More CSI annoyances....
I'd like to blame the CSI: Miami gang for this frustration, but the Las Vegas folks goofed too. I watched an episode that involved all three CSI crews. A sample of honey was collected from the body of a victim. The lab tech puts a drop of honey on a microscope slide and says he'll have to use high performance liquid chromatography to identify the pollen species. He then looks through the microscope and declares the honey is tupelo honey (which apparently never crystallizes). What was shown on the screen was air bubbles in honey. There were no visible pollen particles. Pollen is small enough that simple light microscopy isn't sufficient for identification. A second sample of honey was then put on the scope, viewed, and declared to be identical to the first sample. Of course, the images put on the TV for the home viewer were identical.
Here's where they went wrong:
Unlike an air bubble, pollen particles are not completely smooth on the surface. See the spiky, bumpy things in the picture for examples. (Image from The Emergence of Agriculture by B. Smith.) High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is not done using a microscope and it takes more than a few seconds to do. If it didn't, the biochem grad students I used to work with wouldn't have set up a cot in the lab when they ran assays overnight. Heck, they wouldn't have had to have run assays overnight. If it only took seconds, perhaps the PhDs would have graduated in less than an average of 6-8 years.
Grissom's goof: Novolin brand insulin is not the only "fix" for diabetic ketoacidosis. Any insulin will fix that problem, since it's a function of very high blood sugar and a physiological attempt to clear the sugar from the body. I'd think a faster acting insulin would be a better choice though.
They are correct that people in ketoacidosis do have fruity-smelling breath. The techs should have been able to detect sugar and in the suspect's urine sample quite easily while the show made it sound like they really needed blood to test for ketoacidosis. (The standard test for ketones is a urine dipstick test.) What they didn't consider was how functional you are when your blood glucose is high enough to cause ketosis-breath, especially ketosis-breath strong enough to get the smell stuck in the A/C system of a car. Most patients I've seen with blood sugar over 200 were feeling pretty crummy--sweating, short of breath, nauseous, weak. But, this is TV land and the bad guy couldn't have murdered people while he was ill, so he was fully functional and apparently was regularly in diabetic ketoacidosis.
Oh well...nobody ever said television had anything to do with reality. Perhaps the disclaimers at the end of the shows should include "any resemblance to reality is coincidental and unintentional", not just resemblance to any persons living or dead.
Here's where they went wrong:Unlike an air bubble, pollen particles are not completely smooth on the surface. See the spiky, bumpy things in the picture for examples. (Image from The Emergence of Agriculture by B. Smith.) High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is not done using a microscope and it takes more than a few seconds to do. If it didn't, the biochem grad students I used to work with wouldn't have set up a cot in the lab when they ran assays overnight. Heck, they wouldn't have had to have run assays overnight. If it only took seconds, perhaps the PhDs would have graduated in less than an average of 6-8 years.
Grissom's goof: Novolin brand insulin is not the only "fix" for diabetic ketoacidosis. Any insulin will fix that problem, since it's a function of very high blood sugar and a physiological attempt to clear the sugar from the body. I'd think a faster acting insulin would be a better choice though.
They are correct that people in ketoacidosis do have fruity-smelling breath. The techs should have been able to detect sugar and in the suspect's urine sample quite easily while the show made it sound like they really needed blood to test for ketoacidosis. (The standard test for ketones is a urine dipstick test.) What they didn't consider was how functional you are when your blood glucose is high enough to cause ketosis-breath, especially ketosis-breath strong enough to get the smell stuck in the A/C system of a car. Most patients I've seen with blood sugar over 200 were feeling pretty crummy--sweating, short of breath, nauseous, weak. But, this is TV land and the bad guy couldn't have murdered people while he was ill, so he was fully functional and apparently was regularly in diabetic ketoacidosis.
Oh well...nobody ever said television had anything to do with reality. Perhaps the disclaimers at the end of the shows should include "any resemblance to reality is coincidental and unintentional", not just resemblance to any persons living or dead.
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