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a culture of service...
August, 2012
© 2012, Hardy Diagnostics,
all rights reserved
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MicroTips...
_______________________
How can I make a permanent slide of my fungal cultures?
Hardy's BlueMount is a combination of Lactophenol Cotton Blue stain and poly vinyl alcohol (PVA). When it dries and hardens, it will produce a slide that will last for many years.
Click here
to find out more...
Do you have a MicroTip to share with your fellow MicroBytes readers?
Click here.
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It doesn't get any easier!
Salmonella Test
Hardy's PDX-SIB test for Salmonella makes environmental monitoring easy. No sub-culturing or specimen transfers are needed. Results are ready in 24 to 48 hours. AOAC approved.
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Brainteasers
Rev up the ol' grey matter
and take our test...
Click here
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Phraseology
"
Skid Row
"
Skid row is an American term used to describe the poorest, dirtiest part of a town where the cast-offs of society congregate.
Its origin lies in the North American logging industry, where skid row was the row of logs along which other chopped logs rolled, or
skidded
, during the production process.
One town, Tacoma, near Seattle, thrived entirely on timber, and the multitudes of men drawn to the area for the good, steady employment it offered drank as hard as they chopped wood. The vast numbers of lonely workers created a demand for brothels and bars and the place became a magnet for a certain type of man who would fall into these vices.
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New Media Release
Arcanobacterium
Hardy has developed a new selective culture medium for the isolation and detection of
Arcanobacterium haemolyticum
, a cause of pharyngitis that is often missed on routine throat cultures.
See
the instructions for use (IFU).
Read
more.
Request
a sample pack.
Place
an order.
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Think about it...
* If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?
* Do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
* Why did you just try singing the two songs above?
* Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it's in your butt?
* Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he happily sticks his head out the window?
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Wisdom to ponder...
Booker T. Washington
1856 ~ 1915
Born into slavery, he became a well known author, orator, and educator, as well as the founder of Tuskegee University in Alabama.
"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else."
"I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him."
"One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him."
"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome."
"Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company."
"At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence."
"We do not want the men of another color for our brothers-in-law, but we do want them for our brothers."
"Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top."
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We crave your comments...
How are we doing?
Are you a Hardy customer? If so, we need your help in assessing our performance.
At Hardy Diagnostics, we are fanatics about implementing Continuous Improvement. Would you please take a moment to answer two questions?
It should only take a minute or two and would be an immense help to us in honing our skills.
Provide some feedback...
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QUICK LINKS...
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Want to receive the MicroBytes
Newsletter
at home?
CLICK HERE
Want to review past issues
of MicroBytes?
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Did you know?
Hardy Diagnostics...
-
Is celebrating its 32nd year of serving microbiologists.
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Is
ISO 13485
certified for the manufacture of medical devices to give you confidence in our products.
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Offers you its technical manual,
HUGO
, which contains over 4,500 pages of information regarding microbiology.
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Maintains a worldwide network of over 40
distributors.
Send a
message to the president
.
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Micro Musings..
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Could you be missing something
?
Bacterial pharyngitis is not always caused by Group A Strep.
Find out
about another important cause of sore throats that you don't want to miss.
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A public health success story...
Polio Now Close
to Eradication
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In 2009, more than 361 million children were immunized against polio in 40 countries. The world is now very close to achieving complete eradication of this devastating virus.
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P
olio still remains problematic in only four countries: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. India has not had a reported case since January of 2011. A country is declared polio free when no cases of the disease are reported for three years, according to the
World Health Organization
.
Polio usually infects children under age 5 through contaminated drinking water. The virus attacks the central nervous system, causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and, in some cases, death. One in 200 cases result in irreversible paralysis.
Polio cases have decreased by over 99% since 1988, from an estimated 350,000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries then, to 1,352 reported cases in 2010.
With an aggressive vaccination program, it is hoped that polio will join smallpox in the list of diseases that have been wiped off the face of our planet.
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Want to prevent ear infections?
Chew on this...
X
ylitol is a natural carbohydrate that has anti-bacterial properties. A recent study showed that ear infections in children can be reduced by 25% by chewing on gum containing xylitol, an alternative treatment made from birch sugar.
Xylitol has been used for decades as a natural non-sugar sweetener principally in chewing gum, confectionery, toothpaste and medicines, and can reduce the risk of tooth decay. It has been shown to be effective against
Streptococcus mutans
, a leading cause of dental caries. Xylitol also shows promise as a natural way to control sinus infections.
This study was performed on 3,103 Finnish day care children. It was found that xylitol (administered in chewing gum, lozenges or syrup) reduced the occurrence of otitis media among healthy children with no acute upper respiratory infection by 25%.
No significant adverse effects were identified. The gum was used as a prophylactic five times a day and had no effect on established disease.
Otitis media is the most common infection in young children, prompting almost 16 million office visits in the U.S. and health care costs of $3.8 billion a year. By the age of three, 83% of all children have suffered through at least one ear ache episode.
Xylitol's effectiveness is thought to be due to its ability to control
Streptococcus pneumoniae
, which is the cause of more than half the cases of otitis media.
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Optical oddities...
As you look at these two men, you will see an angry man on the left and a calm man onf the right. Now step back from your computer about 6 feet or more. Now which is angry and which is calm?
Can't figure out why this happens? See the explanation at the bottom of the right hand column of this newsletter.
"Believe half of what you see
and none of what you hear."
~ Marvin Gaye
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Take the MicroBytes Survey...
What is your favorite
type of food?
Have you ever noticed that microbiologists like to cook? and like to eat too?
Tell us about your favorite...
Italian? Chinese? or ?
Tell us
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Get the survey results...
Would we be better off with
an economic system
other than capitalism?
The dictionary defines capitalism as an economic system characterized by
private
or corporate ownership of
capital
goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.
What the MicroBytes readers thought about this...
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"The man who views the world at 50
the same as he did at 20
has wasted 30 years of his life"
Muhammad Ali
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"I have seen a few die of hunger;
of eating. . .100,000."
Ben Franklin (1706-1790)
Answer to "Optical Oddities" above:
Both of the photos are composites of two images, angry and calm. The image on the left has the angry man image in sharp focus and is seen up close. The image on the right has the angry man image blurred and the calm man in sharp focus. When this one is seen from a distance the the detail is lost and the angry man is seen. Only when the image on the left is seen from a distance the sharp detail of the angry man is lost and the calm man comes through. Now that you know this, hopefully you can go back to being calm too!
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