantmicrobes Are Stuffed Animals That Look Like Tiny Microbes - Only A Million Times Actual Size!!! Each 5-to-7 inch doll is accompanied by an image of the real microbe it represents, as well as information about the microbe.
They make great learning tools for parents and educators, as well as amusing gifts for anyone with a sense of humor!
FACTS: For at least six thousand years, Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been used to make beer and bread! It is also one of the many varieties of yeast used to make wine. Its Latin name means "sugar fungus of the beer" - though it is widely used in biomedical research as well because it is inexpensive and it grows quickly. One yeast can turn into 1,000,000 in only six hours; and a single droplet can contain 5,000,000!
Yeast contains special enzymes that turn sugar molecules into carbon dioxide and alcohol. "En zume" means "in yeast" in Greek. The carbon dioxide gas makes bread rise and causes the bubbles in beer. The alcohol makes, well, the alcohol.
In bread, the alcohol evaporates. But in beer and wine, the alcohol level increases until the yeast perishes (which is why the alcohol percentage level in non-distilled beverages is limited to the mid-teens).
So how did humanity discover the secrets of yeast so many millennia ago? The air is filled with tiny wild yeast spores. At some point, one must have floated down and settled on a baker's dough or a jug of juice and the magical effects of yeast were revealed!
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