Nerd Reading Spasm!

Did I mention the place I work has some amazingly spiffy perks for a nerd like me?

Last night, I was poking around pubmed looking for references to yeast and erythritol (namely, do yeast interact with it, and will they metabolize it?) I found precisely one relevant reference. From 1975. In a Czechoslavokian microbiology journal. A no-longer-existent Czechoslovakian microbiology journal. Even though it was a journal published in English, I didn’t figure I’d be able to find the article I was looking for. It did turn out that the greedy (insert long string of profanity here) anti-open-access “SpringerLink®” Netherlands organization has an electronic copy of the article…which I can get limited access to for a short time for a mere $34.00. Not going to happen, obviously.

Just in case the college had a subscription that would let me get to the article at no extra cost, I checked. No such luck. But…

…The campus medical science library just two buildings over from where I work has dead-tree editions of essentially the entire journal! Im name des Nudelmonster! Instead of paying $34.00, I got a photocopy of the article for about $0.50. Bonus: As I had hoped, the article[1] reports that erythritol is not metabolized by yeasts, although it is taken up to a small extent. That means I can add erythritol (or xylitol or sorbitol or whatever) to must or wort, and it’ll still be there when the yeast finish, leaving the resulting beverage still sweet. Hooray!

Plus, I was also able to get access to an electronic copy of a review of the uses of poly-?-glutamate[2], which I was bemoaning not having access to over on an interesting Small Things Considered post recently.

Speaking of reading, one thing I really could use are any worthwhile books on the general subject of applied/industrial microbiology, bioprocess engineering, fermentation, and so on. “Worthwhile” here means practical texts that are A)primarily about microbiological processes (as opposed to, say, bioengineering of plants) B)Reasonably technical, and C)Either “not very old” or “very old indeed” (I collect old science books).

I’m not a fan of Amazon.com’s abuses of the patent system, but I’m in a hurry since it’s past my bedtime already. Therefore, purely as a sampling of the kinds of books that sounded interesting to me, here is a selection in more or less random order of books that came up in a quick search on amazon.com. Anybody out there have any other suggestions?

• Fermentation Microbiology and Biotechnology, Second Edition
• Solid-State Fermentation Bioreactors: Fundamentals of Design and Operation (Hardcover)
• Practical Fermentation Technology
• Manual of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology
• Principles of Fermentation Technology^*
• Food Microbiology Protocols
• Yeasts (Biotechnology and Bioprocessing Series)
• Microbiology and Biochemistry of Cheese and Fermented Milk
• Microbial Processes and Products
• Handbook of Food and Beverage Fermentation Technology
• Food, Fermentation and Micro-organisms
• Meat Biotechnology
• Industrial and Environmental Biotechnology
• Non-Conventional Yeasts in Genetics, Biochemistry and Biotechnology
• Carbohydrate Bioengineering
• Microbiology of Landfill Sites
• Isolation and Purification of Proteins
• Molecular Techniques in the Microbial Ecology of Fermented Foods
• Maintaining Cultures for Biotechnology and Industry
• Immobilized Cells: Basics and Applications
• Yeast Physiology and Biotechnology
• Microbial Biotechnology: Principles and Applications
• Biotechnology for Odor and Air Pollution Control
• Biotechnology in Flavor Production
• Carbohydrate Biotechnology Protocols
• Microbiology of Fermented Foods, Volumes 1 and 2

So, if any family members, friends, or adoring members of my cult seeking to bestow material goods upon me happen to be poking around at a bargain books site or a library selling off extra books or wins the lottery (I noticed one of the entries in that list up there was going for $400 or so…) or whatever, and just happen to run across something with a title or subject that sounds like it’s related to this stuff, I probably would be most appreciative to have it.

The same goes for anyone out there who is trimming their own overflowing stock of books and is looking for a good home for some…

^* – I think I’ve mentioned this one before…

[1] Canh DS, Horák J, Kotyk A, Ríhová L.:”Transport of acyclic polyols in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.”; Folia Microbiol (Praha). 1975;20(4):320-5.
[2] Shih IL, Van YT.:”The production of poly-(gamma-glutamic acid) from microorganisms and its various applications.”; Bioresour Technol. 2001 Sep;79(3):207-25.