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a culture of service...
July, 2012
© 2012, Hardy Diagnostics,
all rights reserved
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Everything You Need for Anaerobes...
_______________________
Hardy offers a complete line of products for the simplified culture and identification of anaerobic bacteria.
Click here
to find out more...
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Culturing by Color...
HardyCHROM
Click here
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Brainteasers
Take your brain to the virtual gym for a brief workout...
Click here
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Phraseology
"
Get Your Goat
"
This is a twentieth-century American phrase relating to horse racing. It used to be common practice at horse races for goats to be kept with restless horses to keep them under control - they had a calming effect on the horse and this made them all the more race-ready.
On race days, goats were stolen ('got') by wily thieves who, expecting the horse to be distressed by the absence of its bearded mentor, would then place a bet on the horse to lose. Today, if something or someone gets your goat, it annoys, distresses and irritates you.
~ ~ ~
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Think about it...
Considering the high cost of living, why does it remain so popular?
Why is it that a goose and his wife are geese, but a moose and his wife aren't meese?
Why does belly button lint not match your shirt color?
Why do "overlook" and "oversee" mean opposite things?
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Wisdom to ponder...
Meryl Streep
American actress who has received
17
Academy Award
nominations, winning three, and 26
Golden Globe
nominations winning eight; that's more nominations than any other actor in the history of either award.
"It is well that the earth is round that we do not see too far ahead."
"Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too."
"My family really does come first. It always did and always will."
"The work is the most fun; it seems illicit how much fun it is."
"Every single decision I make about what material I do, what I'm putting out in the world, is because of my children."
"It's bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician."
"I have a very busy life, and not many people who have a career and four kids go out a lot to the movies."
"I'm never so sure as I was in my mid-20s."
"Interestingly, young people don't come to you for advice. Especially the ones who are related to you."
"We are who we're going to be when we're very old; and when we're very old, we are who we were when we were eight."
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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...
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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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Making Better Parasitology Slides
L
ynne Garcia describes eleven ways to make better fecal stains for ova and parasites.
..
Total-Fix, by MCC, is a "universal fixative" that can be used for the Trichrome staining technique. It offers the following advantages...
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A Proprietary Formulation
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No Formalin
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No Mercury
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Perform Direct Exams
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Perform Concentrations
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Perform Giardia and Cryptosporidium DFA
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Perform Permanent Stains (Trichrome and Iron Hematoxylin)
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Perform Giardia EIA (Microwell and "Card Assays")
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Perform Cryptosporidium EIA (Microwell and "Card Assays")
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Fecal Events Happen
S
wimming in public pools has its risks. After studying samples taken from 160 public swimming pools, researchers found that one of every twelve pools were contaminated with either
Giardia
or
Cryptosporidium
parasites or both.
This is particularly alarming because
Cryptosporidum
is not killed by routine chlorine treatments commonly used in public pools.
Cryptosporidium
is one of the most common causes of recreational water illness in the United States and can cause prolonged diarrhea for one to two weeks.
Swallowing even a small amount of pool water that has been contaminated with the
Cryptosporidium
organism
can lead to disease. This means that just one person with diarrhea can easily contaminate the water.
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Whooping cough
on the Rise
S
o far this year there have been 18,000 cases of whooping cough (pertussis) reported, which is more than twice the number this time last year. There have been nine deaths so far this year in the U.S. The CDC predicts that this could be the worst year for whooping cough in the last 50 years. The states with the highest numbers so far, in order of infection rates, are Washington, Wisconsin, Montana, Vermont, Minnesota, and Iowa.
Researchers are looking for answers to this sudden increase. Could it be that the organism,
Bordetella pertussis,
has become more virulent? Less people are getting vaccinated? Has the vaccine become less potent than before?
The incidence of whooping cough apparently occurs in cycles of three to five years, and this year could one of the worst.
The CDC reports that PCR tests can be lacking in specificity and false positives abound. Therefore, culture confirmation using
Regan-Lowe Agar
is important.
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Bordetella pertussis
colonies on
Regan Lowe Agar
(Cat. no. A65). This slow growing organism must be incubated in a carbon dioxide enriched atmosphere for up to 12 days.
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More information from the CDC
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Optical oddities...
These two images are of the same mountain scene. One is the real image and the other is its negative. Which is which?
The answer can be found at the bottom of this column.
"Believe half of what you see
and none of what you hear."
~ Marvin Gaye
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Let your voice be heard...
Would we be better off with
an economic system
other than capitalism?
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Find out what others thought..
Which time period
produced the best music?
Every generation has an entirely different idea of what constitutes good music. In your opinion, what era generated superior tunes?
The results may surprise you!
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Test Your
Olympic Knowledge
Who has won more medals than any other
athlete?
Is the gold medal really made of gold?
Did athletes ever compete in the nude?
What do the Olympic rings and their colors symbolize?
Has anyone ever won a gold medal in both the summer and winter games?
What country has won the most medals?
Find out
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Golf is...
. . . a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness.
~ William Wordsworth
. . . a game in which one endeavors to control a ball with implements ill adapted for the purpose.
~ Woodrow Wilson
. . . a game in which you yell "fore," shoot six, and write down five.
~ Paul Harvey
. . . a good walk spoiled.
~ Mark Twain
. . . played by twenty million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun.
~ Jim Bishop
. . . appealing to the idiot and the child in us all. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five.
~ John Updike
. . . a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose."
~ Winston Churchill
Answer to "Optical Oddites" above.
The top image is the positive.
The bottom image is the negative.
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