May272012

Doomed Government Program Finds Contaminated Spinach

The discovery of Salmonella in bagged organic baby spinach that led to a nationwide recall Tuesday has been attributed to a small government testing program that, ironically, is set to be eliminated in the 2013 federal budget plan. 

The Microbiological Data Program, a network of 11 labs that screen fresh produce for pathogens, discovered the contamination during routine testing, according to a program employee. The program, also known as MDP, has been fighting to survive for years as the produce industry has lobbied to have it eliminated.
So, we have a pretty cheap program which employs people throughout the country and it actually improves quality of life for Americans. Sounds like the perfect thing to destroy. Fuck this bullshit and fuck the produce industry. I’ve worked in produce quality control and it’s pretty awful. There simply is not enough regulation to ensure it really is safe to consume.

May262012
7PM
drfrankscali:

“Dan’s Dissection” watercolor 14x19
Danny Quirk is a good friend of mine and we work together on illustrations for my publications. You may be familiar with his “self dissections” but this is his newest illustration depicting a diabetic with insulin pump. I spoke with him earlier and he gave me permission to attach this to my tumblr account as he does not have one. This image is copyrighted by Danny Quirk and I had permission to post directly from him. Please reblog. -Dr. Frank Scali
Danny’s Illustration page on facebook
Dr. Frank Scali’s Medical Illustration page on facebook

This is a fantastic image.

drfrankscali:

“Dan’s Dissection” watercolor 14x19

Danny Quirk is a good friend of mine and we work together on illustrations for my publications. You may be familiar with his “self dissections” but this is his newest illustration depicting a diabetic with insulin pump. I spoke with him earlier and he gave me permission to attach this to my tumblr account as he does not have one. This image is copyrighted by Danny Quirk and I had permission to post directly from him. Please reblog. -Dr. Frank Scali

Danny’s Illustration page on facebook

Dr. Frank Scali’s Medical Illustration page on facebook

This is a fantastic image.

May182012

stfuconservatives:

christiantheatheist:

atheistoverdose:

My good deed for the day.

I fucking hate anti-vaxers.

Fantastic reply.

“They also contain the influenza virus itself”

YOU DON’T SAY!

OK, if you’re a grown-up who doesn’t understand how vaccines work, you don’t deserve to have any. And you certainly shouldn’t be warning people about them.

-Jess

Oh no, those fuckers still need them. I don’t care about their health, but herd immunity is a vital component of vaccination. If I had my way, there would only be medical exemptions for vaccines.

Also, the mercury in vaccines isn’t elemental mercury and it isn’t the mercury which causes advisories for eating fish (methylmercury and ethylmercury). This is like saying that table sugar and rubbing alcohol are the same thing because they’re both carbon or saying that water is explosive because it’s hydrogen.

May162012

Some Food Safety Things

Okay, I am currently working in food safety and have done so in the past so I like to tell myself I am qualified to talk about it. In this case, I’m going to talk about some things that people really need to do when eating out or preparing their meals at home so they can avoid getting sick.

In semi-random order:

  1. Wash your hands. This one is not in random order, this is the absolute most important thing. Wash them with soap and lather your hands together for at least 20 seconds before rinsing off the soap.  When you are going to eat your meal, wash your hands or at least sanitize them with alcohol. Other important times to wash them are before touching ready to eat (RTE) food or after touching raw meat. Raw does not mean dripping wet, it means uncooked, the ground beef in your freezer still counts as raw and you can get just as sick from it frozen as you can from the juices it will eventually drip.
  2. Very much related to washing your hands is cleaning food contact surfaces. For instance, use clean silverware and plates or bowls or whatever is appropriate. Do not touch them with dirty hands, especially if you are touching a part of it which will come in contact with any food. Other surfaces may include a counter top or a cutting board. If anything which touches RTE food comes in contact with a non-sanitized surface, wash it.
  3. Allergens may be important if you are preparing something for somebody with a food allergy. If you lice with this person, it’s easiest to just keep the food out of the house. If this person is a guest, clean your kitchen well and if you make food containing the allergen, make it after you made everything else and keep it separated. Personally, I wouldn’t use the allergen at all, too great of a risk of contamination.
  4. Cook all meat to its recommended temperature. Do it. Cooking is a kill step, which destroys harmful microorganisms, but it only works if it is cooked long enough
  5. Unless you have bought pre-washed produce (the bag will tell you) rinse it with water. It doesn’t matter if it is conventionally farmed or organically farmed either.
May152012
harpnotes:

bioslut:

stfuconservatives:

From a friend’s FB wall. Hehe. -Jess

I don’t think so. He has taken the position that it is for the states to decide. This is not pro-gay, this is not advocacy. This is useless.

