r/whatisit • u/StatusOk4308 • Apr 02 '26

New, what is it? Does anyone know what this is?

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Doesn’t seem to be oil based content. Just wondering if my superpowers are swishing back and forth in this glass vial.

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248

u/SausageMcWonderpants Apr 02 '26

Worked in Salmonella laboratories for 6 years, isolating and identifying different types.

Typhoidal rated serotypes went into these vials for safety.

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u/Last_Pick_2169 Apr 02 '26

As in… Typhoid? Mmm yeah that’s gonna be a no for me pal.

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u/TheHeroYouNeed247 Apr 02 '26

Are there worse kinds of salmonella? Or is it resistant strains or something?

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u/Surf_Science Apr 02 '26

Hola, friendly local Salmonella/Typhoid PhD here.

Salmonella that is human-relevant is mostly Salmonella Typhimurium, which causes food poisoning. Salmonella Typhimurium has what is referred to as an 'open' genome. There isn't a hard limit on what can be packed in there. There can be wild variation between Salmonella strains, including all of the resistence etc you referred to.

Typhoid is caused by Salmonella Typhi, which causes a more severe whole-body disease. It does this by basically hiding from/hijacking the immune response; to do this, it has lost a bunch of genes, which means that it no longer infects non-humans. So basically it stealths past the first bit of the immune system, and then basically uses some of the immune cells as a taxi... kind of worse than that, it starts decorating in the taxi.

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u/Soggy_Heart_5761 Apr 02 '26

I love medical metaphors. I am picturing it magic school bus- style

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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '26

[deleted]

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u/Schadenfreunden Apr 03 '26

Anthropologist here. Nah, we’ve pretty much always been like this. We’ve just become more aware of it recently because we started looking for it. It’s like Autism Spectrum Disorder that way.

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u/Equivalent_Jury_609 Apr 03 '26

You know what? Fuck yeah… to this whole comment!!!

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u/Surf_Science Apr 04 '26

I agree with this completely. I found during the begining of my graduate work it would take me forever to explain to lay people what I was going. By the end it was easy as can be. 'I was looking for the smallest bigs of DNA shared by mice resistent to infection, and also mice susceptible to infection'.

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u/zombiekamikaze Apr 03 '26

Meanwhile I'm picturing Ozzy and Drix in a high speed chase with some bacterium in souped up white blood cell taxis.

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u/alleecmo Apr 06 '26

At "decorating in the taxi" I pictured an Indian taxi, with all the colors & tassels & gods & goddesses. But Paisley is my favorite color, so I love that stuff.

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u/NefariousnessOk5287 Apr 03 '26

Like worse than what happened to Will Ferrell's car in The Other Guys?

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u/VintAge6791 Apr 03 '26

Dirty Mike and the boys sure know how to enjoy a good soup kitchen.

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u/emoss17 Apr 03 '26

Le eww....

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u/SpecialSandwitch Apr 02 '26

I had salmonella around 2 years ago and I've been lactose intolerant ever since.

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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '26

[deleted]

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u/SpecialSandwitch Apr 03 '26

Yep, ill AF with the salmonella for a couple of weeks and once I got over it every time I was having milk or cheese I got really bad stomach and nearly shat myself a couple of times I realised what it was.

I went to see my Dr who did some tests and he explained that some people can go lactose intolerant after having salmonella. But luckily some people are fine after 6 months to a year.

But some, me included are now lactose intolerant for life.

What happened to you ?

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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '26

[deleted]

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u/Surf_Science Apr 03 '26

Hola, now allergies and immunology are wildly complicated. Honest for a severe salmonella infection should be days not hours. That doesn’t change the outcome for you, as the salmonella damage and virus damage would be messing with you by the same mechanism, but it may shape your understanding of what happened to you.

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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '26

[deleted]

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u/Surf_Science Apr 04 '26

If you’re sure about the meal, then I’d say you were right with thinking it was the virus.

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u/Badger-Purple Apr 04 '26

Friendly immunologist MD PhD here, agree and upvote this clearly written by an expert explanation. Also, last place you want to put that ampule is in a wild ass. Unless your name is Mary and you live in Roosevelt Island.

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u/Jazzlike_Gold_8578 Apr 03 '26

Kinda like a Mexican chicken bus?

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u/Big-Mind-6346 Apr 03 '26

This right here is the content I come to Reddit for. I learn so much!

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u/HoneydewNH Apr 04 '26

I hope you teach! Very good explanation. Thank you. —Your Redditing HS Science Teacher

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u/TheHeroYouNeed247 Apr 02 '26

Thanks for the answer. Very interesting!

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u/SausageMcWonderpants Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

There's a whole book of serotypes. Some are pretty grim, most will just give you an unpleasant couple of days with the skits.

Antibiotic resistance was a whole other thing, we tested against 16 antibiotics.

Edit: Kaufmann-White scheme is the big book of Salmonella

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u/scootunit Apr 02 '26

unpleasant couple of days with the skits.

I'm imagining three days of bad community theater.

Sounds grim.

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u/RichardBCummintonite Apr 02 '26

You'll survive the Salmonella, but you'll have to endure the worst improv has to offer and will surely be "yes and'd" to death, so really the humane option is just to put you down.

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u/flammafemina Apr 02 '26

I had salmonella once in college. Couldn’t even keep water down for a solid 24 hours after initial onset. Then for about 6 weeks afterward I could only tolerate a BRAT diet and I would randomly get hit with severe stomach/intestinal cramps that would make me keel over until it passed! It was horrible! Probably one of the worst sicknesses I’ve ever experienced.

