[Histonet] Re: Retic jargon

[Robert Richmond]

Gitterfaser-Faerbung, reports Gudrun Lang in Linz, Austria - literally
trellis fiber coloring. (Is "Faerbung" the correct German word for
silver impregnation?)

I too find the word "retic" easily confused between reticulocytes and
reticulum stains.

I'm surprised to learn that there is a significant amount of uranium
in glass slides. Small amounts of uranyl ion give glass a fluorescent
yellow color - that's "vaseline glass", also called "canary glass".
Its manufacture was banned at the onset of WW II, and though it
eventually became legal to make it again, the old pieces became
eminently collectible - I have a few of them in fact - eBay usually
provides a fine selection.

I suppose that present day uranium salts are made from U235-depleted
uranium (we have something like a billion pounds of depleted UF6 at
Oak Ridge). That shouldn't change the radioactivity problems, since
radium 226 (which accounts for most of the radioactivity of old stocks
of uranium salts) is a decay product of U238.

I agree with Fred Monson about nuke-u-lar. This barbarism is now
beginning to appear in biomedical usage, for the cell nucleus. The
first person I ever heard say nuke-you-lar was President Lyndon
Johnson.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN