Pop quiz.

thanks

The cheesecloth left over from the milk/lemon curdling experiment?

Hmmm...looks a bit like a morning glory if you squint. However, I'm gonna guess the remains of last week's experiment?

Hm, you were draining something in a colander lined with paper towels or cheesecloth....red and yellow beets? Eggplant?

It's cheese cloth, but the cheese making experiment was a week ago, which would mean you left it out for a week...?

It looks a lot like what I've been coughing up the last few days.

I'll be there soon for kitchen duty.

A cloth diaper suffering the aftermath of a kid eating crayons and markers?

It looks like the dye job you'd get from peaches: pink from the skin wicking up in the juice and yellow from embedded pulp, but I can't think why they'd be in cheesecloth.

It is indeed the cheesecloth used to drain the curds in last week's experiment.

Clearly, we left the cheesecloth out at room temperature for 6 days in the interests of Science -- to see what would happen. Otherwise, we could have put it right in the compost bucket.

I was kind of hoping someone would identify the microbes that are making the cheesecloth pink and yellow. (I don't know the answer myself.)

Anyone?

Is the cheesecloth emitting a particular smell?

Serratia marcesans has a reddish color to it thanks to the pigment prodigiosin. That could be the culprit for your pinkish color.

As for the yellow pigment, it could be a pseudomonad. If you put the cheesecloth under a black light, you might see some fluorescence, which would be the pigment pyoverdin and is indicative of organisms in the genus Pseudomonas.

washday chromatography, accidental department?

I'm guessing that's not curd from a Guernsey or a Jersey?

Looks like the trash can after long night w/ my 1 4/5 yr old and the stomach bug (and BROTHER! was it a long night!!!)