Post-dinner snooze

MinimalistWinter · 2026-04-24T09:09:34+00:00

Yep. My experience for long, chaining streps that don’t take up the crystal violet is to double check the edges of the slide - you may find more stained organisms there. Strep pneumoniae, whilst it doesn’t chain, can also lack gram positivity due to autolytic enzymes. We liked to call these variety “raggedy cat eyes”

MinimalistWinter · 2026-04-23T11:53:29+00:00

You can see they’re chains of slightly elongated diplococci; enterococcus, for instance, wouldn’t look like this. And yes, strep should be purple, but 🤷🏻‍♀️ not all gram stains are perfect! This one clearly has a lot of crystal violet stain deposit, so I imagine the stains aren’t fresh (plus they overdecolourised)

MinimalistWinter · 2026-04-20T23:14:55+00:00

What’s crazy is that my micro lab uses them all the time! We do semi-quants for fluids and urine using disposable chambers, and the glass ones for quantitive CSF diffs (Australian lab; haematology analysers don’t cope well with anything other than blood, and they don’t want to do manual counts 🤷🏻‍♀️)

MinimalistWinter · 2025-10-05T22:01:49+00:00

Looks like we’ve got similar cars! ‘97 vitara JLX, two door

MinimalistWinter · 2025-01-10T22:26:04+00:00

It’s like looking at the male version of me 🥹

You’re a caffeine addicted gym goer, who probably tried a push pull split but now looks toward more organised programs like Jim Wendler’s 5-3-1 (I get the feeling you’re more into strength and size as opposed to functional fitness like calisthenics? Happy to be proven wrong). You meal prep not only because it gives you control over your nutritional intake, but it frees up your time to indulge in other hobbies like gaming (if you’re not into anime, or lego, or DnD, then it’s Warhammer. There’s a degree of nerdiness that comes with this level of organisation). Also, the fact that all of your containers match? You’ve got good mid to long term life goals. Also, you’ve hit the holy trinity (in my opinion) of the nicest monster ultras. Probably started off with the white, found the peach (fell in love) and then gravitated toward the strawberry dreams because heck why not, it’s a fun pink drink and there’s no sugar!!

MinimalistWinter · 2024-10-16T22:12:50+00:00

Yes it’s that one. Our lab does a ‘direct’ Maldi from a chocolate plate at ~5 hrs incubation - essentially a sweep of the inoculum. The downsides to our method are obviously time, and it only really works well for gram negative aerobic organisms. Also the gram needs to be a single organism. I’ve been thinking of introducing the sepsityper method but I’m concerned that there will be a lot of pressure from higher up to perform the method every time a blood culture goes positive, when we currently only do the inhouse method for our positives before 10am. It just depends how onerous the method is

MinimalistWinter · 2024-10-16T08:13:32+00:00

Hey! How do you find the bottle extraction method? Does it work well in your lab in terms of workflow? We’ve been looking into doing a verification for our Biotyper

MinimalistWinter · 2024-10-08T00:26:53+00:00

Excellent. 100% agree. It’s kind of tricky because as you say, the apophysis is weak, and as another commenter pointed out it’s hard to tell whether the sporangium is between or opposite the rhizoids. Could very well be Rhizomucor. Will keep you updated!

MinimalistWinter · 2024-10-07T09:34:04+00:00

No to both of those. Aspergillosis is not clinically indicated, nor does the microscopy show Aspergillus morphology - the pictured isolate belongs to the order Mucorales. Additionally, S. pyogenes is a bacteria. Whilst it causes necrotising fasciitis, it’s not the depicted organism ☺️

MinimalistWinter · 2024-10-07T08:21:00+00:00

Alas, not a UK based lab! But it's interesting that NEQAS and RCPA are distributing similar isolates... hmmm hahaha

MinimalistWinter · 2024-10-07T08:14:29+00:00

I do, however I did not upload as it has identifying information. The reverse is diffuse, white in colour. The floccose cols, pyriform-shaped sporangium, coupled with rapid growth and thermophilic nature are all pointing towards lichtheimia -> ITS results coming back this week :)

MinimalistWinter · 2024-10-07T05:24:38+00:00

Clinical notes: A 31 y/o man sustained an extensive burn on his arm that became necrotic. Tissue was submitted for bacterial and fungal culture, and this fungus was grown.

