Laboratory Incubator

The Seeds of Vaccine Production: Chicken Egg History

Many vaccines are now produced in chicken eggs. But any standard method started somewhere. For example, in the deep, distant past—in 1939—people were just learning about the ability of chicken eggs to support viral growth. We ran across a paper from a researcher at the Canadian Dominion Department of Agriculture that described how the distemper Read More

Richard Gaughan January 26th, 2012

Chicken Eggs Provide Platform for Anti-Inflammatory Assay

Chicken eggs are good for far more than omelets. A case in point is a 1966 study by University of Khartoum researchers. They developed a method for testing anti-inflammatory agents without relying on inducing inflammation in animals as a first step. Rather than induce the inflammation and then test the action of the anti-inflammatory agents, Read More

Richard Gaughan January 25th, 2012

Laboratory Incubator Supports IVF and Parthenogenic Oocyte Development

In-vitro fertilization, genetic engineering, cloning—all these phrases have entered the common lexicon. But, as with so many technological advances, once they make it to television, the fact that they’re mentioned so casually makes them appear simple and straightforward. Certainly, they are moving closer to the everyday, but they are still filled with details. The details Read More

Richard Gaughan January 20th, 2012

Laboratory Incubator Maintains Environment for Streptococcus Assay

This 1985 paper illustrates the role of laboratory incubators in microbial testing. The researchers were evaluating the accuracy of a streptococcus assay, the Directigen latex agglutination test. They were especially interested in the accuracy of the test after samples were held overnight at room temperature. In either case, the assay was performed in a laboratory Read More

Richard Gaughan January 19th, 2012

Selenium Makes Its Way into Sturgeon Eggs

Selenium is one of those heavy metal environmental contaminants that is very worrisome, because once it gets into the food chain, it doesn’t get out. In the San Francisco Bay, subject to agricultural runoff and oil refinery discharges, selenium contamination is in the white sturgeon population. For sturgeon, the contamination problem is exacerbated because it Read More

Richard Gaughan January 19th, 2012

Testing to Improve Chick Viability for Young Breeder Hens

At Mississippi State University they’re trying to figure out why eggs from young low-weight breeder hens don’t hatch very successfully. They’re working on connecting physiological parameters to embryo viability. The experiment involves placing eggs from young breeder hens in laboratory incubators, monitoring their internal temperature, moisture levels, and weight. The hatched birds are then monitored Read More

Richard Gaughan January 18th, 2012

Bird Eggs in a Rocket—Maybe not an Ideal Mix?

All life on Earth has one thing in common—it has all evolved in the presence of the Earth’s gravitational field. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that Earth organisms have problems when orbiting the Earth in microgravity. A 1998 study led by researchers at Marquette University took a look at another factor influencing Read More

Richard Gaughan January 17th, 2012

Laboratory Incubators Reveal Bird’s Reproductive Problems

Polychlorinated biphenyls and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins don’t sound like very friendly words, and this is one of those times when the word matches the reality. Those compounds are implicated in congenital disfiguration and poor hatching rates of the Forster’s Tern, and endangered species in the upper midwest. To investigate the factors in poor reproduction, researchers from Read More

Richard Gaughan January 16th, 2012

Device Assembles Liver Cell Spheroids in Laboratory Incubator

When your critical organs fail, you won’t last very long without help. Transplant waiting lists can be pretty long, so wouldn’t it be nice if you could rely on a readily-available mechanical device—at least to keep you alive until a replacement organ is available. The Mayo Spheroid Reservoir Bioartificial Liver is one such device. The Read More

Richard Gaughan January 6th, 2012

Multi-Component Buffer Solutions Improve IVF

From an evolutionary viewpoint, you could argue that the purpose of human life is to reproduce. Once we successfully get our children to reproductive age, we just start falling apart. From that perspective, we are organisms designed to fertilize eggs. So perhaps it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that in vitro fertilization, outside Read More