So I recently bought a pot of Devlan Mud wash in addition to some models.
Well, actually a tyranid army's worth of models, but that's not the point.

Anyway, I'd smelled a communal pot of the mud at the local GW, and it was bad.
This stuff was... Very potent.
I do material analysis for a job, so naturally I've got microscope. No need to tint the sample, as it is already tinted.

Oh holy hell the stuff is crawling with bacteria. I'm not sure what kind, that's for the lab I sent slides off to to determine.
What I AM sure of is that if I drop a few hundred dollars on models, I'd really like to get just pigment in my washes.
Maybe I'm overreacting, but if the labwork comes back as being anything but benign, I'm going to cause a huge stink.
A bigger stink than the wash, if possible.

Good to see some investigation taking place - keep us up to date with what the lab finds...

Yes, please do. Always wanted to know why it stank so much.

Devlan Mud always has smelled far worse than the other washes. I was curious, but lacked the tools to investigate.

I agree, keep up posted.

Pigment squigs, they have a whole farm of them at HQ.

Yes Please do!

Is it normal for paint to have microorganism on it?

uhhhh.... thats very worrying.... i injest quite a lot of the stuff due to licking my brushes to keep a nice tip =S

That is indeed interesting. Looking forward to hearing about the lab results.

It's the basis of the Tyranid bioform. Your models will soon live, and then we'll have a much, much cooler looking version of Toy Soldiers.

If its the communal pot it dosnt really surprise me. Think about it, how many people put the brush in there mouth to form the tip? Add that to nasty people and viola you get a nasty bacteria filled pot of paint.

I will post it here for sure.
Protoman, I do the exact same. I went and consumed half a bottle of listerine after seeing that slide.

It's a long running joke that certain GW paints smell, and if this is indeed the reason, I'm ordering another batch, having it certified mailed, then when it comes, having it remailed, unopened, to the same lab. Videotaping the getting the package from a federal employee, attaching the ready made certified mail sticker, and handing it back to the mailman.
Unassailable legally, and inexcusable morally if GW is sending out bacteria from a tainted batch.
Actually screw it I just ordered five more pots. Expediting this process.


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Darefsky, this was a brand new pot, mailed from GW. Never used by anyone but me, never had a chance for in shelf tampering.

Please keep us informed. This is fascinating.

Do you have any theories to what the bacteria could be (other than Tyranid spores) and why they would be in the paint?

Very interesting... Cant wait for more.

Archim3des wrote:I will post it here for sure.
Protoman, I do the exact same. I went and consumed half a bottle of listerine after seeing that slide.

It's a long running joke that certain GW paints smell, and if this is indeed the reason, I'm ordering another batch, having it certified mailed, then when it comes, having it remailed, unopened, to the same lab. Videotaping the getting the package from a federal employee, attaching the ready made certified mail sticker, and handing it back to the mailman.
Unassailable legally, and inexcusable morally if GW is sending out bacteria from a tainted batch.
Actually screw it I just ordered five more pots. Expediting this process.


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Darefsky, this was a brand new pot, mailed from GW. Never used by anyone but me, never had a chance for in shelf tampering.

Hold on though, if you yourself are brush-licking then it doesn't matter whether anyone else has used it, you could still be the source of the microorganisms. That's not meant as an insult, even with an appropriate regimen of oral hygiene everyone has bacteria living in their mouths, it could simply be that one of the ingredients in Devlan Mud stimulates rapid mitosis in one of those strains. I think it's fine to have it tested, but posting as if it's almost a foregone conclusion that GW are shipping virulent paint pots is a bit off.

Archim3des wrote:I will post it here for sure.
Protoman, I do the exact same. I went and consumed half a bottle of listerine after seeing that slide.

It's a long running joke that certain GW paints smell, and if this is indeed the reason, I'm ordering another batch, having it certified mailed, then when it comes, having it remailed, unopened, to the same lab. Videotaping the getting the package from a federal employee, attaching the ready made certified mail sticker, and handing it back to the mailman.
Unassailable legally, and inexcusable morally if GW is sending out bacteria from a tainted batch.
Actually screw it I just ordered five more pots. Expediting this process.


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Darefsky, this was a brand new pot, mailed from GW. Never used by anyone but me, never had a chance for in shelf tampering.[/quote

Sorry I read the OP wrong

The Paint is made in China, is it not?

So it might be a probelm with China's water and not GW's. I didn't even know GW had there own water supply. Hum?

Snarky wrote:
Fact: Shigella dysenteriae causes Dysentry. Shigella Sonnei probably won't cause dysentry but still isn't healthy when it's in the wrong places in your body!

Such as.... your mouth, if you lick brushes? Or on your hands, which you would not sterilize after touching models (usually)?

Snarky wrote:
Also I checked the cell cultures today and there are a lot of different bacteria colonies. There was the ever so common bacillus and I think some fungal spore colonies growing on the beef agar, but I'll need to actually look down the microscope to find out what exactly they are. Also, Joe is right, fecal bacteria =/= poo.

Fecal bacteria =/= poo. Correct. Top marks. Again though, not a huuuuge stretch to assume that water that has fecal bacteria in it might also have feces. You know, the "Fecal" part of "fecal bacteria".

fecal bacteria can find it's way into the paint pot when someone handling it has fecal bacteria on their hands. Even if you wash your hands thoroughly after using the bathroom, it is highly likely that there will still be a few bacterial cells that are on your hand after wiping your bum. These bacteria in the small numbers will multiply but won't be in large enough numbers to threaten your health (unless if you drank a swig of sewage) but can still fall from your hands onto everyday use items like keyboards, mice, door handles. In your case, it happened to fall into the paint pot. Don't worry about it however, it's not likely to be harmful.

I also did a spectral analysis of Devlan Mud wash before and after sterilization, and both readings came with 5-10nm of each other suggesting that inside each wash before and after sterilization, there probably are in fact less than 1x10^2 cells in the wash which means there a very few bacteria inside it.

balsak_da_mighty wrote:The Paint is made in China, is it not?

So it might be a probelm with China's water and not GW's. I didn't even know GW had there own water supply. Hum?

My bottles actually say "Made in France" and "Made in the UK". The plastic bottles though, yeah, most likely China.
And "GW's water supply" does not mean I think its coming from GW's tap. Just the tap that GW employs to fill its bottles.

Snarky wrote:fecal bacteria can find it's way into the paint pot when someone handling it has fecal bacteria on their hands. Even if you wash your hands thoroughly after using the bathroom, it is highly likely that there will still be a few bacterial cells that are on your hand after

This.

It is silly to claim poop is everywhere these buggers can be found, even sillier to double down and say these bacteria = poop by using the terms interchangably. Is there poop on your keyboard Arch? Poop on 57 other surfaces in your residence? By your logic, if you find this type of bacteria, or any other bacteria which likes fecal matter, anywhere in your place, that means poop is in your place. On all those surfaces and objects - so you are literally in a house full of s**!. Or you can be sensible and realize there are not one and the same, and also, again, since you missed it last time, you can take care to be more aware of concentrations. By your sloppy use of terms, you'd call me a drug dealer, since I give people drugs in exchange for goods and services. You know, since a couple of molecules of cocaine are on some of my dollar bills. You'd also have to call yourself a drug dealer since I sure your money is contaminated with cocaine too, because everyone's is. What's my point here. Yammering on about "poop in my paint!" should only be the start of your long long crusade of things you don't like in or on other things you do like, because there are minute traces of stuff on everything, or minute traces of stuff associated with stuff you don't like on everything. What are you going to complain about next?

Snarky wrote:Don't worry about it however, it's not likely to be harmful.

I also did a spectral analysis of Devlan Mud wash before and after sterilization, and both readings came with 5-10nm of each other suggesting that inside each wash before and after sterilization, there probably are in fact less than 1x10^2 cells in the wash which means there a very few bacteria inside it.

Again, not worried about it affecting my health in any way. Just think that its gross that I got a pot of it that this is the case for. Full extent of my worry.
To reiterate: Affecting my health- No. Affecting the height of my smile - Yes.

Also, by 1x10^2, you do mean "100", correct? Less than 100 cells in the wash, causing a 5-10nm shift on a spectrum that is only, at largest, 300 nm wide? Since the visible light spectrum is 400nm-700nm? So 100 cells caused a shift of that much?
That ah.... that seems way way off.

Archim3des wrote:Again, not worried about it affecting my health in any way. Just think that its gross that I got a pot of it that this is the case for

Seriously, swab your keyboard, your phone, your door handles, window latches, your kitchen countertops, your own skin in 20 different places and see what you can find. For all the microbio knowledge you seem to have, how do you not get that bacteria and other nasty little critters are everywhere? You eat bugs (insects), do you know that? There are bug parts in many foods you eat, and also, you swallow a decent amount a year while awake and asleep. Also, bugs eat you while you sleep. Hooray!

If some tiny tiny amount of bacteria in paint is "gross" to you, you must find almost everything about life gross.

The worst, though?
The most abhorrent, vile, repugnant thing?

People that obstinately refuse to even consider there might be another side to an issue other than their own.

Now I'm off to ingest something crawling with parasites. Perhaps a hot dog. I will take comfort though, that it will likely NOT contain Shigella bacteria.

Archim3des wrote:The worst, though?
The most abhorrent, vile, repugnant thing?

People that obstinately refuse to even consider there might be another side to an issue other than their own.

LOL. Passive aggressive much? Again, to reiterate the point. You for some strange reason, equate a tiny tiny tiny amount of bacteria, with poop, and call that gross, not even acknowledging that bacteria and other bigger things (yet usually too small for us to see) are all over the place, inside and outside of us, inside the food we eat, on our skin, eating our skin, on practically every surface we touch, and so on.

The only 'side' to this issue that I have not considered, is that you have some kind of irrational poop phobia. Maybe you crapped your pants as a child, or fell into a pile of elephant dung. Whatever it was, you seem to have a strange issue with this, where even the mere chance of some super dilute one parts per billion poop contamination of your paint is causing you trouble. Oh right, it is only making you smile slightly less, I forgot. So I guess you are just continuously responding here to prove just how little this bothers you? Sure thing there

Archim3des wrote:
Also, by 1x10^2, you do mean "100", correct? Less than 100 cells in the wash, causing a 5-10nm shift on a spectrum that is only, at largest, 300 nm wide? Since the visible light spectrum is 400nm-700nm? So 100 cells caused a shift of that much?
That ah.... that seems way way off.

If you use the latest spectrophotometers, you can use the entire wavelength. I used a range of 400-600nm. Also, a 10nm shift is very slight, you must remember that different samples will have a variance so the error margins of around 10nm is actually correct. What I'm saying is that bacteria growing in the actual wash itself is minimal, and you can actually discount the cells inside the wash. Also you do have to realize that I'm not using the entire pot, I'm putting a sample of 1000 microlitres in a glass cuvette, so the actual amount of cells measured will likely be around one. This means that the 5-10nm shift I'm talking about is actually caused by a variance in the samples rather than the actual bacteria.

Sorry if I caused confusion before. Also, I think you're missing my previous points, when someone opens a pot of paint, bacteria colonizes it. Perhaps some dirty person at your store opened the paint without washing his hands then put the pot back? This could easily account for the bacteria inside the wash. The bacteria inside the wash is highly unlikely to be GWs since I assume that the paints are all done mechanically at a factory somewhere.

Archim3des wrote:Now I'm off to ingest something crawling with parasites. Perhaps a hot dog. I will take comfort though, that it will likely NOT contain Shigella bacteria.

But if you have one portion red meat/ processed meat per day you increase your chance of dying early by 15 - 20%. lol

I learn't that this morning on the BBC NEWS, makes you wonder if anyone truly recognise's that Life is what happens while you are waiting to die..

MightyGodzilla wrote:<---Lix hiz brush. Wonders if maladies will befall him.

I think that's why we're all interested

Snarky, could you clarify your thoughts on the results of your findings vs. Archim3des here? You think the "poo" bacteria is from Archim3des environment (i.e. not showing up in your test?) since it's pretty much everywhere, but the neurotoxin is present in yours and was surprising? Was it present in Archim3des', too?

Also, I think everyone should ratchet down the angst a little... imo, you as well Archim3des, not just those who were unecessarily "hating". There are plenty of us interested in these tests, no need to respond to unwarranted criticism (i.e. just ignore it).

^ Here here.

