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a culture of service...
July, 2013
© 2013, Hardy Diagnostics,
all rights reserved
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Ever wish your grams stains were more distinct with brighter colors?
Ever had problems with debris and crystals in your stain?
Poor gram stains are a leading cause of mis-identification. Hardy's "Gram Stain Advanced" can help. You will notice that both gram negatives and positives will exhibit brighter colors, due to several modifications that we have made to our stain. Your stains will be smooth and without unwanted debris due to our filtering process.
But you won't know for sure until you try it!
View
the Gram Stain Advanced brochure.
Order
Gram Stain Advanced today. It is also available by the gallon.
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Pre-filled Dilution Bottles...
Hardy's Dilu-Loks can save time and money when preparing your dilutions. Dilu-Loks feature a wide mouth with an easy-open lid.
View
the various formulas, features and benefits of using Dilu-Loks.
All of Hardy's Dilu-loks can be ordered directly from Hardy or through VWR and Fisher Scientific.
Order
your complete Food Microbiology mini catalog.
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Brainteasers
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for rapid coliform
testing in water
The new Colitag can now give you results in as little as 16 hours.
Tests are read out with a UV lamp.
View
the brochure.
Order
Colitag.
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Think about it...
* Can you cry under water?
* How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?
* Since bread is square, why is sandwich meat round?
* Why do you have to "put your two cents in"...but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to? Taxes?
* Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?
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Phraseology
The origin of this expression came from the aeronautics industry and dates back to World War II.
The term "flight envelope" can first be found in the British Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, 1944:
"...the 'flight envelope', which is in general use in this country and in the United States... The 'flight envelope' covers all probable conditions of symmetrical maneuvering flight."
That envelope is the description of the upper and lower limits of the various factors that it is safe to fly at, i.e. speed, engine power, maneuverability, wind speed, altitude etc.
By 'pushing the envelope', i.e. testing those limits, test pilots were able to determine just how far it was safe to go.
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How to identify Cyclospora.
Due to the recent outbreak, Lynne Garcia offers advice on how to identify
Cyclospora
microscopically.
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Wisdom to ponder...
Walter Cronkite
1916 ~ 2009
American broadcast journalist and TV anchorman, commonly known as "the most trusted man in America."
"I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got."
"America's health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system."
"I think somebody ought to do a survey as to how many great, important men have quit to spend time with their families who actually spent any more time with their family."
"The great sadness of my life is that I never achieved the hour newscast, which would not have been twice as good as the half-hour newscast, but many times as good."
"Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation."
"Errol Flynn died on a 70-foot boat with a 17-year-old girl. Walter has always wanted to go that way, but he's going to have to settle for a 17-footer with a 70-year-old."
"In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story."
"There's a little more ego involved in these jobs than people might realize."
"And that's the way it is."
One of Cronkite's early reporting assignments was to fly on a bombing run after the invasion of Normandy in 1944. He attempted to join the military when the war began, but was rejected due to color blindness.
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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 33nd 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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There have been 321 cases of this disease reported in the US within the last two months.
Hint:
This photo is from a stool sample with a modified acid fast stain.
Another hint:
All four organisms seen above are the same pathogen.
How to identify it.
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Frog Skin:
a new source of antibiotics?
Before the advent of refrigeration, Russians had a neat trick for keeping their milk from spoiling. They'd drop a live frog in the milk bucket.
The Russians weren't sure how this amphibian dairy treatment worked, but they were convinced it did.
Since then, researchers have discovered that the goo some frogs secrete through their skin has antibacterial and antifungal properties.
One group of scientists led by a Russian chemist is trying to break down this frog goo at a molecular level. The researchers have found compounds they hope will lead to new medicines.
"Their activity is really enormous," says Albert Lebedev, a scientist at Moscow State University, describing the chemicals they've found in the goo.
To extract the secretions, Lebedev's team applied electrodes to the skin glands of Russian brown frogs.
They analyzed the resulting milky frog goo and found a complex cocktail containing peptides. Lebedev's team identified 76 different types of peptides that showed a variety of different properties that could be useful in the discovery of new antibiotics.
Now that scientists have identified some of the compounds present on the skin of Russian frogs, one of the next steps is to figure out how to create them synthetically. Lebedev says he's spoken with several pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, about doing this but his talks haven't led to any firm plans.
It's certainly possible that new classes of antibiotics or other drugs could be derived from chemicals in frogs' skin. But, Liu says, if that happens, it will be a long, long time before those drugs wind up in the pharmacy.
Source: npr.org
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If you can't find the dual image, tilt your head to the left...
"Believe half of what you see
and none of what you hear."
~ Marvin Gaye
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Check out the survey results...
Should the Federal Government Fund New Antibiotic Research?
For the first time ever, the US government granted $200 million to the British drug giant, Glaxo Smith-Kline to help fund its research for new antibiotics. This is an attempt to spur lagging research in this field while bacteria is constantly becoming more resistant to existing antibiotics.
In 1990, 18 major drug companies had an anti-bacterial research program. Now there are only four. Between 2010 and 2012 the FDA approved of only one new systemic antibiotic.
Many drug companies are no longer interested in discovering cures for infections, now that the cost to gain FDA approval is approaching $1 billion. Consequently, drug companies place their bets on chronic incurable diseases, like diabetes, heart disease, ED, anti-hypertensives, high cholesterol, etc.
In other words, a lifetime of taking pills financially beats a 10 day course of a life saving antibiotic.
The results were very one-sided!
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Mitosis in Action
An amazing fluorescence micrograph of a human epithelial cell in mitosis. The cell has been labeled for alpha tubulin (blue), gamma tubulin (green) and DNA (red). By Nordberg.
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Take the MicroBytes Survey
...
Should marijuana
be legalized?
On May 28, 2013, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper
made history by signing two bills that made his state the first place in the world to fully regulate the recreational use of marijuana for adults.
Tax revenue on marijuana in Colorado is expected to be about $24 million, with a savings of about $12 million in law enforcement costs. Was this a good thing?
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"Everybody is a genius.
But if you judge a fish by its
ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life
believing that it is stupid."
~ Albert Einstein ~
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I'm taking care of my procrastination issues...
Just you wait and see!
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Fun with Statistics...
Bread Kills!
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully half of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. Every piece of bread you eat brings you nearer to death.
4. Bread is associated with all the major diseases of the
body. For example, nearly all sick people have eaten bread.
The effects are obviously cumulative:
- 99.9% of all people who die from cancer have eaten bread.
- 99.7% of the people involved in air and auto accidents
ate bread within 6 months preceding the accident.
- 93.1% of juvenile delinquents came from homes where bread is served frequently.
5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as a teaspoon of dough can be used to suffocate a lab rat. The average American eats more bread than that in one day!
6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a
low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.
7. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.
In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the
following bread restrictions:
1. No sale of bread to minors.
2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete with celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.
5. Pass a law to limit all use of bread to two slices.
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