\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.lablit.com\/images\/Loop.jpg\")
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\nSwanky kit:<\/strong> Goes from zero to sixty in ten seconds<\/p>\n \nThey don’t, I’m afraid, make them like they used to. I was thinking about this the other day when I had to do a bit of microbiology, the first since resuming my career as a bench scientist. I wanted to inoculate some bacteria into broth, so asked around the lab to see who could lend me a platinum loop. No joy. So I trekked, then, around the institute, asking people at random: I either got baffled looks, or people saying, “Well, I always just use a yellow Gilson tip”. <\/p>\n \nA yellow Gilson tip?<\/em> This is what happens when you earn your PhD in an old-fashioned, God-fearin’ American Microbiology department: you become really fussy about your instruments. (You also feel reluctant to drink from anyone else’s glass for the duration of your thesis, but that’s another story.) I don’t feel I am doing justice to sterile technique with disposable plastic: once the box has been opened, the masses of amp-resistant bacteria swirling around our lab are bound to encroach. Besides, there is satisfaction and ritual in the dousing of the wire into the alcohol, the purifying flame of the gas burner, the sizzle of the molten loop in the cool agar or broth. I was never one of these cavalier plate scribblers, either: no, my streak-outs would be conducted in the strict three-area method<\/a> with colonies isolated to perfection.<\/p>\n \nDear Reader, I purchased that platinum loop and holder. A really swanky, expensive one from Fisher Scientific, with a wonderful heft and weight to it, and a wire that sizzled like a fine sports car.<\/p>\n \nIt felt wonderful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you are not an absolute geek, look away now. As for the rest, have any of you ever visited the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh? I first had the pleasure one summer long ago when I ran away … Continue reading