So now I'm wondering if any other "controls" were (or can be) used?

Like any other GW colors tested or just the brown wash?
Any other lines of gaming paint tested to see if this bacteria is common to it (paint).
Any other types of paint (besides gaming lines) tested to see if bacteria is common to paint.
Or sources of information we can use to find this out.

Right now there's a lot of flaming going on by participants who I'm sure don't have all of the information but are instead pinpointing/zooming in on facts that may be taken out of context without the whole presented along with it.

<GENERAL WARNING: people need to calm down and discuss this topic rationally. If you can't do so, and can't talk to your fellow posters without tossing around personal insults, we're going to have problems. Next warning I have to issue in here will accompany a suspension.>

Rtides-
Acrylamide and Acrylonitrile were also found in my paint, as they would be in most Acrylic paint. Acryl is the prefix there.
As Snarky said, they are necessary to bind the pigment to the solution it is suspended in, and as a result, you dont have to shake GW washes.

Snarky-
"you can actually discount the cells inside the wash. .... the actual amount of cells measured will likely be around one. "
That you're cutting off 100 nm of the range makes the 10nm shift weighted more, especially for 100 cells causing that, or one as you claim above. Actually, discounting the cells in the wash would negate the entire purpose of the spectra test. Clarification, please?

Mwnciboo-
But what about stress? Does stressing about the meat you're eating affect lifespan?

I thought I'd seen it somewhere, doesnt necessarily mean its up to date though.

"The primary host and natural reservoir known at this point for Shigella sonnei and among all other species of Shigella is the human gastrointestinal tract. Shigella can survive in fecal contaminated material but has a low survival rate without the optimal acidic environment in the intestinal tract as its surrounding. The bacterium is known to be able to survive in soiled linen for up to seven weeks. In fresh water environments, it can live up to 5 days and in salt water for 12-30 hours."

Montrano, thanks for that. Goes a long way towards solving the "is there actual poop in there" argument. I doubt there is anything special about linen as a preservative, so the operative idea there being that the wash is also soiled, meaning
Edit
Ahem.
There is the distinct likelyhood, even probability, that my sample of wash did indeed also contain human or primate feces.

Ok, I think it might be my fault here. I'm not terribly good at explaining things.

Acrylamide is a substance found in many things. It is only a neurotoxin when used in it's pre-polymerized liquid form, meaning that you have to keep it below room temperature for it to remain in that state. After polymerization which occurs by heating Acrylamide, it is now non-toxic and the neurotoxic properties are negated. You only ever use the non-polymerized and dangerous forms in either PCR or industrial manufacture, it's one of those substances that is illegal to sell in the non-polymerized form since in large doses it can kill.

Acrylic paints and washes are made when Acrylamide and Acrylanitrile are fused together using a solvent of Sodium Hydroxide and Sulphuric Acid (to my knowledge anyway, they may use a different mechanism these days but trade secrets ho). I don't think it's possible to even have unpolymerized Acrylamide in everyday products just because of how unstable it is even at room temperature. Even if some managed to sneak it's way into a product, if left at room temperature it would polymerize in around an hour.

As for Archim3des, I took a 1000microlitre sample from a 10ml bottle so I took a sample from that's 100x less than the original sample. I estimated around 100 cells in the entire 10ml since I only counted one cell per 1000 microlitres per counting chamber. I chose a standard 400-600nm range since that's the normal range for checking for bacterial activity.

Here's an example, if you were expecting bacteria to metabolize the paint to another product (since paint is a pigment it would affect the refractive index a lot) you would expect the wavelength to change by at least 100-200nm by the end of an eight hour study. My findings however were that over eight hours, the readings fluctuated only between 5-10nm between both samples, indicating that the bacteria weren't metabolizing the paint or growing in an exponential rate to affect the readings.

I have managed to grow a few colonies of bacteria from the pot of wash, but that's expected since the wash is hardly sterile.

Ah. Thanks, I was reading into that wrong then. I still think that 100 cells in the whole (its actually 12 ml) bottle is a little low, but those are your findings.
My sample had around 30 floating in the one drop I took out of the bottle.

Sadly since we're the only two that have had tests run, neither can be said to be conclusive. I'd hypothesize, or at least hope, that your sample would be closer to the norm. Objectively, did yours smell?

Well, it smells the same as every other bottle that I've used. It doesn't smell like sewage if that's what you're asking though.

Also, were you sure you were using a sterile tip for your micropipette? Non sterile pipette tips are a common cause of contamination when it comes to microscopy.

Yes, sterilized it in alcohol. Think I posted about that, not sure.

I'm surprised there are so few bacterial being recorded. 100 cells in a 12ml pot? That's probably contamination from the user, I'm surprised that the figure isn't far higher.

Faecal matter is everywhere. If it's in the paint you probably put it there. Reading some responses, well you can understand how health scares begin. A little knowledge and a lot of paranoia IMO.

Howard A Treesong wrote:I'm surprised there are so few bacterial being recorded. 100 cells in a 12ml pot? That's probably contamination from the user, I'm surprised that the figure isn't far higher.

Faecal matter is everywhere. If it's in the paint you probably put it there. Reading some responses, well you can understand how health scares begin. A little knowledge and a lot of paranoia IMO.

Fae? You're telling me its elf feces?
I'm ... displeased by the continued implication that I put feces in my own wash and then was surprised to find it there. Especially in that amount.

Again, not trying to suggest that this is what makes Devlan Mud smell, or even that its a real problem. No scare here, even for me.

Howard A Treesong wrote:I'm surprised there are so few bacterial being recorded. 100 cells in a 12ml pot? That's probably contamination from the user, I'm surprised that the figure isn't far higher.

Faecal matter is everywhere. If it's in the paint you probably put it there. Reading some responses, well you can understand how health scares begin. A little knowledge and a lot of paranoia IMO.

Wait till someone tests their toothbrush on here, will be chaos!

Skippy wrote:Wait till someone tests their toothbrush on here, will be chaos!

Exactly. I wrote a post about spraying everything with bleach and lighting our wallets on fire (since money has cocaine on it) but I guess it didn't go through this crappy internet connection I have. There are bacteria everywhere, and mites and other microscopic bugs that hang out on your skin and eat the top layer. But it's all good, 99.999% of the time. Symbiosis or some such.

A fun, informative thread. I've been following the progress somewhat loosely and this has seriously made me think about the amount of paint I must ingest orally.

I have no idea why many posters are getting so irate - information is information, data is data. You can't really argue with it. This isn't going to impact my life in any significant way, but it's been an interesting journey of two curious Dakkanauts and some expensive science kits.

Top marks.

Eating that paint could be good for my immune system right?

Skippy wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:I'm surprised there are so few bacterial being recorded. 100 cells in a 12ml pot? That's probably contamination from the user, I'm surprised that the figure isn't far higher.

Faecal matter is everywhere. If it's in the paint you probably put it there. Reading some responses, well you can understand how health scares begin. A little knowledge and a lot of paranoia IMO.

Wait till someone tests their toothbrush on here, will be chaos!

I'm still not getting it. You're telling me that stuff that commonly resides in the same room where I go to the bathroom might have my leavings on it?
Oh please, tell me more!

I think everyone has been made well aware of what you speak of, I would appreciate if the rest of the comments could be questions about the testing process or how to go about testing their own. Questioning why there were only 100 cells in a 12ml pot would be a perfect example of this. Pointing out differences between statements and facts, like Snarky saying 10ml pot instead of 12ml would also be helpful.
I think everyone gets it, and I apologize for my own hyping of this.




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Tek wrote:Eating that paint could be good for my immune system right?

Could very well be!

Well, those 100 cells is simply an estimate I took based on cell counts and a standardized table. It could be that from the 12ml total, I took 10mls of wash that had little amounts of cell and the remaining 2 mls had all the bacteria inside it.

It's not like I could centrifuge a paint pot... they simply don't fit inside the machine...

Snarky wrote: I took a 1000microlitre sample from a 10ml bottle so I took a sample from that's 100x less than the original sample. I estimated around 100 cells in the entire 10ml since I only counted one cell per 1000 microlitres per counting chamber. I chose a standard 400-600nm range since that's the normal range for checking for bacterial activity.

Here's an example, if you were expecting bacteria to metabolize the paint to another product (since paint is a pigment it would affect the refractive index a lot) you would expect the wavelength to change by at least 100-200nm by the end of an eight hour study. My findings however were that over eight hours, the readings fluctuated only between 5-10nm between both samples, indicating that the bacteria weren't metabolizing the paint or growing in an exponential rate to affect the readings.

Snarky, while I appreciate your input (very much so actually since you're the only other one doing tests) is there any way you could tone it down for the other readers?
When you say 1000 microlitres, I'm sure that sounds very sci-fi and cool to a lot of readers. I know you're using terms that come up around the workplace, but for everyone else it may come off as archaic and incomprehensible.
1000 microliters = 1 ml = ...

Wait a minute. You're off by a factor of 10.
That's a pretty significant margin. Is this in any way affected by your boss not being there?

Archim3des wrote:I think everyone gets it, and I apologize for my own hyping of this.

Nice of you to say so... bury the hatchet and all that

Also thanks for the post trying to put things in layman's terms, Snarky, although I don't think it's totally working for me (despite working inside of a lab every day and thus having to take normal safety precautions, I have little to no bio knowledge, as that's not my field).

So, basically, it seems that Archim3des bottle of wash (which was new, right?) had tons of bacteria, and Snarky's didn't. I wish there was a way to verify one way or the other...

Skippy wrote:Quite amazing how angry some people get when someone is curious about the world around them.

QFT

Knowledge is forbidden!

Archim3des wrote:

Snarky wrote: I took a 1000microlitre sample from a 10ml bottle so I took a sample from that's 100x less than the original sample. I estimated around 100 cells in the entire 10ml since I only counted one cell per 1000 microlitres per counting chamber. I chose a standard 400-600nm range since that's the normal range for checking for bacterial activity.

Here's an example, if you were expecting bacteria to metabolize the paint to another product (since paint is a pigment it would affect the refractive index a lot) you would expect the wavelength to change by at least 100-200nm by the end of an eight hour study. My findings however were that over eight hours, the readings fluctuated only between 5-10nm between both samples, indicating that the bacteria weren't metabolizing the paint or growing in an exponential rate to affect the readings.

Snarky, while I appreciate your input (very much so actually since you're the only other one doing tests) is there any way you could tone it down for the other readers?
When you say 1000 microlitres, I'm sure that sounds very sci-fi and cool to a lot of readers. I know you're using terms that come up around the workplace, but for everyone else it may come off as archaic and incomprehensible.
1000 microliters = 1 ml = ...

Wait a minute. You're off by a factor of 10.
That's a pretty significant margin. Is this in any way affected by your boss not being there?

Oops! You're completely right!

That serves me right for doing maths during my lunchbreak. But yeah, microlitres is what you always write. Just a force of habit I suppose. That puts it at 10 cells per 10mls as I only saw 1 cell per 1ml. I guess that I must have had an anomalous result. I'll check again tomorrow using the digital counter instead of doing it the good ol fashioned way.

Good spot, Archim3des! Looking forward to your check tomorrow, Snarky

You couldn't just transfer it into a tube that would fit in the centrifuger?

i'll see if i can find some time and make up some slides. I got a devlan mud and some old gw paints circa 1996 that should be harbouring something if it can sustain life.
In the long term, it would be interesting to see what any microbes in the paint might be living off, presumably whatever substance it is would affect the properties of the paint

RiTides wrote:Good spot, Archim3des! Looking forward to your check tomorrow, Snarky

You couldn't just transfer it into a tube that would fit in the centrifuger?

Hmm I didn't think of that, I could probably stick it back in the pot and try again since I still have the sample on my workbench.

montrano wrote:i'll see if i can find some time and make up some slides. I got a devlan mud and some old gw paints circa 1996 that should be harbouring something if it can sustain life.
In the long term, it would be interesting to see what any microbes in the paint might be living off, presumably whatever substance it is would affect the properties of the paint

Or not! Your earlier post would suggest that 7 weeks is the maximum, at least for what I got.
16 years.... if you find anything, buy it a car.

A 12 ml bottle is a pretty small ecosystem. If its eating something in the paint, I'd guess that it would starve itself out fairly quickly.

Got ninjaed on my "why don't you just pour it into a test tube" question!