You know what? It’s better than the Bush people actively trying to get rid of gay marriage. Seriously, I’m sick of all of this bitching and moaning if things aren’t perfect. I’m sorry, but do you really  in your heart of hearts think that a person who said “Guess what, America? We;re gonna have some REAL equality starting NOW!” and proposed a bunch of insta-changes would stand a chance to get elected? No. We have to go slowly at first and applaud when people do good things, and most of all, we have to be patient. Whining about how “this is useless BAW I want national gender neutral bathrooms in every McDonalds NOWNOWNOW” is going to get you nothing but disappointed. Recognize baby steps. And for love’s sake, stop bitching out people who are actually on our side! P.S: I realize that some people honestly just want to complain and be angry about something. I respect that. If you are having your own private “I’m being negative” time (which we all want sometimes) then I retract my statement.

People who won’t vote for Obama based on full support for gay marriage won’t vote for him no matter what. Your criticism is stupid and makes you look like a disingenuous liberal. The state’s rights argument is toxic and is no less toxic coming from a Democrat.

harpnotes:

bioslut:

stfuconservatives:

From a friend’s FB wall. Hehe. -Jess

I don’t think so. He has taken the position that it is for the states to decide. This is not pro-gay, this is not advocacy. This is useless.

You know what? It’s better than the Bush people actively trying to get rid of gay marriage. Seriously, I’m sick of all of this bitching and moaning if things aren’t perfect.

I’m sorry, but do you really in your heart of hearts think that a person who said “Guess what, America? We;re gonna have some REAL equality starting NOW!” and proposed a bunch of insta-changes would stand a chance to get elected? No. We have to go slowly at first and applaud when people do good things, and most of all, we have to be patient. Whining about how “this is useless BAW I want national gender neutral bathrooms in every McDonalds NOWNOWNOW” is going to get you nothing but disappointed. Recognize baby steps.

And for love’s sake, stop bitching out people who are actually on our side!

P.S: I realize that some people honestly just want to complain and be angry about something. I respect that. If you are having your own private “I’m being negative” time (which we all want sometimes) then I retract my statement.

People who won’t vote for Obama based on full support for gay marriage won’t vote for him no matter what. Your criticism is stupid and makes you look like a disingenuous liberal. The state’s rights argument is toxic and is no less toxic coming from a Democrat.

May132012

An amoeba engulfs and starts to digest two paramecium.

3PM
zydrateeve:

This is not photo shopped! (To my own amazement). This is a “Dolion”. This dog/lion is the result of DNA testing and only 3 dolions are within exsistance.  Individual strands of DNA from each creature must be combined and re-inserted in to a host egg. This picture is of the first dolion named Rex.

You are looking at an April Fool’s Day joke.
http://listverse.com/2008/04/01/top-10-bizarre-genetically-modified-organisms/

This list was an April Fools Day joke for April 1, 2008. Items 10 and 9 are real, the rest are entirely made up.

This critter was number 4.

zydrateeve:

This is not photo shopped! (To my own amazement). This is a “Dolion”. This dog/lion is the result of DNA testing and only 3 dolions are within exsistance.  Individual strands of DNA from each creature must be combined and re-inserted in to a host egg. This picture is of the first dolion named Rex.

You are looking at an April Fool’s Day joke.

http://listverse.com/2008/04/01/top-10-bizarre-genetically-modified-organisms/

This list was an April Fools Day joke for April 1, 2008. Items 10 and 9 are real, the rest are entirely made up.


This critter was number 4.

10AM

GMO Testing

This looks really cool.

Lumora’s bioluminescence technology, known as BART, uses luciferase, the same enzyme that lights up fireflies  As part of the detection procedure, the luciferase is coupled to DNA detection so as to light up when it detects specific DNA and RNA sequences. By using DNA signals that are specific to genetically modified crops, the system can detect even low levels of contamination.

This would be a really simple assay to use and can be useful outside of detecting GMOs. One example listed in the article was pathogen testing. It would be fantastic to just be able to swab some food item and see if it has something like O157:H7. I could see this technology having clinical benefits as well, wanna see if something is antibiotic resistant? Just check for the appropriate plasmid. Back to food, it could be used to easily test if you’re really buying the fish you think you are, odds are good you’re not. I just personally would want to know who sensitive and accurate this method is, but I think it has promise.

(Source: foodsafetynews.com)

May122012

Jon Stossel is a Terrible Human Being

That was supposed to help disabled people in the work place. 51 percent of the disabled were employed when they passed the rule. Now it’s down to 32 percent

Let’s look for confounding factors. Right now, the unemployment rate is 8.1% and in June of 1990 (one month before the ADA went into effect) it was at 5.4%. The numbers are from Google. Now, is it maybe possible that the ~3% difference in unemployment makes it more difficult for people with disabilities to find a job than it does for somebody able-bodied? Oh sure, the discrimination is supposedly illegal, but that’s not going to stop all of it and I’m sure the employment rate of disabled people would be worse without the ADA.

What Jon Stossel is doing here is lying, he is using poor methodology in order to promote his twisted libertarian view of the world. That is why he is a terrible human being.

(Source: mediaite.com)

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