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a culture of service...
June, 2015
© 2015, Hardy Diagnostics,
all rights reserved
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Now there's a better way to handle your disposable loops on the benchtop. Hardy's LoopCaddy holds a sterile pack of 50 loops while protecting them from possible contaminants.
View the complete loop selection from Hardy.
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Hardy's MycoSeals are designed to prevent the drying of culture media in Petri plates. They are especially useful for TB and mycology cultures that must be incubated for long periods of time.
MycoSeals prevent moisture loss while being permeable to oxygen and carbon dioxide.
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Download Our
Mini Catalogs
No matter what industry you may be in, Hardy has a mini catalog that contains the microbiology products that are needed in your lab. - Food and Beverage
- Veterinary
- Anaerobic Microbiology
- Susceptibility Testing
- Control Organisms
- Cosmetics
- Pharmaceuticals
- Dehydrated Culture Media
- And more...
View a complete list and download the PDF version. Request the paper version.
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Brainteasers
Know your history?
Let's find out...
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Phraseology
This is a pirate phrase originating in Port Royal Jamaica in the 1600's.
Having only a single shot from their black powder guns, they would carry as many of these weapons as they could at once to keep up the fight.
In addition they carried a knife in their teeth for maximum arms capability.
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Nasal Probiotics
We know all about probiotics that are used to balance the bacterial population in our intestines. But what about nasal probiotics to control pathogens that cause meningitis or earaches?
 Nasal probiotics have been shown to be useful in preventing disease.
A recent study from the United Kindom showed that
Neisseria menigitidis
could be "crowded out" by harmless bacteria introduced with a nasal spray.
Researchers in Sheffield noticed that bacterial meningitis is less common in those colonized with the harmless bacteria Neisseria lactamica. The student subjects that received an N. lactamica
inoculation had a reduced incidence of the potentially pathogenic N. meningitidis
from 24 to 7%.
The researchers surmised that "the mechanism is either microbial competition within the nasopharynx, or innate immune responses that operate only in individuals actively carrying the commensal."
With another approach in Sweden, researchers are attempting to control otitis media (earaches) in children by also using nasal probiotics. In this study, they tested the effects of a 10-day course of a probiotic nasal spray containing the good bacteria, Streptococcus sanguinis. They reported 7 of 19 children treated with the Streptococcus sanguinis-containing nose spray experienced "complete or significant" recovery of otitis media, compared with only 1 of 17 treated with a placebo spray.
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To prevent cross contamination...
Endoscope
Monitoring
Hardy offers a complete system for the microbiological sampling of endoscopes.
View a simplified graphic showing the procedure. See the complete CDC recommended procedure and the products needed to perform it.
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Think about it...
* Why do scientists call it research when they are looking for something new?
* If you got into a taxi and he started driving backwards, would the taxi driver end up owing you money?
* Why is a carrot more orange than an orange?
* When two airplanes almost collide why do they call it a near miss? It sounds like a near hit to me!
* Do fish get cramps after eating?
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Alexander Pope
1688 ~ 1744
English poet.
According to the
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, he is the second most often quoted, after Shakespeare.
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
"The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man's own eyes when they look upon his own person."
"To err is human; to forgive, divine."
"The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more."
"But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor."
"Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise."
"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."
"Some people will never learn anything; for this reason, because they understand everything too soon."
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Want to receive the MicroBytes Newsletter at home?
Want to review past issues
of MicroBytes?
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QUICK LINKS...
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Micro Musings...
"There are trillions of bacterial cells living on my body, but I still get lonely sometimes."
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When it comes to how we
identify and classify Strep,
we owe this woman
a debt of gratitude.
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How Safe is Shrimp?
Americans have a large appetite for shrimp. Each of us eats on the average of four pounds per year. That three times more than 35 years ago.
About 94% of the shrimp in the U.S. is imported from countries such as India, Indonesia, and Thailand. Most of this shrimp is farmed in large ponds or industrial tanks while being fed commercial pellets. Because fecal matter can quickly build up in these farms, chemicals and antibiotics are often used to control disease.
The labs at Consumer Reports found that, of the 342 packages of shrimp that they tested, 60% tested positive for Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus (including MRSA), Vibrio, Listeria, and E. coli. The test results looked better for wild shrimp caught in U.S. waters with only 20% being contaminated with the bacteria listed above.
Due to the large quantities imported into the U.S., the FDA performs a visual inspection on only 3.7% of the incoming shrimp. In 2014, only 0.7% of the shrimp was actually tested in the FDA's laboratories.
Consumer Reports also found 11 of the 342 samples contained antibiotics, including sulfa drugs, tetracycline, and fluoroquinolones. Shrimp with antibiotic residues are strictly forbidden in the U.S., however, not all suppliers comply with the law.
To help preserve shrimp and keep it fresh looking, sulfites are routinely added at the time of capture. Suppliers are not required to list sulfites on the label, even though about 1% Americans have allergies or sensitivities to sulfites, which can lead to asthma, headaches, skin rashes, and other symptoms of varying severity.
So what are shrimp lovers to do? Buy wild caught shrimp, if possible. Keep shrimp cold on the way home from the market. Work quickly when shelling. Wash your hands and utensils thoroughly after handling. Most importantly, cook your shrimp in order to kill any bacteria that most likely will be present.
Reference: Consumer Reports, June 2015
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"Go ahead...
get oil on my 40X just one more time..."
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Hackers on your trackers...
Do you know who is tracking your tracker?
A professional hacker stood on the sidelines of a famous women's marathon in Dublin, Ireland last year. He was able to secretly download names, addresses, and passwords of 563 of the runners as they passed by. How did he do it? He obtained the information from the runners' activity trackers, such as "Fitbits" as they passed by. It only took him several hours and about $75 of parts to build a device to collect this personal information. Fortunately, this hacker was a security researcher from Symantec.
Over the last 12 months, about 3.3 million activity trackers were sold in the U.S. Some of these devices have a feature to allows the user to wirelessly transmit data from the tracker to their cellphones. This data may include passwords, time and dates, and GPS locations.
These new smart devices may be opening up opportunities for intrusive monitoring of which users may not be aware as our technology progresses beyond control.
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Here's a little fish with a big appetite.
It can eat up to ten times its weight
and twice its length!
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Warning:
Pun Zone Ahead
- I used to be a banker...but then I lost interest.
- A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two tired.
- Have you ever tried to eat a clock? It's very time consuming.
- A man just assaulted me with milk, cream, and butter...how dairy!
- Did you hear about the man who got hit in the head with a can of soda? Lucky for him it was a soft drink.
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Do you perform plate counts?
Compact Dry
What is Compact Dry
and what are the advantages?
Watch a short video to find out...
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"You can live to be 100...
if you give up all things that
make you want to live to be 100."
Woody Allen
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Online Ordering Made Easy!
Watch a short video to learn how easy it is to order from Hardy on-line!
Pick. Click. You're Done!
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ATTN: Teenagers
Tired of being harassed
by your stupid parents?
ACT NOW!
Move out, get a job, pay your own bills, while you still know everything!
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GENDER GUESSING 
Actually the photo above is an androgynous composite of both sexes. It is the same photo, only the one on the left has been manipulated to increase the contrast.
The one with more contrast is usually presumed to be the female. The one with less contrast is perceived to be male to most people.
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