I so wish I had lab access right now... I'm dying to do a bioburden test, i.e. run some Devlan Mud through a filter, rinse with phosphate buffer and stick the filter on a plate (do some serial dilutions, of course). All the organisms will be on the filter, and grow when in contact with media. Personally, considering the product, I'd plate on a low nutrient agar like R2A, and also TSA as a more cozy environment. Doing this, you should get countable numbers of CFUs after incubation. This is a standard way to get a really good idea of the viable organisms per volume.

Once, long ago, I was involved in an investigation to determine why we were finding organisms in an aseptic clean room. We recovered Alcaligenes xylosidans out of a solution used to sterilize the clean room. Not sanitize - sterilize. Another time, I had to ID critters growing in a variety of buffers used for protein crystallization - nothing more than various chemicals in water, not stuff you'd think of as growth conducive, either. They had grown to the point of turbidity and little floaty puffballs in the buffers.

The point of these two examples is this: there is nothing about a paint filling operation that will come anywhere close to the clean controls in these two situations, above. Absolutely it will have bacteria, yeast and/ or mold. An organism like Shigella likely was in the water, or the hose used to clean the fill line, or the filler manifold, or any number of places. Also, paint has no preservatives* because it isn't intended to be consumed or spread on our bodies. All this meaning, paint is NOT sterile.

The organisms in the Devlan Mud could have come from anywhere in the manufacturing process. It does not surprise me in the least that organisms were recovered from it. I would certainly expect Bacillus and mold spores to propagate given nice cozy lab conditions. I also wouldn't be surprised at an organism being able to take advantage of the environment. Its not really that great for growth, so anything that CAN survive and propagate will have little competition. Certain organisms, given a niche, can grow where you'd least expect it. That said, I would more expect a pseudomonad than shigella, but critters are surprising.

montrano if you can get pics of the Gram stain, please do share! I'm really curious!

Archim3des, what method was used for the ID? If you want to take it to PM, please do feel free. I'll likely get really technical...

Edit - *correction. Paints can actually have preservatives that inhibit microbial growth, specifically to preserve product integrity and prevent odors. That said, "preservatives" are a lot more difficult to get right than folks may think. Many times, they are bacteriostatic, meaning they prevent growth but don't kill anything outright. Preservatives also lose potency after a while. That is assuming there are even preservatives at all...

Archim3des wrote:So I recently bought a pot of Devlan Mud wash in addition to some models.
Well, actually a tyranid army's worth of models, but that's not the point.

Anyway, I'd smelled a communal pot of the mud at the local GW, and it was bad.
This stuff was... Very potent.
I do material analysis for a job, so naturally I've got microscope. No need to tint the sample, as it is already tinted.

Oh holy hell the stuff is crawling with bacteria. I'm not sure what kind, that's for the lab I sent slides off to to determine.
What I AM sure of is that if I drop a few hundred dollars on models, I'd really like to get just pigment in my washes.
Maybe I'm overreacting, but if the labwork comes back as being anything but benign, I'm going to cause a huge stink.
A bigger stink than the wash, if possible.

Wow, that's a brutal profession

I'm secretly hoping it turns out to be e.coli or something awful. How does Bacteria survive in there? Is the paint itself a good food for them?

Wow, nice post, Gymnogyps! Didn't know how many scientists we had among us

I had no idea whether paint would have a "preservative" or not... the closest I get to that is, we have a water-based coolant that we use at work, and I added something to it to keep critters from growing in it, for exactly this reason...

Very interesting thread! For me its always a pleasure to learn something new and I appreciate you guys taking the time to do the research.

From a manufacturing stand point I would wager that the differences in both of your pots of wash come from the water scource used during the manufacturing process. Most likely the Wash in Snarky's pot was made using water from and underground scource either from a well or an aquafer or from a water supply that is treated chemically, whereas the Wash in Archim3des pot was made using water from an aboveground untreated scource like a river or holding pond.

Its fairly common in manufacturing around the world for water intensive plants to draw water directly from an above ground scource and this water, unless the end product is intended for human consumption does not have to be treated so long as it meets certain standards that vary depending on the country in question. Its also fairly common, although less common in developed countries, for an above ground water source to become contaminted by any number of different things including whats discussed earlier in this thread.

Thanks, RiTides. The more I dig into this topic, the more interested I get! Coolant... yeah. Critters would love that!

I had a couple of pots of the Mud early on, right after release, that did not reek like swampbutt. At some point, though, all have been rank, right at first opening. So having learned that paint formulations can include preservatives specifically to prevent odor, I'm thinking the formulation is allowing stinky organisms to grow...

This may all be moot if the rumors on a new paint manufacturer and formulation is true. New formulation will hopefully fix it.

I hope folks realize that when something stinks of butt, don't stick it in your mouth, right? Also, keep in mind, if the Mud is allowing organisms to grow, and you stick a brush full of it in your water rinse container... you've just inoculated your water. Water that is exposed to air, and has all sorts of organic stuff for the organisms to eat. So, yeah, brush licking doesn't seem wise. Especially when communal stuff is in the picture. Rugrats carry all sorts of nasty critters and are sure to get it in whatever they touch. LOL

Gymnogyps wrote:I had a couple of pots of the Mud early on, right after release, that did not reek like swampbutt. At some point, though, all have been rank, right at first opening. So having learned that paint formulations can include preservatives specifically to prevent odor, I'm thinking the formulation is allowing stinky organisms to grow...

Yeah, it sounds like a very plausible hypothesis!

Also, love the way you science people call these things "critters" at least when talking to non-scientists. That's the exact word our chief scientist here uses when talking to us engineers about this stuff

Hmm it seems that i shall have to boil my paint before i use it and thin it with alchohol and bleach.

^
I use rubbing alcohol to thin my paints, which should take care of at least most of the bugs. It also dries the paint faster, because of alcohol's faster rate of evaporation.

Deathklaat wrote:Hmm it seems that i shall have to boil my paint before i use it and thin it with alchohol and bleach.

Ha. I hope you're joking, because bacteria are everywhere. Easily a few pounds worth between your gut and the ones on your skin. Don't believe, me, look it up.

Joe Mama wrote:

Deathklaat wrote:Hmm it seems that i shall have to boil my paint before i use it and thin it with alchohol and bleach.

Ha. I hope you're joking, because bacteria are everywhere. Easily a few pounds worth between your gut and the ones on your skin. Don't believe, me, look it up.

We were talking about bacteria in my Bio class the other day, there is more bacteria in your large intestine, then there is in your entire body! It would be no surprise to me that there would be bacteria in paint,and even that it smells.

Ashton

Redfinger wrote:We were talking about bacteria in my Bio class the other day, there is more bacteria in your large intestine, then there is in your entire body! It would be no surprise to me that there would be bacteria in paint,and even that it smells.

Would it surprise you to learn that your large intestine is in fact part of "your entire body", and that that statement is therefore ridiculous?
Even taken as "than there is anywhere else in your body, large intestine not included", its not surprising. That's where all the plant and animal matter you've ingested has had the length of a house (I've got third grade science trivia too!) to travel by peristaltic motion, slowly rotting. There is more matter that you are going to expel into a toilet in your large intestine than anywhere else in your body!
Yes, bacteria are everywhere.

If you still think I'm surprised by this, please go test surfaces of your bathroom, kitchen, whatever - I've been tasked with the same but have refrained.
I'll bet five years salary that you will find bacteria there.
Now test your paint selection. Is there LESS bacteria there? LESS fecal bacteria than the rim of your toilet? There definitely should be!

MY problem is that when I (the lab) tested it, there was an equal amount. That is the source of my disgust. Not that bacteria exist.

I went ahead and spent the cash to have the five bottles tested, documented the transfer of materials to show I did not add anything.

Rtides- It might surprise you to learn how many science majors play these games! For me, I was attracted to a field where getting new shiny toys was a job requirement. The disposable income from said job is then spent on other shiny toys, albeit toys that do not relate to my job. At my FLGS, about 30% of the members are in similar situations.

Thsi is one of the most informative threads I have seen in a long time! Bacteria in the Devlan Mud Wash? Papa Nurgle would be proud!

Joe Mama wrote:

Deathklaat wrote:Hmm it seems that i shall have to boil my paint before i use it and thin it with alchohol and bleach.

Ha. I hope you're joking, because bacteria are everywhere. Easily a few pounds worth between your gut and the ones on your skin. Don't believe, me, look it up.

"Objection Your Honor, asked and answered."
"Sustained, move it along counselor."

Lets face it I can imagine a couple of easy scenarios that would create this result...
Man works in factory and visits the toilet during his break, he washes his hands but flushes the toilet first meaning there is feacle matter aresol from the flush in the room while he washes his hands then he opens the door and picks up some feacle bacteria.... he walks back to the production line and continues unpacking empty paint pots onto the conveyor transfering trace amounts of bacteria to the pots he touches....

I am not worried about small amounts of bacteria in my paint as they'll be everywhere in similar trace amounts however it is very interesting....

I'm not a scientist yet, but a neuroscience student at the moment, so bacteria arent my strong suit.
I originally trained as an electronics engineer, so have a healthy inquisitive mind.
Of the people i still know from the old school war games club, the majority are in technical careers.

Shocked by how many posters in this thread keep bringing up how much bacteria there is on everything else. That's not really the point.

Like one of the other posters here, I had two pots of Devlan Mud early on that didn't stink but the six that I've been through since stank to high heaven - initially not so much but after opening the smells became progressively worse. My miniatures smell terrible after using the stuff and the length of time it takes for the smell to wear off appears to be increasing.

Also, while many people here were mocking the thought of putting brushes in one's mouth (a habit I'm trying hard to break), nobody has mentioned that these bacteria will be aerosolized by passing the paint through an airbrush. I can tell you from sad experience that a room in which Devlan Mud has been sprayed through an airbrush remains stinky and foul for quite some time.

Not trying to be a jerk or anything but bacteria is EVERYWHERE, so I don't get the big fuss.

Skulleater wrote:Not trying to be a jerk or anything but bacteria is EVERYWHERE, so I don't get the big fuss.

Bacteria are everywhere not is your describing a group of things not an individual

Let's try and keep to topic please people

Skulleater wrote:Not trying to be a jerk or anything but bacteria is EVERYWHERE, so I don't get the big fuss.

Some people have a thing against poop, or they really don't know that bacteria are everywhere. Either of those can be the cause of the "fuss" not that there is much fuss here.

I must say this thread has probably been more informative to more people than a lot of other threads out there.

Yowzah, how me miss dis?
What a great thread, thouroughly enjoyable read.

angryboy2k wrote:Shocked by how many posters in this thread keep bringing up how much bacteria there is on everything else. That's not really the point.

That is the point for pretty much everyone here. The smell is secondary, as it should be, since us nerds already smell bad to begin with. So what if a different stinkyness happens, things are still stinky either way.

nobody has mentioned that these bacteria will be aerosolized by passing the paint through an airbrush.

Well now you mentioned it, and you are somebody. We'll see if a science dude can explain to us how unlikely it is for a few airborne bacteria to do anything to us at all. I reckon unless you are spraying the paint directly up your nose and into your mouth, you should be safe from infection. Heck, your probably still safe even if you do that. But I am not a scientologist, so don't take my word for it.

Joe Mama wrote:

angryboy2k wrote:Shocked by how many posters in this thread keep bringing up how much bacteria there is on everything else. That's not really the point.

That is the point for pretty much everyone here. The smell is secondary, as it should be, since us nerds already smell bad to begin with. So what if a different stinkyness happens, things are still stinky either way.

nobody has mentioned that these bacteria will be aerosolized by passing the paint through an airbrush.

Well now you mentioned it, and you are somebody. We'll see if a science dude can explain to us how unlikely it is for a few airborne bacteria to do anything to us at all. I reckon unless you are spraying the paint directly up your nose and into your mouth, you should be safe from infection. Heck, your probably still safe even if you do that. But I am not a scientologist, so don't take my word for it.

I thought the point was bacteria of a specific type in large numbers being in a place that it is highly unlikely for said bacteria to be in that number. The secondary point being is this an isolated incident, or is it endemic to the line. We all know that bacteria is everywhere, and in numbers that are shocking to folks. The point of this thread was the AMOUNT, not that there was bacteria.

For all the special service announcements about bacteria being everywhere.

We know.

Seriously.

All these repeats of the same tired platitude is contributing nothing to the discussion.

We can all assume everyone here knows bacteria are everywhere.

