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by mgc_mgc 1321 days ago
Depending on the circumstances, boiling in stops and starts may not be too bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyndallization
2 comments

That is amazing! So basically you trick the bacteria into exiting their spore/dormant phase before you hit them again with another boil.

It seems risky because if you ever let the spores divide at all then you introduce further variation and a selection process into the mix, which could be disastrous.

But that reminds me of the "shock and kill" strategy used to get HIV out of its latent state before killing the virions: https://clinicalinfo.hiv.gov/en/glossary/shock-and-kill-stra...

And I guess this effect is also why chemotherapy drugs work best on fast-growing tumors.

I've heard from a friend of a friend that mycologists soak their grow mediums for a day or two to give spores a chance to germinate before pressure-cooking the whole thing. But said friend never called it Tyndallization. That's the thing I learned today!