lwood

BSL3.

Biohazard Safety Level 3.

It's what we have to deal with on the floor what studies HIV & AIDS. The BSL 3 area is where we handle live HIV, so you bet your booty we got Protocols out to here. Cap, booties, gown, all the fashion sense of an extra on House, M.D. The Stand.

Nothing airborne in there, mind you, more like "beware the needlestick". HIV is a fragile critter that can't abide dry air. But this is the Careful Room, so we are Careful.

Here's Why IT Is Cool:

Wherever someone is trying to sift facts from the vapours of theory, these days...they have a computer.

And sometimes those computers break.

When they break, I get to fix them. This one, from reports, looks like it got pwned, and will need a wipe & reinstall to be sure.

What's even cooler, though, is that this is for the flow cytometry folks. What's that? Basically, it's a way to identify and sort fantastically tiny things that involves lots of computers and lasers--for those of you looking for news of those infamous Glow-inna-Dark Mice, yes, you can use the presence or absence of flourescence as a sorting criterion, therefore these people are wholly in favor of flourescent mice (bioflourescent != bioluminescent, mind, but people ask me about the Glow-inna-Dark Mice, so).

I love my dayjob.

-- Lorrie, continuing to Use Her Powers for Good--and for Awesome!

Courtesy of cadhla, who recently wielded it against an annoying BART passenger:

This hooks right into Stuff We're Doing Here at the Mad Scientists' Home--what if the Black Death weren't the Bubonic Plague, as has been assumed, but a hemorrhagic fever, similar to Ebola? Return of the Black Death: The World's Greatest Serial Killer asks that question and makes a good argument for it, according to cadhla.

Now if I only were one of the virology/immunology boys up on the fifth floor, I could expense this, wave it around, and get grants. 8-)

-- Lorrie