If you don't understand why this discussion is occurring, please read the thread.

Since reading comprehension seems to be an issue, here is a summary.

Contamination by disease causing organisms has the potential to cause people to get sick. It is a cross contaminant risk as well as risk of direct exposure.

Even normal organisms, at very high numbers, can cause disease or health concerns.

Organisms can and do cause product quality issues, which has nothing to do with health, but just the product.

No single one of these things are proven to be happening.

But this is why this thread is interesting.

It would be a shame for this thread to be closed because people are refusing to comprehend or be open to learning. Or because they think because they don't get it, it has no value. This thread is an excellent opportunity, don't ruin it with your ignorance.

This goes for all the silly pedantic games occurring here.

Edit- phone posting problems.

Also, aerosolizing and breathing an organism into your lungs can significantly change what it does to you. Can. Does not mean will. Some examples- look up the various forms of anthrax or Naegleria fowleri.

angryboy2k wrote:Shocked by how many posters in this thread keep bringing up how much bacteria there is on everything else. That's not really the point.

Like one of the other posters here, I had two pots of Devlan Mud early on that didn't stink but the six that I've been through since stank to high heaven - initially not so much but after opening the smells became progressively worse. My miniatures smell terrible after using the stuff and the length of time it takes for the smell to wear off appears to be increasing.

Also, while many people here were mocking the thought of putting brushes in one's mouth (a habit I'm trying hard to break), nobody has mentioned that these bacteria will be aerosolized by passing the paint through an airbrush. I can tell you from sad experience that a room in which Devlan Mud has been sprayed through an airbrush remains stinky and foul for quite some time.

Just wanted to quote this, and agree with Gymnogyps above.

What I'd REALLY like to know, is if the stronger smell (that has been mentioned by many posters) correlates to larger colonies of bacteria in the wash. Beyond that, if it affects the performance of the wash as the bacteria to "other" ratio increases.

There's a lot of potential here, let's stay on track

Joe Mama wrote:Some people have a thing against poop, or they really don't know that bacteria are everywhere.

Well now you mentioned it, and you are somebody. We'll see if a science dude can explain to us how unlikely it is for a few airborne bacteria to do anything to us at all. I reckon unless you are spraying the paint directly up your nose and into your mouth, you should be safe from infection. Heck, your probably still safe even if you do that. But I am not a scientologist, so don't take my word for it.

Please lose the condescending schtick. It's flamebaiting and that is against our rules. In case you are wondering, the orange parts of your text below are the most egregious examples of this. Avoid it in the future or your account will be suspended. There is no need to insult other posters to make your point. Attempting to infuriate them will not make them pay more attention to your argument and any intelligent readers will not confuse your attempt at wit with being convincing. Thanks. ~Manchu

You're so close to getting it. You've got all the fundamentals, let me see if I can arrange them in a new way for you so that it clicks together.

Bacteria are everywhere! Good boy, Joe! Have a treat!
But how did they get there? Let's look at the most obvious place fecal bacteria exist (other than your large intestine), the bathroom. When you flush, you smell some poo. That's because tiny amounts of poo get ionized into the air, and you are literally inhaling the poop to smell it. Some of it lands other places.
Still with me? The "Heck, your probably still safe even if you do that" part is right, even if you were wrong in the previous sentence. Yes! Good!

Now, stay with me here!
Is bacteria that is in a pot of wash (primarily water) in the air? Nooooo, it's not! Its in the water! Another treat for you.
What does all life, including bacteria, need in order to fill out the space between its cell walls? Water! Again, good job!
Focus, boy, focus! Don't look at the hand I'm holding the treats with! Look at me!
Ok, now once the tiny amounts of bacteria have traveled through the air (where, again, they are mostly harmless) and landed in a medium that supports life, the very very smaaaallll amount of bacteria get a chance to do the mommy-daddy hug. Whats that? Yes, very good. Its not really a mommy-daddy hug, but a process where one cell splits into two, and two into four, and so on at an exponential rate of growth! Ex-po-nen-tial. Yeeeesss. But essentially the small amount of bacteria (harmless, everywhere) has become, very quickly, a LARGE amount of bacteria.

This is because bacteria don't like to reproduce on the kitchen counter. I might, you might, but they dont!
They like to reproduce in a place with food and water that allows them to grow!

So my paint pot got sick, you see? And If I'm not careful, I could get sick too! All because few bacteria became a writhing mass of bacteria.
To review.
Small amount of bacteria good. Ok. Normal even.
Large amount of bacteria bad. Not ok. Harmful, even.
There is a large amount of bacteria in the wash I had tested. Bad. Not ok.

This, combined with the idea (that not everyone agrees with!) that poop, outside of a large intestine, toilet bowl, or really anywhere - Its not something most people would like to have contact with.
A test: Take some feces and rub it on your cheek. Whats that? You don't want that? Its gross? Ok, just rub it on your model then. Just a little. Again, no?
Well then I really don't see your continued objection to my having a problem with it being in my paint.

Ignoring your treating me like dog (offering me treats, saying good boy and the like) and other rule breaking shenanigans from you...

Archim3des wrote:Small amount of bacteria good. Ok. Normal even.
Large amount of bacteria bad. Not ok. Harmful, even.

Quite simply, 100% wrong. The first time kids learn about bacteria in school, they are informed that there are good bacteria and bad bacteria. There is a LARGE amount of bacteria in/on your skin. That's normal and good, because it takes up space and makes it hard for the bad stuff to grow there. There is a LARGE, EXTREMELY LARGE amount of bacteria in the gut. Which is good, because if it wasn't there, we'd all be in trouble. Or dead.


Personal attacks are against Dakka Dakka Rule #1. On the level of personal ethics, please extend to your opponent the same courtesies you demand of him. Thanks. ~Manchu

There is a large amount of bacteria in the wash I had tested. Bad. Not ok.

I guess I missed this before. What is this "large" amount of bacteria? What is considered large? Is that what microbiologists and infectious disease specialists consider large? What's the standard? Also, speaking of standards, how many samples are you going to test? Considering how there can be variation over the whole population of wash pots, and considering how your methods are not always perfect, how many samples are you going to test, and what's your protocol for testing them? When will we reach statistical significance?

Ratius wrote:I lol'd at some parts Archi but maybe tone down the sarcasm a tiny bit, it was a good post but still everyone has different levels of knowledge and that has to be considered too.

Short of spoon feeding the basic hygiene knowledge past a now banal "bacteria are everywhere1" level of understanding, I'm officially out of other methods.
Not having the knowledge is ok. Repeating false information over and over though... less ok.

Joe, when certain types of bacteria leave the gut, and re-enter the body by fecal-oral route, it becomes harmful, where before it was not.
Shigella Sonnei is one of these types of bacteria.
I'm testing six pots total. One, the original pot, and the five more that were sent off yesterday.

reds8n wrote: Let's try and keep to topic please people

<This.>

Last warning, folks - tone it down, or people are going to start losing posting privileges real quick. You're annoying quite a few mods simultaneously.

Archim3des wrote:Joe, when certain types of bacteria leave the gut, and re-enter the body by fecal-oral route, it becomes harmful, where before it was not.

True, they can be harmful. But dose is important. Drinking water can literally kill people, if they drink way too much of it. The mere presence of a bacteria in one pot is only one part of the story. Also, implying the smell is due to the bacteria is an assumption right now, is it not? (People have been implying this throughout the thread). No one, not even you, has done a study comparing the smell of pots with the bacteria found in the pots.

I'm testing six pots total. One, the original pot, and the five more that were sent off yesterday.

That's better than Mythbusters, who never do anything statistically significant on their show. The blow things up though so I'll give them a pass. But 6 is not exactly a gold star A+ study either. Since this is just hobbyists being curious, that's not a bad thing that the sample size is so low, but we have to be careful how much we can generalize this. Beyond that, I think it is important to find out, in a given contanimated pot, just how much is in there? I'll go back to my one example, the traces of cocaine on money is a funny, silly fact, but completely unimportant and useless from a health standpoint, since it is too small to have an effect on anyone.

I always assumed Devlin Mud was made by watering down manure

While its not a perfect fix, and cannot shield everyone, I am activating the ignore feature.
For me. For you.
I hope that you find peace, and wash your hands. I'm washing mine, on several fractalling levels of meaning.

I leave off with a quote from Ian McDiarmid that should cover any retort to this, as I no longer wish to argue.

Cannot shield everyone from what? Answering questions so people get a better understanding of the implications of your research? How strange you would avoid doing this.

In any case, I think we all can agree that we want folks to be fully informed. People should be aware of amounts of the contamination, not just the mere presence of it. Quantity and how it relates to the infectious dose level is orders of magnitude more useful than 'present' or 'not present' (things are harmless at certain doses, fatal at others, hurtful at some doses, helpful at others). This is a deeply important point that should not be neglected in the discussion.

Also, the method of sampling is important. Studies can contain flaws which lead to biased results. A couple of brief paragraphs on the method wouldn't be out of line, seeing as how easy it is for a person to introduce bacteria accidentally during a test. I am not super concerned with that here, but it should ALWAYS be a concern and always be mentioned.

And finally, and almost equally as important as dose/concentration, is the significance of the results. If my grand pappy smokes a pack a day and lives to 110, that's great for him, but it doesn't mean smoking is harmless in general. The sample size, of one, was too small to make generalizations. If 3 out of the 6 samples are contaminated in anyway, we need to be aware that this does not mean that 50% of all Delvan Mud jars are contaminated. It's too small a sample to say. Not to say the information isn't useful, but we need to be aware of its limitations. And like someone said way upthread, we shouldn't be against knowledge.

Joe Mama wrote:That's better than Mythbusters, who never do anything statistically significant on their show. The blow things up though so I'll give them a pass.

The Mythbusters crew have come out and said that A: Lots of the things they do (small scale tests epecially) are done enough times to get that statistically relevant result, but showing 100+ repetitions of anything in a 40 minute show would get real old, real fast.
B: With some of the larger ones, they simply don't have the space / time / budget / resources for too many tests, and/or simply need to prove it's possible.

But hey.

I look forward to the test results on the new bottles.

Ovion wrote:

Joe Mama wrote:That's better than Mythbusters, who never do anything statistically significant on their show. The blow things up though so I'll give them a pass.

The Mythbusters crew have come out and said that A: Lots of the things they do (small scale tests epecially) are done enough times to get that statistically relevant result, but showing 100+ repetitions of anything in a 40 minute show would get real old, real fast.
B: With some of the larger ones, they simply don't have the space / time / budget / resources for too many tests, and/or simply need to prove it's possible.

<text redacted; some humor just doesn't work in written form, and this used to be an example of that --Janthkin> thank you, I did not know that small scale tests are actually run many times by them. They don't seem to mention that on the show.

I am always looking forward to more results. But it isn't taboo to note the significance of any results.

I just think this thread is dangerous. A lot of the stuff being presented here is clearly posted in a way to try and influence other people which is a shame and completely defeats the purpose of this thread. There is only one biologist in this thread that seems to keep is head in place and not try to jump on conclusions.
Getting presence of poop bacteria in a pot shouldn't be that surprising. Most cities have water treatment systems, where poop and the likes are partially removed from the water to levels that are either not harmful or can be processed by mother nature. This water is then injected into rivers again from where it is collected downstream to serve a different city and although it is treated with Cl you will still get bacterial growth on it, including the ones that came from the poop in the first place.
Second the presence of the bacteria in the wash does not says anything about it's amount or even if it is growing there. You take a sample from the wash and you place on a plate filled with media suitable for bacteria to grow. Which does not mean they would or not would be growing. So far the only result we have from the light absorption it seem they don't grow, at least in the period tested.
Third I really doubt that the water used on paint is treated to kill bacteria.
Fourth the pots are not hermetically sealed so even without being opened bacteria can probably get into them. Remember paints dry on the current pots and you can get a dried pot from the store.

So so far the hypothesis that poop is in your wash and specially in large amounts seems to be missing supporting evidences. And even if it is it cannot be determined in which part of the process those bacteria were included. Finally no evidence that the smell is caused by the bacteria, try to UV treat a pot and see if the smells goes away might work as a test for this?
Hence can we please all calm down and wait for real data before jumping into conclusions?

