What does a mask do? Blocks respiratory droplets coming from your mouth and throat. Two simple demos:. First, I sneezed, sang, talked & coughed toward an agar culture plate with or without a mask. Bacteria colonies show where droplets landed. A mask blocks virtually all of them.

RT @DrMeganAmerson: This organism is XDR Shigella sonnei. The black colonies on XLD are H2S producing Citrobacter freundii- normal enteric….

RT @ENirenberg: It's official! XBB boosters for all. CDC Recommends Updated COVID-19 Vaccine for Fall/Winter Virus Season .

#MicroRounds (Day 998): "nucleation". 2 of 2 blood culture *sets* (not bottles) growing a non-motile spindly GNR? May be Fusobacterium. This F. nucleatum grew in bundles & clusters, possibly related to its reported aggregation/plaque formation ability. #ASMClinMicro #IDTwitter

RT @DrMeganAmerson: Spooky season is upon us.🍁🎃👻💀🍂 .Name that siderophore….#Halloween #clinicalmicrobiology #itsfallyall #path2path #uabpat….

RT @Parasite_Power: I wear another hat as Emerging Public Health Crises director. Lots of partnerships with reference labs & public health/….

#MicroRounds (Day 997): "clap back". From a genital culture on a urethral swab specimen, neutrophils and GNDC seen on direct Gram stain and confirmed by growth on MTM agar, and by only oxidizing (not fermenting!) glucose: it's Neisseria gonorrhoeae #ASMClinMicro #IDTwitter

#MicroRounds (Day 996): "late arrival". Leg wound bacterial culture was finaled & shelved on day 5. Our lab does quality checks to verify how techs report cultures. Lo & behold, our specialist noticed this late-growing Fusarium that would've been missed! #ASMClinMicro #IDTwitter

And it's fortunate I had to google the translation or else I would have missed the nod to Monet's "Soleil couchant sur la Seine à Lavacourt, effet d'hiver" (Setting sun on the Seine at Lavacourt, winter effect) @Genevieve_Hery

A sunset is a gorgeous way to show pyorubin production from Pseudomonas!.

#MicroRounds (Day 995): “spit take”. A video #microrounds today. Gram stain of a respiratory culture sample viewed on high power (100x, oil immersion). Bacteria everywhere but we rejected it for culture. Epithelial cells & no PMN? It’s oral/URT flora. Spit in a cup! #IDTwitter

RT @CIDJournal: Current Pyuria Cutoffs Promote Inappropriate Urinary Tract Infection Diagnosis in Older Women. 🔓 Open Access..

RT @CDCMMWR: Clinicians: Consider malaria diagnosis in patients with an unexplained cause of fever, particularly in areas where locally acq….

Growing up, my mom would bottle apples and pears. Parasitologists store other things in jars. 😁.

RT @johngreen: Loved this story in The @guardian about the women building the Maternal Center of Excellence and a better future for Sierra….

#MicroRounds (Day 994): "jarring". Ascaris lumbricoides arrived to the lab in a handy Mason jar!. These are found when coughed up or passed in stool. Close examination would show 3 "lips" and, if male, a curled tail. Spread by ingesting fertilized eggs from the soil #IDTwitter

RT @JClinMicro: Diagnostic utility of oropharyngeal swabs as an alternative to lower respiratory tract samples for PCR-based syndromic te….

#MicroRounds (Day 993): "color me impressed" #FungalFriday. A fantastic isolate of Aspergillus versicolor, w/ beautiful yellow-suede, green peak colonies. Along w/ loose, biseriate heads, seeing Penicillium-like heads is completely normal for this species #ASMClinMicro #IDTwitter

Wow! Evidence of cross protection from the Neisseria meningitidis vaccine and Neisseria gonorrhea!.

RT @Parasite_Power: Busy week so I am dumping some fun cases all at once. Found in a wet mount body fluid exam. Source: liver cyst, aspirat….