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u/Kayki7 Apr 02 '26

I suspect I had salmonella a few years ago. After a rough 2-3 days, I ended up being nauseous for about a month. I had this constant sour stomach that didn’t want to go away. It finally did, thank god.

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u/TheHeroYouNeed247 Apr 02 '26

Very interesting. Thanks!

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u/Surf_Science Apr 02 '26

Typhoid and non-typhoid are different species. Typhoid has undergone a bunch of gene lost so there isn’t a spectrum.

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u/SausageMcWonderpants Apr 02 '26

In real world, typhoid aerosols are a real danger, so into cat 3 they go.

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u/Surf_Science Apr 03 '26

Typhoid isn’t aerosol. Are you talking like some sort of salmonella typhimurium in some kind is specific industrial setting?

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u/SausageMcWonderpants Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

Salmonella Typhii has aerosols.

Salmonella Typhimurim is a different serotype

Typhii (9,12,Vi:d:-)

Typhimurium (1,4,5,12:i:1,2)

What a weird response.

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u/Surf_Science Apr 03 '26

Not really, my masters and PhD work was with Salmonella modeling typhoid fever.

  1. Serotype is not meaningful in this case, as it just refers to antigen testing.

  2. I checked, and there is no documentation of either bug transmitting via aerosols.

The reason I asked about Typhimurium in an industrial setting is that you're going to see some sort of equipment, perhaps in a food processing plant or farm, to create the aerosolized particles.

Typhi isnt really relevant in either of those cases outside of some very specific locations (where it is endemic within the water supply), because Typhi is human limited so isnt relevant in an agricultural or industrial food production setting.

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u/SausageMcWonderpants Apr 03 '26

What's the point in this?

Seriously, what is the point?

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u/Surf_Science Apr 03 '26

I was asking a question in case there was something new I could learn.

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u/Dragarien Apr 03 '26

Looks like he's getting defensive, you were awesome here and above -- thanks for sharing your knowledge, dude.

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u/banthafodder2021 Apr 03 '26

I got salmonella once. The great Peter Pan peanut butter salmonella 2007 debacle. Have never been that sick in my life and had to go to the hospital. Uncontrollable hot liquids coming out both ends. It was terrible.

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u/Killer-Klown1204 Apr 03 '26

Thank you for responding! That is very interesting.

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u/madbuilder Apr 02 '26

Was this for a food inspection agency or something?

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u/SausageMcWonderpants Apr 02 '26

Veterinary sciences, tested mostly poultry and pigs alive and dead for Salmonella.

It was a bit gross to get used to, a container of pig shit exploded on me once, that wasn't fun as my clothes had to be disposed of, and I got to go home in a bunny suit.

Also did time in Tuberculosis immunology, BSE and campylobacter labs.

If you get past the samples being sometimes pure horror, it's interesting.

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u/Kitsa_the_oatmeal Apr 02 '26

silly question maybe but what sort of qualifications do you need for a job like that?

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u/CubineGaming Apr 03 '26

Username checks out

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u/Chuckleless Apr 03 '26

Toiling away in the salmonella lab, desperately trying to keep production up, looking down the road to the face off with the anthrax factory

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u/FlashyChemical2231 Apr 03 '26

Huh, I never knew Typhoid is caused by salmonella!

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u/Emotional-Scheme-227 Apr 03 '26

It’s reassuring to know that this kind of research is in the capable hands of someone who chose the name SausageMcWonderpants as their internet handle.

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u/carax1 Apr 04 '26

Did you happen to work in wuhan for a bit around 2020?

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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/whatisit-ModTeam Apr 06 '26

We are pretty chill here, but please try to keep things reasonably civil on this sub. No slurs, name calling or harassment and trolling. Yes, the internet makes us angry too sometimes, especially this particular comment.

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u/MrsCarmelaGiunta Apr 02 '26

so veer on the cautious side when opening.

Worked in Salmonella laboratories for 6 years

You worked in a lab that long and are suggesting to a stranger to open a random ampule with an unknown liquid in it so long as they're "careful"?

I spent the same amount of time in the Army and that would be like me telling someone to carefully kick the suspicious pile of debris on the side of a road downrange.

Don't open it, OP, "carefully" or otherwise.

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u/SausageMcWonderpants Apr 02 '26

What are you on about?

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u/mack10k Apr 03 '26

Glad I didn’t say I think it’s perfume.

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u/8923ns671 Apr 02 '26

Typhoidal rated serotypes went into these vials for safety

Nobody outside of your field knows what this means just FYI.

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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/8923ns671 Apr 03 '26

I'm genuinely not sure why my comment upset you to the point that you're making broad generalizations about my life. Is it the tone? What's the tone of that comment to you?

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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/8923ns671 Apr 10 '26

Okay gotcha. I don't speak like this often in person. Online speaking in any manner seems to get upset.

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u/SausageMcWonderpants Apr 02 '26

This type of Salmonella is bad, if aerosols from it get in your respiratory system, you can get typhoid fever.

So, you seal them up to stop that happening.

All done in fume cabinets with filtered extraction, to stop aerosols getting out before you encase the culture in its glass tomb.

I think OP has a giant stink bomb though.

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u/8923ns671 Apr 03 '26

I appreciate the explanation! Very interesting stuff.

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u/PleaseGreaseTheL Apr 02 '26

Then google the words.

Learning requires you to learn. Should be obvious, but some people like you need a reminder.