UV treating the pots that smell (if indeed that is the cause of the smell in that specific pot) will kill of most bacteria. True.
But the dead bacteria are not magically transported out of the solution. Decomposing things smell. They smell... well, they smell like devlan mud.
Even if a pot has existed long enough that the bacteria have starved themselves out and all died, and contains no active bacteria, might still smell as a result of the bacteria living in it at one point.

I'm not suggesting, nor have I ever, that its what makes devlan mud smell.
I do think, based off my lab results and own personal findings, that it is possible for bacteria to exist in the pots. And not just S Sonnei, either.
The pots are translucent, which means algae might even be present.

Pots of GW paint are made in different places. Different available supplies.
Lets see if any regional data helps this along.
My pot of Devlan Mud came from France. Where did yours come from, and does it smell?

Archim3des wrote:
I do think, based off my lab results and own personal findings, that it is possible for bacteria to exist in the pots. And not just S Sonnei, either.
The pots are translucent, which means algae might even be present.

The question is then what should I expect this not to be the case?

Bacms wrote:Hence can we please all calm down and wait for real data before jumping into conclusions?

We aren't going to get any "real data" (statistically significant data), unless a wealthy Warhammer player decides to spend way too much time and money on this. More data however, is always interesting and always welcomed. (For me, especially on how much bacteria is in a pot, not just whether it is present or not.)

Sorry for not posting the results, but I've been busy doing other things in the lab.

I did a total cell count taken directly from three pots of wash, two are from my collection (Devlan Mud and Asurmen Blue) and another sample is taken from a pot of Devlan Mud from a local store that has been used by multiple people.

So, using phase-contrast microscopy I checked for cells under a counting chamber.

Devlan Mud (mine): 2.5 x 10^6 cell/cm3(ml)
Asurmen Blue (mine): 5 x 10^6 cell/cm3(ml)
Devlan Mud (store): 2.25 x 10^8 cell/cm3(ml)

This was taken as an average per large square from 20 counts.

I wanted to do a viable cell count but I couldn't get any more agar to grow the bacteria. Also the incubator was being used by someone actually doing research. I don't often use microbes since my research is in genetics so I have a tougher time getting materials for microbiology (I spend all my time amplifying DNA).

I still had some bacteria I grew on agar from earlier this week however, so I decided to identify them genetically using PCR and a handy-dandy database. I managed to grow five different strains:

Pityriosporum obiculare (a yeast, lives on your skin)
Corynebacterium acne (causes acne)
Staphylococcus aureus (very common bacteria)
Pseudomonas aeruginosa (causes some eye infections)
Staphylococcus pneumoniae (wasn't expecting this one )

The amplified DNA



Last sample is a control.

Snarky wrote:
Devlan Mud (mine): 2.5 x 10^6 cell/cm3(ml)
Asurmen Blue (mine): 5 x 10^6 cell/cm3(ml)
Devlan Mud (store): 2.25 x 10^8 cell/cm3(ml)

Staphylococcus pneumoniae (wasn't expecting this one )

Those numbers feel much closer to the truth than 120 cells per 12ML bottle. 225,000,000 cells per ml vs initial estimate of 10.
As for Staphylococcus pneumoniae, all I can say is what. the. hell.

Conforms to ASTM D-4236 my ass.

So Snarky what is your assessment, I'm a physicist so working at molecular scale is fine but bacteria is whole different scale unlike molecular level. So to me I need a comparative to make a relative judgement otherwise x10^6 could mean insignificant/normal/higher than what would be considered acceptable in the volume of cm3. It sounds small to me. But how many bacteria are in a normal batch of water? If it's sterilized I'm guessing close to zero, but tap water must have some bacteria even if it's tiny (I know we use flourine in the UK to keep teeth strong and also to reduce bacteria).

mwnciboo wrote:So Snarky what is your assessment, I'm a physicist so working at molecular scale is fine but bacteria is whole different scale unlike molecular level. So to me I need a comparative to make a relative judgement otherwise x10^6 could mean insignificant/normal/higher than what would be considered acceptable in the volume of cm3. It sounds small to me.

10^6 is on the low side, tap water has chemicals like chlorine to kill bacteria, but things like paint probably don't. I've admittedly left my wash open for hours on end so airborne bacteria have a hay-day entering moist containers.

Samples of 10^9 + where there are lots of bacteria are more cause for concern, while 10^6 is what I would say "safe".

Snarky wrote:
Samples of 10^9 + where there are lots of bacteria are more cause for concern, while 10^6 is what I would say "safe".

Your store bottle had microorganisms only slightly lower than that, again by a factor of ten. So accounting for some dying off in the delivery from manufacture to the store, would you say its possible that with even a modest 10% rate of decay in the numbers that the stuff is in fact being bottled with higher than what you list as a cause for concern?

The problem with my count is that I also counted non viable cells (i.e. dead cells)

In cell counts, you should discount these so my guess is that total viable cells is in fact, far lower.

For cell counts, sure.
But for purposes of potentially causing sickness in users?

IV vaccinations use inactive or dead cells, and work by introducing enough of the cells to cause a mild sickness that the body then overruns with antibodies. Dead pathogenic bacteria are still capable of being harmful. Again, I'm no biologist.

Archim3des wrote:Dead pathogenic bacteria are still capable of being harmful.

No doubt. But usually they are less capable of causing harm when dead. We don't want to have a count and pretend that it doesn't matter whether the bacteria are alive or dead. For example, 90% dead versus 90% alive is a big difference, since the main problem with bacteria is the concentration of them, the amount there, which determines the chance of infection. In some cases there may be toxins already secreted by the dead bacteria when they were alive, or immune reactions to dead bacteria components, but that's not why most people get sick from them. They get sick because enough living ones get inside someone and make it through the body's initial defenses.

Again, I'm no biologist.

Yes, we know, not sure we need constant reminders though.

Archim3des wrote:For cell counts, sure.
But for purposes of potentially causing sickness in users?

IV vaccinations use inactive or dead cells, and work by introducing enough of the cells to cause a mild sickness that the body then overruns with antibodies. Dead pathogenic bacteria are still capable of being harmful. Again, I'm no biologist.

I'm sorry but both statements are wrong.

Vaccinations work by introducing dead bacteria and their antigens (note, antigens are not toxins, they are anything that generate antibodies including the bacteria itself hence the name anti-gen [antibody generations]) cause an immune response. Naive T cells turn into memory T cells and form receptors that deal with the bacteria or anything foreign (anything it doesn't recognize as part of the body).

Antibodies are just a side product of the dead cells.

The disease symptoms are introduced when the bacteria was formerly alive, it would have produced toxins that still exist. Since it is impossible to destroy the toxins or inactivate them without destroying the bacterial cells usually, they are also introduced and cause mild illness. This goes away after a few days as the toxins are removed by the immune system.

Therefore, dead cells = not a big deal. They won't cause disease although if the toxin is present, they still might cause disease like symptoms which are different.

Can someone give me a quick summary of this?

Is it that the washes contain a lot of bacteria that causes the smell, or have I missed something?

RaptorsTallon wrote:Can someone give me a quick summary of this?

Is it that the washes contain a lot of bacteria that causes the smell, or have I missed something?

Ok, here's what I have gathered from all the information presented (plus a little digging by myself)

The washes are innately smelly. A sterile wash is just as bad smelling as a wash with bacteria inside it.

Some people have wash with a lot of bacteria inside it, but don't worry about it, usually these are just aerobic bacteria floating about.

For you brush lickers out there who want to know if it's safe to do so or not? My advice?

Best not to. A wash that smells particularly bad might have a nasty bacteria like E.Coli inside it and ingesting it may give you a stomach ache.


My conclusion? I'd say bacteria doesn't make the wash smell bad. It's probably the pigment more likely that causes the smell as the bacteria simply are not metabolizing the paint to create a smelly by product.

Bacteria do not smell by themselves. They need to metabolize a intermediate to create a smelly product.

Snarky wrote:

RaptorsTallon wrote:Can someone give me a quick summary of this?

Is it that the washes contain a lot of bacteria that causes the smell, or have I missed something?

Ok, here's what I have gathered from all the information presented (plus a little digging by myself)

The washes are innately smelly. A sterile wash is just as bad smelling as a wash with bacteria inside it.

Some people have wash with a lot of bacteria inside it, but don't worry about it, usually these are just aerobic bacteria floating about.

For you brush lickers out there who want to know if it's safe to do so or not? My advice?

Best not to. A wash that smells particularly bad might have a nasty bacteria like E.Coli inside it and ingesting it may give you a stomach ache.


My conclusion? I'd say bacteria doesn't make the wash smell bad. It's probably the pigment more likely that causes the smell as the bacteria simply are not metabolizing the paint to create a smelly by product.

Bacteria do not smell by themselves. They need to metabolize a intermediate to create a smelly product.

Thanks, so the smell is more from the chemical make up than from any bacteria living in the paint pot.

I can't seriously believe this thread went on this long.

The answer is so simple. Looking at the facts we can arrive at a good conclusion.

Devlan Mud = brown.
feces = brown.
bacteria eat and emit feces.

Just bottle some bacteria up with something for the little buggers to eat and presto you will have brown smelly "paint". Need a different color? Mix some food coloring in for the bacteria to eat.

On a more serious note: Snarky - I feel smarter for having read your posts. Kudos.

Snarky, you've been really helpful here, so please don't take this the wrong way. I think some of your information about harmful doses is way, way off. Not particularly your fault, since you're not a biologist but a neurologist, and I've also had some errors in my information. Namely that dead bacteria can cause a problem, rather than the toxins they leave behind. I was unaware, and posted my misconception as fact.

So here's a few facts I learned through about 5 minutes of searching online.

Shigella sonnei’s infectivity dose is very low; as few as 100-200 bacteria are needed to cause a clinical infection, shigellosis.

also

Shigella sonnei is spread mostly by means of fecal-oral transmission. Other possible modes of transmission can be from ingestion of contaminated food or water, and subcutaneous contact with inanimate objects and, most rarely, sexual contact (18).

also

Shigella sonnei, like all the other Shigella species, excrete shiga toxin that causes inflammatory response to the enteric cell wall and necrotic cell death of the colonic epithelium (2). The necrotic cell death is an extremely messy death for the cell due to the massive spill-out of all the intracellular content upon its death; as the result, it attracts the body’s cytokine-mediated immune response to clean up the mess; however, the cleaning up process of cell debris also causes a large local enteric inflammatory response that contributes to the shigellosis disease progression.

So that makes me wonder the precise degree that I'm wrong on the points previously mentioned Snarky.
10^9 bacteria is a problem, you say. 10,000,000,000 bacteria. Ten billion. But you found 10^8 bacteria in your store bottle. 1 billion. Lets say that 99% of those are dead. That leaves us with a paltry ten million active bacteria. 50,000 to 100,000 potential infectious doses. How many times can YOU dip your brush before running out?

That second quote snippet covers the concerns I had with it being transmittable by brush licking even a small amount, or by touching a model it has been brushed on (within 7 weeks, per montaro). Yikes.

The last part covers a particular aspect of the bacteria in question. That it does not go quietly when it dies. It leaves behind a rather large amount of toxic material. And by "it" I mean every single one of the remaining 990 Million bacteria that are inactive cells. And by inactive cells, I mean exploded toxic waste bags. Material that would not be destroyed by bleach, UV light, or even a old priest and a young priest. Its a particularly nasty little bug. So while ingesting the husks of dead bacteria would NOT be bad for you, as I had claimed, ingesting the entire contents of its cell wall which it spews out upon death WOULD be.

Here's my source on that, by the way http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Shigella_sonnei.

Again, Snarky, I appreciate much of what you've added to the thread. You're the only other individual doing tests at all. The initial batch of tests was pretty abysmal, but you went back and did your homework on it. I can't thank you enough for that. But please do take a second look into the points you've told me I'm wrong on. Almost every other biologist in the world would seem to disagree with you on a lot of it.

this has notting to do with the talked post here but my sister whas ones rusht to the hospitlal because they thouth she had an appendix but it turned out her stomach had instead of the normal 5% of bacteria she had 200%, and it came from her bowls, her bowls where pushing it into her stomach, she had a small growth between her stomach and bowls, as of today they still dont know what it whas?? and its been two years.

converter wrote:This has nothing to do with the originally discussed post, but my sister was once rushed to the hospital because they thought that she had an appendix, but it turned out that her stomach contained 200% of normal bacteria levels. This extra bacteria was originating from her bowls. Her bowls were pushing the excess bacteria into her stomach, and she had a small growth between her stomach and bowls. As of today they still don't know what was causing this, and they've been investigating for two years now.

