http://compgenomics.ucdavis.edu/

The compositae Genome Project. The database provides sequence information, photos, and generic maps for a number of species, while the “bio-informatic tools” page provides links to various genomics tools. 

For the physician

https://idoimaging.com/

This website provides a compilation of free medical-imaging applications and resources, including Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) viewers, DICOM converters an Picture Archiving.

For the micologist

http://www.bayareamushrooms.org/

The Bay Area Mycological Society is dedicated to “the art and science of mushrooms”. The “mushroom of the month” profiles different species. The “poisonings” page offer useful and potential life-saving information.

For  the animal biologist

http://tardigrades.bio.unc.edu/

The tardigrades (also known as water bears) comprise a phylum of animals that includes over 700 different species. Dr Goldstein plans to use the Hypsibius dujardini as a model to study the effects of developmental alterations on the evolution of morphology.

For the histologist

http://www1.udel.edu/biology/Wags/histopage/histopage.htm

This web of the University of Delaware puts together a large number of histological samples in all of their colorful brilliance. The Power Point presentation for each lecture are posted on the site.

For the virologist

http://virology-online.com/

“Wong’s Virology” is a web site full of information about viruses and provides excellent summaries of virus information in an easy to access fashion. Derek Wong, a medical virologist in Hong Kong, worked in the lab that discovered the first-ever human avian influenza infection (H5N1).

For the scientist

www.jrank.org

With 40,000,000 scanned pages under its belt, It is a price free indexing tool and a no-brainer for creating site-specific search functions.

For the Hygienist

www.hpa.org.uk

www.food.gov.uk

Useful information about food-borne diseases can be found in these two U.K. webs.

For the virologist

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/subscrib.htm

To subscribe online (free) at “Emerging Infectious Diseases”.

For the laboratorist

www.iaac.org.mx

InterAmerican Acccreditation Cooperation.

For the medical doctor

https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/pdf/details_eip_methods_plus_schematic.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/

http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(09)00635-7

Documentation and references about recent expected pandemia.

For the microscopist

http://www.nature.com/milestones/milelight/

Light Microscopy. Nature Milestone.

monitoring in Operating Theatre

The microbiological contamination in operating theatre is an important parameter to be considered to reduce / eliminate the risks of infections.

The microbiological monitoring of air and surfaces has two specific goals:

(a)  to be sure the Heating Ventilation Air Conditionment (HVAC) system and the sterile unidirectional air flow are working regularly;

(b) to confirm the staff is following the aseptic protocol.

The  “TRIO.BAS DUO” (ORUM INTERNATIONAL) for the Hospital sector has been development to reach the listed purposes. Air and surfaces are both involved.

The “TRIO.BAS DUO Operating Theatre” microbiological air sampler collects 1000 litres of air in less than 3 minutes.

The “TRIO.BAS Contact”  microbiological surface sampler is used by contact for 10 seconds on the surfaces  that are considered at risk for a possible contamination.   

Specific Application Notes for Operating Theatre can be downloaded from www.triobas.com portal.

(1608 – 1647)

He was an Italian physicist and mathematician, best known for his invention of the barometer. Evangelista Torricelli was born in Faenza, then part of the Papal States. He was left fatherles at an early age and educated under the care of his uncle, a Camaldolese monk, who first entered young Torricelli into a Jesuit College in 1624 to study mathematics and philosophy until 1626, when he sent Torricelli to Rome in 1627 to study science under the Benedictine Benedetto Castelli, professor of mathematics at the Collegio della Sapienza. 

Aside from several letters, little is known of Torricelli’s activities in the years between 1632 and 1641, when Castelli sent Torricelli’s monograph of the path of projectiles to Galileo, then a prisoner in his villa at Arcetri. Although Galileo promptly invited Torricelli to visit, he did not accept until just three months before Galileo’s death. During his stay, however, he wrote out Galileo’s Discourse of the Fifth day. After Galileo’s death on January 8, 1642, Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici asked him to succeed Galileo as the grand-ducal mathematician and professor of mathematics in the University of Pisa. In this role he solved some of the great mathematical problems of the day, such as finding a cycloid’s area and center of gravity. He also designed and built a number of telescopes and simple microscopes; several large lenses, engraved with his name, are still preserved at Florence. In 1644, he famously wrote in a letter: “We live submerged at the bottom of an ocean of air.”

Torricelli died in Florence a few days after having contracted typhoid fever, and was buried in San Lorenzo. The asteroid 7437 Torricelli was named in his honor.

Torricelli’s chief invention was the mercurial barometer, which arose from solving an important practical problem. Pumpmakers of the Grand Duke of Tuscany attempted to raise water to a height of 12 meters or more, but found that 10 meters was the limit to which it would rise in the suction pump. Torricelli thought to employ mercury, fourteen times as heavy as water. In 1643 he created a tube c. 1 meter long, sealed at the top end, filled it with mercury, and set it vertically into a basin of mercury. The column of mercury fell to about 76cm, leaving a Torricellian vacuum above. As we now know, the column’s height fluctuated with changing atmospheric pressure; this was the first barometer. This discovery has perpetuated his fame, and the Torr, a unit of pressure commonly used in vacuum measurements, was named in his honor. 

Torricelli also discovered Torricelli’s Law, regarding the speed of a fluid flowing out of an opening, which was later shown to be a particular case of Bernoulli’s principle. 

Torricelli gave the first scientific description of the cause of wind: … winds are produced by differences of air temperature, and hence density, between two regions of the earth.

human pathogen worldwide

Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli are considered for the majority of human food-borne infections (www.hpa.org.uk ). Human food poisoning is acquired through the consumption of contaminated food. Poultry is a major food source of infection and infection can arises by consumption of under-cooked poultry meat or cross-contamination of other food products (www.food.gov.uk).

