Notes from Dr. Lee

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the month of March! Already we are almost a quarter of the way through 2008! Biologix has been working very hard on new product developments to bring you more and more new products throughout 2008.  Last month you saw our new Plasti-Coat^TM Cardboard Freezer Boxes.  We have a wonderful response to these new products and are glad to hear of your interest!

This month, we are glad to bring you our New Screw Cap Microtubes! These new products are available in three different volumes, both conical and self-standing bottoms, and sold separately is a cap with O-Ring. You will be receiving more detailed information regarding these new products very soon, so please keep watching! Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Upcoming in April, Biologix will be exhibiting at the Analytica show. The show is held April 1-4th in Munich Germany. (Hall #B2 Booth #251/4) If you will be attending, we would be happy to schedule a meeting with you during the show hours.  Please let us know if you will be attending, and we will look forward to seeing you there!

I hope you enjoy the remainder of the month of March, and we look forward to supplying you more new products this month, as well as in the months to come.

Sincerely,

Winston Lee
President And CEO

Small Seed – Big Reward

This is a story of a young man named Ping , and of a King who was childless and needed to find a successor.

The King devised a way to find a successor who would be courageous and honest. He sent out a tiny seed to each young man in the country. This seed was to be planted and nourished to the best of each young man's ability.

When Ping received his seed he obtained a beautiful pot, fertile soil, and planted his seed. He watered it and nurtured it and watched it, but nothing happened. He moved his plant to another area with more sun, thinking it needed different light, and still, nothing happened. He asked his father what to do. His father suggested putting it into another container and continuing to nurture it. Still nothing!

The day finally arrived for all the young men to present their results to the King. Everyone else had beautiful plants, and Ping was so embarrassed that he sat in the back of the room with his pot so he wouldn't be noticed.

The King walked around the room looking at the plants – and frowning. The longer he walked, the more he frowned. Then he came to the back of the room and saw Ping and his pot. He led Ping up to his throne and announced to all present that Ping would be the next King. “How can this be?” all the young men cried.

The King said, “Before I sent you the seeds, I ordered the seeds boiled so they wouldn't grow. Only one man in my kingdom was courageous and honest today – and only that man deserves to be your next King.”

Ping 's “failure” was really his success!

Once Upon A Time There Were No Forks

When the colonists arrived in America they had plenty of napkins, according to Alice Morse Earle in Home Life in Colonial Days. It's a good thing, the author says, because they probably needed them. Why? Because they had no forks, and eating was a messy business without the flatware we now consider standard. When America was being settled, forks were almost completely unknown in England . The English people gradually learned of forks – a two-tined version – from travelers who had discovered them in Italy , found them useful for eating neatly, and brought them home. However, for a time forks were scorned as a luxurious affectation.

The first fork made its way to America in 1633, in a leather case as a gift for Gov. John Winthrop in Boston . But it wasn't until 30 or 40 years later that colonists in New York , Virginia and Massachusetts began using forks. By the end of the century, fashionable people throughout the colonies were starting to use forks. Their use spread and their design evolved, leading to the four-tined forks we know and love today.

Try Turning It Off For A While

Technology is a wonderful thing. It can help us do our jobs more quickly and efficiently. It can put us in touch with friends across the globe, allowing us to interact with far-flung folks from Bangalore to Paris to Louisville . But there are some not-so-positive effects of technology that we all need to beware of. Is technology operating as an isolating factor in your world? Do you use it so you don't have to talk to people? Do you use it to avoid personal interaction at all costs?

Charles Handy, author of Waiting For the Mountain to Move: And Other Reflections on Life, postulates that technology can isolate us – and it started with, of all things, the technology of the chimney. Before chimneys, Handy says, we all had to huddle together around the fire in one room. Everyone had to keep warm, so the cowherd and the master shared the same space in order to survive. With the advent of the chimney, however, social stratification was born and we withdrew into separate quarters. Central heat allowed the process to continue, and today's technology has increased the trend toward isolation.

Handy says with the Internet and email, days can go by where we barely have the opportunity to speak to each other in person. How about you? Are you speaking to other humans face-to-face at all these days?

What Is True Leadership?

True leaders don't always want to be the leader of the pack. Instead, true leaders are always working on launching others in life. They actually delight in the success of others. They are not threatened by the forward movement of those they lead. They lift them up and give them a hand. They are proud of people when they advance, and they like having had a small hand in helping someone along the way. Ralph Nader said it succinctly: “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”

Can Produce Poison You?

Most of us know that we can get food poisoning from meat, but a lot of people have no idea that fruits and vegetables can also harbor harmful microbes.

There are a whopping 76 million cases of food poisoning per year in America , but the majority of food poisoning cases go unrecognized, and unreported as well. Of the 25,000 cases per year that are investigated, about a third are attributed to tainted produce.

Here are some things you can do to reduce the chances that you or someone in your family might get sick from tainted produce:

Always wash your hands before and after handling produce.

Always wash cutting boards, knives and other equipment before and after using them on produce.

Wash your fruits and vegetables, then dry them with a paper towel, rather than letting them air dry.

Wash even the rinds of produce you're going to cut, such as cantaloupe. This is to reduce the chance that your knife will transfer bacteria from the skin to the fruit. Also, make sure you cut away any bruised or soft areas of your fruits and vegetables.

Refrigerate cut fruit and vegetables, and don't eat foods that have been left out for more than two hours.

Be careful at farmers' markets. Some vendors promote their goods by using a knife to cut off slices of produce, then they wipe the knife on their shirt or pants and cut the next piece – an invitation to food poisoning.

This Oil's For You

According to a study published in the Journal of The American Dietetic Association, by substituting canola oil and canola-based margarine for other vegetable oils and spreads such as corn, cottonseed and soybean, most people could comply with dietary recommendations for saturated and unsaturated fats, and alpha-linolenic acid (also known as omega-3 fatty acid).

Scientists looked at data from nearly 9,000 adults and found that switching to canola-based products 100% of the time would decrease the intake of saturated fatty acid by up to 9.4%; would increase the intake of mono-unsaturated fatty acid by 27.6%; and would increase alpha-linolenic acid intake by 73%.

All good things, nutritionally speaking.

How To Confound Your Coworkers

If it's too quiet around your cube, here are some suggestions to liven things up:

1. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.
3. Drop meaningless and confusing management-speak into conversations such as, “What's the margin, Marvin?” and, “When's this turkey going to get basted?” and, “If we don't get this brook babbling, we're all going to end up looking like doe-eyed Labradors.”
4. Put mosquito netting around your work area and play tropical sounds all day.
5. Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle.
6. Put your wastebasket on your desk and label it “In.”
7. While sitting at your desk, soak your fingers in Palmolive liquid. Call everyone Madge.
8. Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair-dancing.
9. While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
10. In meetings, gradually push yourself closer and closer to the door in your chair.

When You're Stuck, Try This

Are you stuck on a problem you can't solve? Do you feel that no matter how you look at it, you just can't come up with the answer? If so, you may feel the need to go over everything you know about the situation, even though you've already done this to the point of exhaustion.

A better idea might be to scrap what you know and start over again, erasing what you know and getting rid of any assumptions that could be blocking your success. Think about detective stories. When the sleuth sits down to go over the facts, he usually doesn't discover a new fact, but discovers instead that his “knowledge” was the problem all along.

When you find yourself stuck in this way, heed the words of Daniel J. Boorstin: “The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.”

Quotes

He failed of greatness, and this was due to his lack of integrity.

– Thomas Costain

I like nonsense – it wakes up the brain cells.

– Dr. Seuss

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

– Marcus Aurelius