We all have an appendix, unless it was removed at some point. The word that should be in the red section of the quote is appendicitis. Although i sympathize w/ the rushing to hospital. I had appendicitis when I was 6. Really, REALLY painful. I hope they find out why this was happening to your sister (Sorry for the revisions, I'm a bit of a Grammar Nazi).

Back on topic, I find the work done by both Archim3des and Snarky to be very informative. This is an educational thread, even if it addresses a topic some may frown upon (just get over it, guys. Fun for fun's sake). Personally, I am picking up several interesting facts from this thread to take with me back to my Chemistry class. Great work, both of you. I look forward to any additional information on the subject.

I am a biologist not a neurologist, not sure where you got that from....

There are many bacteria living in a surface or medium. The 10 billion there may be 99.99% commensals, bacteria that do no harm to you whatsoever. That 0.01% may include various bad bacteria that would cause serious harm. You have to understand, it's very difficult to quantify bacteria in solution, as microbiology techniques can only get you so far. Doing a total count using microscopy will only identify cells rather than strains.

I was commenting that 10^6 - 10^9 bacteria of all types is in general, a safe limit. As others have put before, bacteria are everywhere. In fact, humans share 70% of their DNA with bacteria. A safe limit of 10^6 - 10^9 cells of all bacteria is a safe limit in liquids is what I was implying, not 10^6 + cells of a very specific strain that causes disease.

When identifying bacteria, you have to do quite a lot, including serial dilutions and growing the bacteria on agar plates. I think Gymnogyps brushed on that earlier on in this thread.

You have to stop focusing on that one bacteria your lab found, trust me. There are lots more bacteria inside that pot of wash, most of them completely harmless. If you really did have nothing but Shigella in your wash and at high concentrations, I'd have to wonder what's going on, but what is likely is that the lab discounted commensal organisms like S.Aureus and gave you results of the most notable bacteria.

Also, first thing they teach you at uni with science is don't trust websites, I've got a review article highlighting how shigella gets you if you're still interested at the link below.

Trust me on this, if all 10^8 of that store bacteria was highly pathogenic bacteria that causes disease in healthy humans, then we would have a major epidemic akin to the black plague of the middle ages.

http://www.mediafire.com/?v0sfsvaz132pnk6

I'm not going to download a mediafire PDF... I dont trust websites
I DO trust the CDC and the first ten websites I see when I search for "Infectious dose of Shigella."
They all say it's between 10-200 cells.

So .001 percent of 1 billion... Ten thousand cells out of all of them that are actually shigella. I'll give you that, sure.
That's still up to 1000 infectious doses of it in the bottle. I can only dip my brush around 100 times, so that's still 10 doses per dip.
Edit: you said .001% of 10 billion, so using your numbers it's 100 doses a dip, potentially.

You ARE doing the math on this , right?
I only ask because you said before that there were 100 cells in the sample, and blamed lunch math.

Alright, so after having browsed this thread, and read the reactions, I'm going to try and look in to this. Now, I don't have any "fresh" paint pots just purchased, but I do have several Devlan muds I got about a year ago that I haven't touched yet. And I do have ready access to agar, and happen to be the NCOIC of Microbiology at the local Lab. I'll streak them up and see what I can find. Once I get growth, and results, I'll post the results from a Microbiology standpoint. As well as what it would mean for the average user.

Archim3des wrote:I'm not going to download a mediafire PDF... I dont trust websites
I DO trust the CDC and the first ten websites I see when I search for "Infectious dose of Shigella."
They all say it's between 10-200 cells.

Can you please clarify what is your really interest in this topic? It is clearly that you are ignoring evidence and trying to convince everyone that probably the best selling product on GW range is dangerous and should not be used. Plus you are spending money, and it is not cheap, to send samples to a microbiology lab for trying and get some evidence. Can we actually see the report you have from the lab? Did they really only identified the bacteria you are talking about? Seriously this thread should have been locked ages ago.

Bacms wrote:Can you please clarify what is your really interest in this topic? It is clearly that you are ignoring evidence and trying to convince everyone that probably the best selling product on GW range is dangerous and should not be used. Plus you are spending money, and it is not cheap, to send samples to a microbiology lab for trying and get some evidence. Can we actually see the report you have from the lab? Did they really only identified the bacteria you are talking about? Seriously this thread should have been locked ages ago.

My real initial interest in this topic was "What makes Devlan Mud Smell?".
I had the means to look at it under a microscope, and saw bacteria. I sent it off to be tested.
No, shigella was not the only bacteria identified. Just like Snarky's report, other things came back as well. Its ridiculous for you to take that idea.

I am by no means trying to fearmonger or advise people against buying Devlan Mud, or any other GW paint. I've got a fresh pot now. It doesn't smell.
I do find it interesting that there is such a strong response to the effects of "Bacteria are everywhere, don't worry" and "There's nothing wrong with fecal bacteria being able to grow in your paint". Why does it evoke such suspicion and outrage on your part, if I may ask? I'm being slightly argumentative, sure. But only on very specific topics, mostly defending against attacks based in ignorance or misinformation. You're doing that now. Please quote where I said " the best selling product on GW range is dangerous and should not be used", as you claim. You can't! Because I never did. You'll find a lot of my questioning how it got in MY wash, asking people who would know better than I, and my OPINION that getting fecal bacteria in a wash is fairly gross.

I still think its possible that bacterial infections might cause the wash to smell. Others with lab equipment clearly think its a possibility. Doesn't even have to be the same ones I found. Just ANY bacteria. Stuff living and dying and decomposing. Its been said many times that some new washes have no odor, but can develop them over time. That would indicate not a chemical component smell. Acrylic paint is so named due to the components used to permanently fuse the pigment and solution. Operative word there is permanent, as in, won't degrade over time to produce a smell where before there was none. Snnarky tested a blue paint that is a solid pigment, not a wash. No smell mentioned. Is it maybe only bacteria that are getting sunlight due to the washes translucency versus the solid pigments opacity? I don't know, neither do you. Maybe its only a specific TYPE of bacteria that causes the smell, and in this case a specific remedy could be implemented. Information that would actually be to the benefit of all.

But no. No I won't publicly post a picture of the initial findings, piss off. I've said before that I'd be hesitant to post this, though I think it was deleted along with some vitriol. This is mostly to cover my own ass. Its also the reason I've always been very general rather than specific, always specifying just my pot of paint, etc. I've talked via PM with several people who wanted to know specifics, asked politely, and got what they asked for. Your demand to see it in the same breath as the demand to shut down the thread does not impress me in the slightest. Further, you accuse me of ignoring evidence. Perhaps you mean questioning statements made and accepting the answers I receive on some while pursuing deeper explanation on others. Snarky said initially that there were by his estimate 100 bacteria in the wash. I said "I think thats a bit off" (scandalous!) and he went back and actually did tests that put the number at about 1 billion instead. 100 versus 1 billion. A rather large gap in the information provided, hmm? Good thing someone asked, I guess.

I'm awaiting the mailman to deliver the rest of the results today.

Bacms wrote:Can you please clarify what is your really interest in this topic? It is clearly that you are ignoring evidence and trying to convince everyone that probably the best selling product on GW range is dangerous and should not be used. Plus you are spending money, and it is not cheap, to send samples to a microbiology lab for trying and get some evidence. Can we actually see the report you have from the lab? Did they really only identified the bacteria you are talking about? Seriously this thread should have been locked ages ago.

I don't think this thread should be locked, just because one or more posters is arguing their point in a way that dismisses opposing evidence, if that were a rule, half the threads would be locked here! If someone gets 'tunnel vision' or makes other tremendously biased points, better to point out the errors, as you have, than shut the whole conversation down.


The 'take home' message from this thread should first be, bacteria are everywhere, almost all of them are not harmful (and some are necessary for us to live).

Second, good science is hard work. That means rigorous studies with a stastically significant (usually 100s or more) samples, with an awareness of the flaws and/or limitations in the testing. As in here, where barely any samples are tested and concentrations of bacteria are unavailable or not precise. When people do good science, this limitations are made known, they are NOT hidden away. They are not a reason to get angry at someone for mentioning them.

Third, if anyone is worried about the result of one harmful bacteria found in one pot, in an unknown quanitity, than don't ingest your washes and don't lick your brushes. It may well be as Snarky said, where if the Shigella is in every pot in the amount the seemingly paranoid / overly worried Arch fears, a huge number of people in the Warhammer community would be ill. But hey, the reality is maybe there is a lesser risk, where someone has a 1 in 1000 chance of getting infected while doing this. We don't know. But to be safe, don't lick your brushes.

This thread started out really well, had me hooked for a while and then the OP got all condescending and it went downhil from there.

Archim3des wrote:No, shigella was not the only bacteria identified. Just like Snarky's report, other things came back as well. Its ridiculous for you to take that idea.

This is a sin of omission. Constantly harping on the presence of one bacteria, without acknowleding at the same time that many other bacteria were found, is not disclosing information properly. People will reasonably be worried about bias when this happens.

"There's nothing wrong with fecal bacteria being able to grow in your paint".

Who is claiming fecal bacteria are growing in the paint? Where has this been established? Is this another assumption treated as fact by you? Please don't complain about people mischaracterizing your words, when you seem to be mischaracterizing the whole discussion at times.

And no. No I won't publicly post a picture of the initial findings, piss off.

After a long and reasonable passage where you talk about the smell of the wash and the interest in figuring out where it comes from, you write this deeply troubling sentence. I really wish you didn't go back and forth between reasonableness and outright disdain for the scientific process. There is 'peer review' for a reason. Keeping information secret is not helpful.

Rayvon wrote:This thread started out really well, had me hooked for a while and then the OP got all condescending and it went downhil from there.

Sorry to have lost you then. I'll agree I've lost my cool a few times throughout the thread, exasperated by the banality of having to explain that not all bacteria are innocuous, and that sometimes things that might not be expressly harmful may be tangibly unpleasant.
Had you hooked for a while? How long? For the first three pages, before the incessant argument of "bacteria are everywhere, don;t worry what you're putting on your models or in your mouth" kept cropping up?

I'm truly sorry if my questioning what I'm told has come off as condescending. You'll note that I keep a very respectful tone with Snarky, even though his information has at times been very wrong, his math of by a degree of ten or several times that. He is still providing useful information and opening new channels of questioning.
Other times, I was less respectful whilst trying to cudgel a concept through rather thick skulls, stooping so low as to resort to treating forum members like a dim, inattentive puppy. I regret losing my composure in these moments, but will point out with a grin that while I was told not to do it, the text remains. I like to think because there is a modicum of truth to it.

Snarky wrote:

RaptorsTallon wrote:Can someone give me a quick summary of this?

Is it that the washes contain a lot of bacteria that causes the smell, or have I missed something?

Ok, here's what I have gathered from all the information presented (plus a little digging by myself)

The washes are innately smelly. A sterile wash is just as bad smelling as a wash with bacteria inside it.

Some people have wash with a lot of bacteria inside it, but don't worry about it, usually these are just aerobic bacteria floating about.

For you brush lickers out there who want to know if it's safe to do so or not? My advice?

Best not to. A wash that smells particularly bad might have a nasty bacteria like E.Coli inside it and ingesting it may give you a stomach ache.


My conclusion? I'd say bacteria doesn't make the wash smell bad. It's probably the pigment more likely that causes the smell as the bacteria simply are not metabolizing the paint to create a smelly by product.

Bacteria do not smell by themselves. They need to metabolize a intermediate to create a smelly product.

Thanks, Snarky, you're the man!! Any thoughts on what would cause some pots to smell worse than others, or to smell worse over time?

As to the PCR pic, I see those at work every day but, not being a bio person at all, I still don't know what it really shows . Nice to see the results, though!

@ Archim3des- I'm with Bacms, unfortunately it Does seem to me that you are fearmongering, rather than pursuing a scientific result from an unbiased viewpoint. Sharing the results of the test would go a long way towards dispelling that (very strong) impression that you're giving, and allow others to check it. It's your choice to do so or not, of course, but if you're not going to share the results of the test there's little point talking about what it yielded, since it can't be verified.

Ninja'ed, as to this:

Archim3des wrote:I'm truly sorry if my questioning what I'm told has come off as condescending. You'll note that I keep a very respectful tone with Snarky, even though his information has at times been very wrong, his math of by a degree of ten or several times that. He is still providing useful information and opening new channels of questioning.