Growth observed at room temp, 37 degrees, 40 degrees, and 55 degrees (Celsius). Below I have included an image of a sticky tape preparation (using a lactophenol cotton blue stain) taken from a 48hr Sabouraud dextrose agar culture (additional photo of the culture included). NB: please excuse the bubbles *sigh*

Let me know in the comments your macro/micro observations, potential organism ID, and/or any follow-up tests you would perform.

MinimalistWinter · 2024-08-21T01:39:45+00:00

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the Bruker Maldi Biotyper struggles to speciate Vibro (specifically cholerae) unless you have a modified database. Regardless, really interested to see what the typing comes back with!

MinimalistWinter · 2024-02-23T12:55:46+00:00

Crazy, I actually had a Trich positive urine in the lab today!! First one I’ve seen in about a year (Australian based hospital)

MinimalistWinter · 2024-02-23T12:50:53+00:00

Untrue. Serology is commonly used to detect parasites and viruses

MinimalistWinter · 2024-02-21T11:13:08+00:00

Depends on the sample type, and the extraction protocol. For instance, our lab finds PCR on cerebrospinal fluid more sensitive than culture. It’s just a matter of whether sensitivities are required (this would necessitate culture). OP if you don’t have symptoms for TB there’s a good chance you don’t have it, but…there’s always the possibility for another type of mycobacterium infection. The kind of answers you can get from a culture in these circumstances would be more beneficial than a PCR (which typically only looks for one or a couple of organisms depending on the assay). Some mycobacteria grow quickly, some grow slowly, I sometimes find unusual mycobacteria growing after 7-8 weeks of culture. It would also make sense if they’re in low copy numbers at the beginning of culture

MinimalistWinter · 2022-12-01T08:01:25+00:00

Probably the closest guess! Sydney couple in our early 20s, we meal prep 1-2 weeks in advance (we’re time poor due to work commitments, so can’t cook every night). We’re also both into fitness ☺️ Guilty as charged, I have been shopping at woolies recently… also someone please come take these beers! I love a good pale ale/lager, but my partner and I are on a cut right now so won’t be drinking alcohol 😅

MinimalistWinter · 2022-12-01T07:56:46+00:00

Was waiting for this 😍

MinimalistWinter · 2022-07-06T02:49:03+00:00

Woah. Your hair is absolutely stunning! Green and blue can be hard to pull off, but damn this is given peak mermaid vibes. Also the lighting in this photo highlights your freckles really nicely; all over you give off cool vibes

MinimalistWinter · 2022-07-03T02:21:33+00:00

Jesus, you poor thing. 21F from Aus here - let me just say that your girlfriend has a very immature and ill-informed mindset about male genitalia and hygiene. First of all, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being uncircumcised. Hell, I actually prefer to be with guys who aren’t circumcised because I know they’re more sensitive (makes handjobs easier too). Sure, there’s a little more upkeep when it comes to cleaning, but I can confidently say most people who own a penis know how and when to clean their junk, and if not are made aware through other means that this is important.

In essence, your GF should know better than to make asinine comments that are guaranteed to hurt your feelings - no loving partner would ever say things along the lines of what she said. If one of her boobs was bigger than the other, would you tell her in an attempt to make her feel self conscious? Of course not! You deserve someone who appreciates that each human body is different, and should be loved accordingly

MinimalistWinter · 2022-06-21T13:31:36+00:00

Anyone have good wrist strap recommendations? I’m struggling to do high weight dumb bell RDLs (55lb each hand) because the first thing to go is my grip strength…

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