You’ve probably seen “sticky traps,” those containers hung in fields or orchards to capture insects.  Have you ever wondered what happens to those containers?  Obviously, the traps are used to monitor the insects, and for some sampling, all you need to do is pull the bug out of the glue.  But some of the insects

If you’re wondering about the importance of proper vaccine refrigeration, you might want to take a look at this 1983 report on vaccine storage conditions in Montreal.  In outbreaks in 1979 and 1980, 60 percent of the children who came down with measles had been earlier vaccinated.  That raised questions about the potency of the

A scintillation detector works by recording the flashes that occur when a high-energy particle travels through a material.  The scintillations depend not only on the properties of the high-energy particle, but also on the properties of the scintillator: the material through which the particle travels.  At Fermilab in 2006 they were using the Minos scintillation

In an age where we fear random attacks at the hands of just a few unbalanced individuals, few prospects are more unsettling than the widespread release of biological agents—toxins or pathogens that can be silent and unseen killers.  A master’s thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School examines the problem of the “biosecurity of select agents

“[People] cannot eliminate the errors simply by telling themselves to do better and deciding not to commit them.”  Perhaps not a surprising statement, but one whose implications can be pretty far-reaching.  The statement comes from a document entitled “Mistake-Proofing the Design of Health Care Processes.”  The logical argument is that if you’re in an environment