The good news from this year’s confidence report is that the laboratory industry, by and large, is moving in the right direction—forward—though in slightly smaller steps than we would have hoped.

Fifth annual investment confidence report reveals some bright spots.

High-performance/pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) is, for many scientists, an essential chromatographic technique.

The past couple of decades have brought big changes in lab ovens

While the technology and fundamental operation behind visible light microscopes has not changed much in 200 years, the wider field of microscopy has continued to greatly evolve.

Creating a win-win relationship with suppliers in order to obtain the best products and prices.

Risk management in this economy goes well past the usual definitions of safety and compliance.

Most managers and employees fear conflict at work because it can reduce productivity, negatively impact teamwork, and consume valuable time that could be better spent elsewhere. Unfortunately, conflict is inevitable, so we might as well learn to deal with it.

How to run an efficient and creative lab without micromanaging

Address the needs of your applications at each step in the life cycle.

The equipment, instruments, and systems introduced to the laboratory market at Pittcon 2013

Matthew Sullivan, an environmental specialist in the Field Operations section of the Bureau of Environmental Services for the city of Portland, Oregon, talks to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, Ph.D., about how field testing, particularly for water analysis, has changed over the years. The testing equipment is now better suited for field analysis, in terms of its size, compactness, and robustness. The newer instruments have also allowed for sampling and testing to be done remotely and in an automated fashion. Overall, field instrumentation is striving to provide faster, cheaper, more robust, and more real-time measurements for routine analysis.

Most exciting time since Abbe

More than just power supplies

Specific applications require particular features

Customization, shrinking size, and other features open new applications

This month the Safety Guys aim to raise awareness and discuss the prevention of blood-borne pathogen (BBP) exposures, beginning with an overview of the OSHA standard and a discussion of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s universal precautions.

Your department should have a safety committee. Academic institutions and companies should all have safety committees. The committees should consist of employees, supervisors, faculty, staff, administration, and students.

Testing, testing, testing.

Need for new abilities drives upgrades and new purchases

Published studies, such as those documented by Artel®, have shown how a change in environmental barometric pressure creates volume variations, which alters the pipetting accuracy of air displacement pipettes. This effect is particularly noticeable when pipetting small volumes.

pH, one of the most fundamental properties in all of nature, is measured in nearly every industry including general laboratory research, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage processing, environmental testing and agriculture. Despite the importance of measuring pH, traditional glass pH meters have long suffered from problems associated with calibration and maintenance.

A researcher or lab manager’s worst nightmare is to walk into their lab and find a freezer, refrigerator, or any temperature controlled storage unit that has failed overnight and ruined or jeopardized precious samples, specimens, tissues, or products—not to mention the loss of countless hours of research.

Counting the total number of live microorganisms (TVC/TVO) on a Petri dish is one of the main laboratory procedures. It has been used worldwide in microbiological, medical, food, biotechnological, and environmental laboratories ever since the Petri dish was invented more than 120 years ago.