You're both supposed to be on the same "side" (that of a scientist investigating a question/hypothesis) and I'm not sure why you keep bringing this up. His math was off on one calculation, and the reason we know that is because he shared all his data. If you would do the same, it would be really helpful because then people could check your lab's results as well. In short, no need to bring this up again, as you've done so many times now.

Archim3des wrote:so low as to resort to treating forum members like a dim, inattentive puppy. I regret losing my composure in these moments, but will point out with a grin that while I was told not to do it, the text remains. I like to think because there is a modicum of truth to it.

*facepalm*

Kids, for those keeping score. The mods told this guy not to do something again or else he'd be suspended, and they left the offending text up as a warning to others for them not to do the same, and this guy is proud of this?

Between the above nonsense and the insistence of Arch on taking sides, rather than being concerned with a collective effort to find the truth, it appears that his standing here is rapidly plummeting to the level of worthless. I sincerely hope he starts behaving in such a way so he can be taken seriously again.

RiTides wrote:
@ Archim3des- I'm with Bacms, unfortunately it Does seem to me that you are fearmongering, rather than pursuing a scientific result from an unbiased viewpoint. Sharing the results of the test would go a long way towards dispelling that (very strong) impression that you're giving, and allow others to check it. It's your choice to do so or not, of course, but if you're not going to share the results of the test there's little point talking about what it yielded, since it can't be verified.

I'll grant you every word of that as absolute truth. It may mean the unfortunate demise of my credibility, but I'll take that as opposed to exposing myself to litigation by providing the evidence I have. Just my say so can be taken or left at anyone's will. I will not however post lab findings, which have been pointed out as not being statistically significant, along with my personal concerns over finding what I did.
Right now its a matter of if GW took action against me, they say "Hes spewing lies about our product" and I provide the paperwork to dispel their argument, showing that I do indeed have results showing this.
Providing the document gives up this protection, as it then becomes lumped in with the case of "he is displaying his non statistically significant findings as hard proof", in addition to words that can be construed as fearmongering.

I'll say that I've discussed it privately via PM with several interested parties who seem satisfied with my explanation of the report. If they wish to name themselves, they may (and I'd appreciate it). Past that, I can only apologize that I can't be more complete.

Archim3des wrote:but I'll take that as opposed to exposing myself to litigation by providing the evidence I have.

This is absolute nonsense, by the way. One test, by one guy, of one (or a dozen pots), in a completely unscientific manner, and this guy thinks a lawsuit has a chance in hell of happening? Hogwash. If this were true, companies could sue the hundreds of thousands of high school and college age kids each year who sample products for the presence of bacteria in various science classes.

No one would seriously be worried about a lawsuit here. Unfortunately this is just further evidence of the OP not willing to continue in good faith


Edited to add - Libel (written defamation) doesn't rely on evidence anyway. If actual evidence supporting claims is present that SHIELDS a person from defamation. For example, if I go around claiming my neighbor is engaged in 57 affairs, I could theoretically be sued. If I claim this while posting actual photos of his affairs, I have spoken the truth, and a lawsuit would have no chance against me. The point of my little example is that Arch has the law exactly backwards here.

Actually, thinking about it, I'd be comfortable with a MOD locking down the thread.
I'm not gonna post in it anymore, as having any kind of investment in it makes me pretty tired.

I'll leave off by saying I weep for science, because no one seems to care about why the washes smell after all, or what is in them. Just about arguing.
Sure, the washes could harbor some nasty critters, but who cares. Not you.
Sure, by finding out if one or more of these is the cause of the smell could provide an easy fix to the problem, making the "God Juice" (love that term) even more of a best seller. But we wont, because its more fun to spout platitudes of third grade biology.
Sure, we can ask for mathematical precision and accuracy of statements, but that's boring too. No need to back anything up, just say its wrong. Repeatedly. Remember that the louder and more often you say something the truer it becomes, because no one will spend 5 minutes looking up anything to learn otherwise.

Archim3des wrote:I'm not gonna post in it anymore, as having any kind of investment in it makes me pretty tired.

This is actually a good thing, as only you seem to be anti-science here. Everyone else wants the free flow of information and a rational discussion of the plusses and minuses of a given piece of information or method.

I was going to slice and dice the rest of your 'sour grapes' type commentary, but really there is no point. Let's all stick to evidence and see what we can find.

Joe Mama wrote:

Archim3des wrote:I'm not gonna post in it anymore, as having any kind of investment in it makes me pretty tired.

This is actually a good thing, as only you seem to be anti-science here. Everyone else wants the free flow of information and a rational discussion of the plusses and minuses of a given piece of information or method.

I was going to slice and dice the rest of your 'sour grapes' type commentary, but really there is no point. Let's all stick to evidence and see what we can find.

Quite agree, theres just no way to reply to these kinds of things.

Id like to thank snarky for his unbiased scientific opinion on this subject tho, those posts have been very interesting.

I weep for science and logic when evidence is not presented and we'll just assume "in good faith" that it is the truth, because Devlan Mud will kill you y'all.

Gonna chuck my two cents into the pile on the side of Archim3des.
Good job for holding people accountable, mate.
To be fair, no one has offered any actual proof of anything.
Snarky can say hes "an actual biologist" but all of his information can be provided via google. Information, by the was, that has undergone several iterations of revisions.
A biologist, any biologist, claiming that there are 100 cells in a pot of paint, and then going back and saying "Oh, no, I meant one billion, not one hundred." is one that should be under review. Thats not a mistake that I think could be made by doing math wrong at lunch. Thats akin to showing up with a "bridge to mars" and bringing a toothpick, and then being surprised that a toothpick wasnt an adequate bridge. His not knowing the infectious dose and saying "dont trust CDC/websites" worries me as well, combined with the fact that that mediafire download showed up as containing a virus when I scanned it. More than I'd want to see Archim3des lab results( which I would), I'd want to see credentials of anyone making these kinds of mistakes.

Archim3des is making good points, asking good questions, and is taking repeated slams from the same 5 people (potential GW shills?), one of whoms very name is a "Yo mama" joke. I'll bet that guy thinks things through super hard, and would neeeeever troll! He made reference to Scientology (the religion) as though it were the study of science. Super funny that anyone would even consider taking him seriously. What a tool. Even freely interchanges libel and slander as if they were the same thing. My 7 year old know they aren't from watching Spiderman.

If you ask me, Gymnogyps is really the only one that has presented a solid, unchallengable scientific outlook, and he seems to think there's something to this. Not the "fearmongering" aspect (even if it were, fear of having feces in my mouth is uh... pretty primal), but to the fact that the smell could be from bacteria. If the smell really is from chemical components, why do none of the other paints famously smell?

Recent Conversion wrote:Gonna chuck my two cents into the pile on the side of Archim3des.
Good job for holding people accountable, mate.
To be fair, no one has offered any actual proof of anything.
Snarky can say hes "an actual biologist" but all of his information can be provided via google. Information, by the was, that has undergone several iterations of revisions.
A biologist, any biologist, claiming that there are 100 cells in a pot of paint, and then going back and saying "Oh, no, I meant one billion, not one hundred." is one that should be under review. Thats not a mistake that I think could be made by doing math wrong at lunch. Thats akin to showing up with a "bridge to mars" and bringing a toothpick, and then being surprised that a toothpick wasnt an adequate bridge. His not knowing the infectious dose and saying "dont trust CDC/websites" worries me as well, combined with the fact that that mediafire download showed up as containing a virus when I scanned it. More than I'd want to see Archim3des lab results( which I would), I'd want to see credentials of anyone making these kinds of mistakes.

Hmm.. well it shouldn't have, it's a scientific journal I uploaded myself.

Anyway, I did have some mathematics errors before but that was only one mistake. If you don't believe I am a biologist, ask Ketara a mod. I study at the same university as he does.

I don't know why people keep picking up on that one point, it's very easy to divide by 100 instead of 10 when you accidentally hit an extra 0 on your calculator.

One can provide good points and good questions but unless one provides evidence to support his points, it is useless.

I mean, claiming that a pot of paint contains harmful bacteria that are present in harmful levels is a claim, the same way that saying I'm a chicken and I taste like bacon is a claim. Without evidence to back it up, it's just that... a claim.

As a reminder, to adhere to the Dakka rules, please avoid any personal comments or insults toward other members.

I've spent many years working with a lot of different paints and inks, and I know full well that certain inks and washes can and will go "bad." I've always assumed that this was because something in those inks was edible to certain kinds of bacteria, and while I've never been concerned for my health I have been curious as to why some inks will become disgusting blobs of bacterio-slime more readily than others, and more importantly; if there was anything that could be done to preserve the ink without effecting the pigment or emulsion. (Alcohol can sometimes separate pigments or change how inks behave, flow, pool and dry, bleach will destroy pigment.)

I was happy to see anyone was looking into the matter, until I actually got into the thread and saw that it was really a science-penis waving contest.

It's okay to have pride in the work you're trying to do, and it's okay to argue your case when presented with a debate, but when you start obsessing about other people's motives, opinions and criticism to the point that mods step in and the community starts viewing the thread as a sideshow, it's time to say "Okay, this person has their case, I have mine, here's what I learned and the methods that I used." and move on.

In most debates it's left up to the audience to make their own conclusions based on evidence presented and discussed. So trust us, we're smart people out here, we have means and tools to make up our own minds.

Recent Conversion wrote:Gonna chuck my two cents into the pile on the side of Archim3des.

With 8 posts to your name here, that means a lot. (And isn't suspicious at all, either). And also, useless, as there should be no "sides" here at all, just sharing of info to increase understanding.

Snarky can say hes "an actual biologist" but all of his information can be provided via google. Information, by the was, that has undergone several iterations of revisions. etc; etc; etc; (I couldn't bring myself to repost the rest of this)

Er... ok, so not just support for one guy, slamming another guy.

one of whoms very name is a "Yo mama" joke. I'll bet that guy thinks things through super hard, and would neeeeever troll! He made reference to Scientology (the religion) as though it were the study of science. Super funny that anyone would even consider taking him seriously. What a tool. Even freely interchanges libel and slander as if they were the same thing. My 7 year old know they aren't from watching Spiderman.

Er.. ok, so not just support for one guy, slamming two guys. (Also, what besides personal attacks, is the content of the above paragraph?)

If you ask me, Gymnogyps is really the only one that has presented a solid, unchallengable scientific outlook

Psst. Hint. There is no such thing as unchallengable in science. Anywhoo, a post like yours is exactly what we don't need here. You're pointing fingers, slamming people, and making it personal. Free sharing of information is what we want. Not, hiding things and telling people to "piss off". So why don't we try to keep this thread open for what is important?

This thread should be locked, tied up, gassed, and thrown down a well.

Terraformer wrote:This thread should be locked, tied up, gassed, and thrown down a well.

Well if all we are going to get is comments like yours, or the one from 'Recent Conversion' then I agree. But why not hold out hope for more science?

Because this stopped being about science many pages ago.

I would take the time to do a few examinations myself having some knowledge of microbiology but I don't really fancy going out and buying several pots of devlan mud.

Terraformer wrote:Because this stopped being about science many pages ago.

Yep

I'm guessing this is a YMMV job, cuz I just had a sniff of my Devlan Mud wash and it barely smells of anything. Less scented than any of the other washes I've used. Compared to the smell of the 90s washes, it's tame. Maybe I just got a lucky pot.

Thank you for looking into it. My Adeptus Battlegrey smells terrible, that might be similar to this.

Any used paint pot is going to be crawling with bacteria. Even if people don't stick their paintbrush in their mouth people handle figures and paintbrushes with their hands, and people's hands tend to collect more bacteria than any other part of the body. The moral of the story is don't stick paintbrushes in your mouth.

As far as Devlan Mud goes maybe there is some manufacturer's contamination going on, but that doesn't matter because it's Devlan Mud. If it was Hawk Turquoise or Scorpion Green that was the problem go ahead and demand GW fixes it, but the paint in question is Devlan Mud. The player base loves Devlan Mud so much they don't want GW to screw with it in any way, shape, or form including renaming it. Proof as evidenced by the following thread.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/421259.page

So my point is Devlan Mud can be crawling with any bacteria short of Cholera and/or could come out of the butt of a giant alien slug and the player base would object to any changes in the recipe or manufacturing process.

