Stuck in a Washing Machine

Eleven-year-old Trinity Rhoades of South Jordan, Utah, played a game of hide and seek with her sister and cousins Tuesday. Trinity decided to hide in the washing machine, but once in, she couldn't get out.

Her sister and cousins tried remedies they recalled from cartoons. First they used butter to lubricate her legs. Then they tried using peanut butter. Then they resorted to ice, which only left the girl cold, so they then poured warm water over her. The children finally called Trinity's mom, who called emergency services. They found the girl not only stuck in a washing machine, but "wet, cold, and covered with condiments."

They eventually had to cut the dryer from the top of the combo unit, and Trinity was freed. She has some bruising on her legs, but is otherwise uninjured. -via Arbroath

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I think that the pic and end of the article didn't load correctly on my ipad. That seems to happen pretty often, so tech fail = my bad. I would reply but I can't do that either, I'm sure it's an iOS compatibility issue which is again likely due to not updating.

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Really? I thought "cut the dryer from the top of the combo unit" and the picture made that clear.

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Before reading the corresponding article I was wondering why it was so difficult to get out and why no one had thought to tip it on its side. The article makes a very important point the recap does not: it was a stacked machine with a dryer over it.

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woah its red

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Ah cell medium, a very fraught subject in biology. Two quick points that were not covered, or not covered very well in the article. First, the red color comes from a chemical, phenol red, that is used to monitor pH. If the solution gets too acidic it turns yellow, too basic and it turns purple. Although phenol red has been used forever, it is a slight estrogen mimic, which can alter how the cells work, especially if you are looking at estrogen receptors, but you can get EMEM and DMEM without phenol red.

Second, the article dosen't really talk about another important part of cell media, FBS or fetal bovine serum. This is added to the cell growth media to provide important hormones (like insulin) and other growth factors (which aren't completely understood) to the cells. This is an animal product which varies from batch to batch, and you can see how this causes issues in repeat-ability, as well as not being a human product for studying human cells.

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