Other sources of infection include contaminated raw milk and water.

The general symptoms of the disease are a fever and general feeling of unwell-ness which is accompanied or followed by abdominal cramps, watery, diarrhoea.

The disease is generally self-limiting after 2-7 days. Antibiotic treatment may be required in elderly or immune-compromised patients.

ruin your

medal hopes

For the dedicated amateur athlete or club sportsperson, life is a juggling act between the demands of family/home, work and sporting ambition. And it’s easy to forget how much those other elements of life can impact upon sporting progress and the ability to excel.

In Sports Injury Bulletin, physio Sean Fyfe posts a reminder about the potential adverse consequences of the sedentary day job, whether it be long hours in traffic jams driving a delivery truck or long hours hunched over a lap-top researching legal precedent for a client.

Through two illustrative hypothetical cases – Jack the delivery man and marathon runner, and Denise the lawyer and triathlete – Sean looks at some typical problems of sitting, and how to correct them.

What’s wrong with sitting? Typically, Sean says, the sports therapist might expect to see:

• - tight hip flexors, hamstrings, calves
• - tightness through the external hip rotators, leading to restriction in hip joint range
• - limitation of lumbar spine extension
• - stiff thoracic spine
• - protracted and elevated scapulas with weak lower trapezius and serratus anterior
• - tight and weak posterior rotator cuff
• - poked chin posture with associated weak deep neck flexors and overactive upper trapezius, levator scapula and rhomboid muscles.

“Prolonged sitting has also been linked to acute muscle strains in dynamic sports, in particular hamstring strains,” Sean writes. “The lumbar spine stiffness associated with sitting leads to altered neural input into the posterior thigh, the theory goes. This can manifest as increased muscle tone of the hamstrings, which will alter the length-tension relationship and increase the risk of strain.”

investigations

for “environmental

excursions”

Environmental excursion investigations are complex and multidisciplinary and require the investigator to elicit information from multiple departments to aid in determining the true root cause.

Excursions investigations are aided by a robust environmental trending program that should evaluate data for individual sites, rooms, suites and the normal microbial flora of the facility.

Proper investigation encompasses manufacturing areas, classified areas and microbial testing laboratories.

Failure to properly investigate environmental excursion to true root cause will not allow for appropriate and effective corrective actions.

This leads to lack of environmental control of you manufacturing or laboratory operations.

Ultimately,this may lead to product failures and possible regulatory actions or worse patient interactions.

working with “sonicator”

Sonicators are high-frequency sound generators used to disrupt cells or shear nucleic acids. Laboratory personnel must be concerned about two of the major hazards associated with sonicators. The first hazard is hearing damage caused by high frequency sound. The second hazard is the generation of aerosols from the sonication process.

Sonicators generate sound waves in the 20,000 Hz range. These sonicator-generated sound waves are outside the normal range of hearing. Often the sound heard while using a sonicator is produced by cavitations of the liquid in the sample container or vibrations from loose equipment. Actions you can take to reduce the hazards include:

• Wear earphone-type sound mufflers to protect your hearing while sonicating
   
• If possible, have the sonicator located in a “sound-proof” cabinet while sonicating
   
• Do not sonicate in a room containing people not wearing ear protection
   
• Shut doors of the room where sonication is taking place

Blending, Grinding, Sonicating, Lyophilizing

The greatest hazard when using sonicating and other equipment to disrupt cells or shear nucleic acids is the creation of aerosols. These aerosols are generated by cavitations of the sonicator horn in the sample media and mechanical mixing.  The following guidelines should be followed.

• Blenders, grinders, sonicators, lyophilizers, etc. should be operated in a biosafety cabinet whenever possible.
   
• Safety blenders should be used. Safety blenders are designed to prevent leakage from the bottom of the blender jar and to withstand sterilization by autoclaving. They also provide a cooling jacket to avoid biological inactivation.
   
• Avoiding using a glass blender jar. If a glass jar must be used, it must be covered with a polypropylene jar to contain the glass in case of breakage.
   
• A towel moistened with disinfectant should be placed over the top of the blender while operating. This practice can be adapted to grinders and sonicators as well.
   
• Aerosols must be allowed to settle for five minutes before opening the blender jar (or grinder or sonicator container).
   
• Lyophilizer vacuum pump exhaust should be filtered through HEPA filters or vented into a biosafety cabinet.
   
• Polypropylene tubes should be used in place of glass ampoules for storing biohazardous material in liquid nitrogen. Glass ampoules can explode, causing eye injuries and exposure to the biohazardous material.

Source: University of Rochester

have impact on

the growing

of Listeria monocytogenes

Sanco. Guidance document on Listeria monocytogenes shelf-life studies for ready-to-eat foods (2008).

to use for Q.C.

of Campylobacter

blood agar

The Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) lists which reference cultures to use for Q.C. of certain selective types of media n Document M22_A3 “Quality Control for Commercially prepared Microbiological Culture Media: Approves Standard – Third Edition”.

The micro-organisms needed for Q.C. of Campylobacter blood agar: Campylobacter jejuni subsp. jejuni  (Cat. n. 0481), and Escherichia coli (Cat.n. 0335), Campylobacter Agar Q.C. set.

specifically dedicated

to virology

“Wong’s Virology” is a web site full of information about viruses and provides excellent summaries of virus information in an easy to access fashion. Derek Wong, a medical virologist in Hong Kong, worked in the lab that discovered the first-ever human avian influenza infection (H5N1).

http://virology-online.com