What happens when you mix Labradors, sausage dogs, Irish wolfhounds and a dash of Siberian husky fluff with spreadsheets and science? Magic, apparently. On Tuesday, July 8th, Millennium Science opened its doors (and hearts) to a pack of paws for Bring Your Dog to Work Day, and it was pawsitively 🐾 wonderful. From professional pet portraits to gourmet dog jambalaya, it was a celebration of tails, treats, and top-tier company culture.

📸 Pet Portraits with a Pro 

We kicked things off with a professional pet photographer who captured each pup in their best light. There were solo glamour shots, action shots, and – our crowning achievement – a group photo! Herding cats might be hard, but coordinating a team of dogs to pose together? That’s next-level project management.

🍖 Canine Fine Dining 

Lunch was no ordinary kibble situation. Our very own CEO Alex Szabo rolled out his signature dog jambalaya, and it was a gastronomic event for the ages (if you ask the dogs, anyway). Five-star tail wags all round.

🐕 Speed Dating, Dog Style

Let’s face it: dogs invented speed dating. Every hallway stroll turned into a social event. We saw new friendships, unexpected tail-wags, and some solid interspecies networking.

🦴 Treats, Walks & All the Love

Throughout the day, the pups enjoyed scenic walks, an abundance of pats, and doggy bags of treats. Meanwhile, the humans enjoyed what was arguably the most serotonin-boosting Tuesday of the year.

Yes, it was adorable. But Bring Your Dog to Work Day was more than just a flurry of floppy ears and furry faces – it was a reflection of the culture we live every day at Millennium Science.

Dogs are core team members here. Our Company Morale Officers are welcome in the office any day of the week, happily lounging under desks or offering cuddles to anyone. In fact, our official company mascot is none other than Lincoln, our CEO’s beloved chocolate Labrador, and they quite possibly the most popular member of the senior leadership team.

Whether you’re here for the science or the snuggles, there’s no doubt: Millennium Science is a genuinely fantastic place to work.

Pictured: Lincoln Szabo, our company mascot.

With 12 dogs, countless treats, one gourmet lunch, and a gallery of professional pet portraits, our Bring Your Dog to Work Day was a howling success, proving once again that the culture at Millennium Science is one-of-a-kind — just like our furry coworkers.

📣 Want to see more of our culture in action? 
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🚀 Watch our company video 

Join the Pack – Careers at Millennium Science Page 

The rapid and accurate detection of bacteria in aquatic environments has typically been challenging due to the complexity of the natural water microbial populations. Traditional agar plate methods for analysing aquatic bacteria are subjective and laborious, and rely on being able to adequately culture bacteria.

The good news is, flow cytometers with a high sensitivity of detection provide tools for detecting and analysing microbes independent of their cultivability, as the size, number, nucleic acid content, activity and classification of bacteria can be derived from scattered light and fluorescence signals using flow cytometry. The Agilent NovoCyte flow cytometer can detect very small particles (down to 0.1 µm) with high sensitivity, and so can be applied to various microbial studies by combining multiparameter analytic capability and convenient fluidic maintenance.

In testing the flow cytometer’s capabilities, water samples from multiple environment waters were stained with either SYBR Green I or SYTOX Green I; both are fluorescent dyes which bind to nucleic acids. The instrument was cleaned prior to running samples, filtered buffers were used, and an unstained sample was run to distinguish background noise from fluorescent signal and appropriate scatter and fluorescent thresholding was undertaken.

Using the NovoCyte flow cytometer, the bacteria in natural water could be differentiated into two groups: bacteria of low nucleic acid content (LNA) and of high nucleic acid content (HNA) (Figure 1). It is broadly accepted that HNA is active bacteria, whereas LNA is inactive, dead or a dormant population.

Figure 1: Detection of bacteria in natural waters.

Total bacterial cell counts in multiple environmental waters was also quantified using the NovoCyte flow cytometer (see Table 1). Results demonstrated that natural waters contained the highest bacterial counts of the samples tested and bottled water the lowest. Furthermore, bacterial counts in still water were 10 to 100x higher than that of spring and mountain stream sources.

Table 1: Total cell counts of bacteria in various water samples.

The detection of bacteria in various water samples is essential to maintaining sanitary and healthy drinking conditions, and the NovoCyte flow cytometer can easily and efficiently detect and quantify bacteria in water from several sources. With detection sensitivity coupled to the automatic cell counts measured for each sample, the NovoCyte is an efficient instrument for this application.

Top image credit: iStock.com/stock_colors

This article was initially published in Lab+Life Scientist.

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