How Devlan Mud is really made....

Joe Mama wrote:

Archim3des wrote:but I'll take that as opposed to exposing myself to litigation by providing the evidence I have.

This is absolute nonsense, by the way. One test, by one guy, of one (or a dozen pots), in a completely unscientific manner,

Why do you keep clinging to the "unscientific" methodology involved? I don't remember the OP claiming he was doing a statistically relevant sampling. Nor is it necessary to have a statistically relevant sampling to prove something as simple as "One or more pots of Devlan Mud have fecal bacteria in them before they've been used".

Terraformer wrote:
In most debates it's left up to the audience to make their own conclusions based on evidence presented and discussed. So trust us, we're smart people out here, we have means and tools to make up our own minds.

The problem with this particular debate is that the audience has been actively involved in ignoring the evidence, and arguing in the most obtuse manner imaginable: questioning the OP's motives and posting the utterly remedial non-information that "bacteria is everywhere". Yeah, thanks for the first grade science lesson, Audience, if we need more we'll watch Fox news.

Seriously, the number of people who seem to be arguing against the OP just for the sake of arguing against him is phenomenal. He posted that he found poo-bacteria in his unused paint. Not interested in the topic? Don't like his conclusions? Don't read this thread and don't post!

These washes stink. Some stink worse than others. If the reason is bacterial, that's fascinating even if it's not especially important.

More upsetting, and obviously missed by the "bacteria are everywhere" crowd, is that someone else found Staphylococcus pneumoniae in his pot of paint. Again, not a statistically significant sampling, but irrelevant because the number of paintpots that SHOULD contain this particular strain of bacterium is ZERO. As I previously said, I tend to aerosolize these washes in an airbrush...

You can't ignore evidence that has never been presented! I haven't seen any evidence that shows that it indeed has harmful bacteria besides the OP saying "yeah, it totally has." And that's unscientific.

You could understand why people are skeptical to believe something with no evidence.

heartserenade wrote:You can't ignore evidence that has never been presented! I haven't seen any evidence that shows that it indeed has harmful bacteria besides the OP saying "yeah, it totally has." And that's unscientific.

You could understand why people are skeptical to believe something with no evidence.

No, I couldn't. People believe things with no evidence every day of the week. I think people are just being contrarian for the sake of it.

Skepticism as has been displayed in this thread won't be satisfied by any level of evidence - especially evidence that very few of us could understand anyway. If he posted some pictures of southern blots and streaks up a screen, would you understand them? If he posted pictures of bacteria to back his claim up would you believe them? You could just as easily say that he doctored some pictures off the internet.

If it comes down to not believing him, why would you believe his evidence? Couldn't you easily claim he was getting samples from his lab and just randomly making things up?

Basically, if you don't trust the messenger in the first place, there's no degree of evidence that he can provide that'll satisfy you anyway. The OP doesn't have an ax to grind or a vendetta to fulfill (though he's been accused of that too), so I don't see the point in disbelieving him. All the disbelievers are basically polluting the thread with skepticism and it's understandably pissed the OP off. You could answer just about any statement with "prove it" or "I don't believe you" and just about the only thing it does is create an argument over nothing for nothing.

All the skeptics - if they were really questioning in the name of science - would go and run their own lab tests with which to refute the obviously insane claims that the OP has made.

angryboy2k wrote:
No, I couldn't. People believe things with no evidence every day of the week. I think people are just being contrarian for the sake of it.

Skepticism as has been displayed in this thread won't be satisfied by any level of evidence - especially evidence that very few of us could understand anyway. If he posted some pictures of southern blots and streaks up a screen, would you understand them? If he posted pictures of bacteria to back his claim up would you believe them? You could just as easily say that he doctored some pictures off the internet.

Since he hasn't, we would never know.

If it comes down to not believing him, why would you believe his evidence? Couldn't you easily claim he was getting samples from his lab and just randomly making things up?

Evidence does not prove that a claim is 100% true, since that is impossible. However, it will support the claim, making it more likely to be true. Seriously, if you would read the early parts of this thread most posters were supporting the OP and would like to know his findings, so I don't see why any grounds to your claim that everyone will just disbelieve him out of principle even if he presents solid evidence.

And such is the nature of evidence. Of course you can question its credibility. Being afraid of being questioned about the credibility of your evidence questions the credibility of your evidence more. Skepticism is necessary to separate bogus claims from the truth. Consider for example, a reversed role that everyone would just assume that what everyone's saying is true. If that's the case then I am rich, I look like a super model, I have powers of a Super Saiyan and I also breathe in water.

No one should be afraid of skepticism if you're saying the truth and you have solid evidence to back it up.

All the skeptics - if they were really questioning in the name of science - would go and run their own lab tests with which to refute the obviously insane claims that the OP has made.

No. the OP made a claim. The burden of proof is his to prove it. If it is the truth it wouldn't matter if we believe him or not: truth does not change even if you disbelieve in it. And people with sense in them would recognize it and would at the very least consider if what the OP is saying is, in fact, true.

This thread had all the hallmarks of becoming really fun and interesting.

Too bad...

angryboy2k wrote:Why do you keep clinging to the "unscientific" methodology involved? I don't remember the OP claiming he was doing a statistically relevant sampling. Nor is it necessary to have a statistically relevant sampling to prove something as simple as "One or more pots of Devlan Mud have fecal bacteria in them before they've been used".

Oh, another guy with a tiny number of posts to his name, rushing to the defense of a guy who tells people to "piss off" because they want information to be shared. Curious, that.

I am not 'clinging' to the word unscientific. I mentioned it there, because someone was afraid of a lawsuit, which is silly, as I earlier explained. Running a non-significant mini-test and reporting on it will not result in a lawsuit, just as large corporations can't sue the tens of thousands of high schoolers and college age kids who run mini-tests on products for bacteria in science class. Furthermore, as I mentioned before, if it was statistically significant, if the evidence was strong (due to many many samples tested) that would be a complete defense against defamation as well. They can't claim you are unfairly sullying their name, when all you are doing is saying the truth, right? For multiple reasons, the "I don't want to get sued" excuse is poor, wrong and lame.

So besides a bizarre need to 'take sides' and stir up trouble, I am curious why my earlier post discussing defamation caused you to respond in this way.

Joe Mama wrote:Oh, another guy with a tiny number of posts to his name, rushing to the defense of a guy who tells people to "piss off" because they want information to be shared. Curious, that.

Post count means nothing. The fact that you brought this into play suggests that you think that because you have posted more on a website that you are better than the people who don't have 400 posts. It doesn't.

So please, instead of outright insulting the person for being new, try and come up with a better insult than, "Shut up, Nooblet. You have a small post cout, so your opinion matters less!"

Anyway, welcome to Dakka, AB2k. Sorry if this guy turned you off from Dakka. We're not all bad people.

Joe Mama wrote:

angryboy2k wrote:Why do you keep clinging to the "unscientific" methodology involved? I don't remember the OP claiming he was doing a statistically relevant sampling. Nor is it necessary to have a statistically relevant sampling to prove something as simple as "One or more pots of Devlan Mud have fecal bacteria in them before they've been used".

Oh, another guy with a tiny number of posts to his name, rushing to the defense of a guy who tells people to "piss off" because they want information to be shared. Curious, that.

Like the number of posts I've made proves anything. I post on Warseer under the handle spaint2k and I've over 1600 posts there if it matters a damn. Also you can check my join date and my posting history (which should indicate quite clearly my location).

He's probably told people to piss off because he's sick of being doubted by people who appear to be arguing with him for the sake of it. All the doubters, all the skeptics - I don't know why they read or reply to anything anyone posts. Why believe them?

And I'll reply to your bizarre PM via PM. I hope the content doesn't mean you've blocked me from responding.

angryboy2k wrote:He's probably told people to piss off because he's sick of being doubted by people who appear to be arguing with him for the sake of it. All the doubters, all the skeptics - I don't know why they read or reply to anything anyone posts. Why believe them?

What is this, pop-psychology time? Let's go with what was actual said, eh? He claimed to be afraid of a lawsuit. Which is of course a ludicrous claim. Outright ridiculous claim.
Then we had the message exclaiming tiredness, and the whole woe is me, sour grapes routine. It is there for all to see. Again, completely baffled why you are discussing this - my response to you was about defamation, but you IGNORED that, and decided to harp on one phrase in the intro sentence. WHY? You are not discussing this in good faith at all and I will no longer discuss this with you in this thread.

I think what he's implying is that the OP uses more than one account to defend himself. I think.

Regardless, no proof no truth.

Chowderhead wrote:

Joe Mama wrote:Oh, another guy with a tiny number of posts to his name, rushing to the defense of a guy who tells people to "piss off" because they want information to be shared. Curious, that.

Post count means nothing. The fact that you brought this into play suggests that you think that because you have posted more on a website that you are better than the people who don't have 400 posts. It doesn't.

LOL. Try again. The rabid defenders of Arch making outright personal attacks or insinuating them, both have low post counts. That's my completely obvious point. I just found it odd that when the OP went silent, two people with less than 10 posts each stepped up their attacks. Whether it is coincidentally or not I cannot say. But it stuck out to me, so I noted it as odd. That's all.

Also, if you must know, I think the people with the least posts are the best, because they are probably spending more time playing 40k...






Automatically Appended Next Post:

heartserenade wrote:Regardless, no proof no truth.

Indeed! Just found it bizarre, that's all.

Joe Mama wrote:

angryboy2k wrote:He's probably told people to piss off because he's sick of being doubted by people who appear to be arguing with him for the sake of it. All the doubters, all the skeptics - I don't know why they read or reply to anything anyone posts. Why believe them?

What is this, pop-psychology time? Let's go with what was actual said, eh? He claimed to be afraid of a lawsuit. Which is of course a ludicrous claim. Outright ridiculous claim.
Then we had the message exclaiming tiredness, and the whole woe is me, sour grapes routine. It is there for all to see. Again, completely baffled why you are discussing this - my response to you was about defamation, but you IGNORED that, and decided to harp on one phrase in the intro sentence. WHY?

That's at least the second time in this thread that you've gone the "pop-psychology" route.

I ignored your response regarding defamation because my point was - and still is - that you keep clinging to the lack of scientific/statistical value in the OP's tests, when he never claimed any to begin with. In case you've forgotten, you've mentioned statistical significance at least three times.

Here:

Joe Mama wrote:
Also, the method of sampling is important. Studies can contain flaws which lead to biased results. A couple of brief paragraphs on the method wouldn't be out of line, seeing as how easy it is for a person to introduce bacteria accidentally during a test. I am not super concerned with that here, but it should ALWAYS be a concern and always be mentioned.

And finally, and almost equally as important as dose/concentration, is the significance of the results. If my grand pappy smokes a pack a day and lives to 110, that's great for him, but it doesn't mean smoking is harmless in general. The sample size, of one, was too small to make generalizations. If 3 out of the 6 samples are contaminated in anyway, we need to be aware that this does not mean that 50% of all Delvan Mud jars are contaminated. It's too small a sample to say. Not to say the information isn't useful, but we need to be aware of its limitations. And like someone said way upthread, we shouldn't be against knowledge.

Here:

Joe Mama wrote:

I'm testing six pots total. One, the original pot, and the five more that were sent off yesterday.

That's better than Mythbusters, who never do anything statistically significant on their show. The blow things up though so I'll give them a pass. But 6 is not exactly a gold star A+ study either. Since this is just hobbyists being curious, that's not a bad thing that the sample size is so low, but we have to be careful how much we can generalize this. Beyond that, I think it is important to find out, in a given contanimated pot, just how much is in there? I'll go back to my one example, the traces of cocaine on money is a funny, silly fact, but completely unimportant and useless from a health standpoint, since it is too small to have an effect on anyone.

And here:

Joe Mama wrote:

Bacms wrote:Hence can we please all calm down and wait for real data before jumping into conclusions?

We aren't going to get any "real data" (statistically significant data), unless a wealthy Warhammer player decides to spend way too much time and money on this. More data however, is always interesting and always welcomed. (For me, especially on how much bacteria is in a pot, not just whether it is present or not.)

All of these came before the issue of defamation arose.

Joe Mama wrote:You are not discussing this in good faith at all and I will no longer discuss this with you in this thread.

And that I believe, is the pot calling the kettle black. Passive aggressive much?

Joe Mama wrote:
LOL. Passive aggressive much?