A Sea Lion Pup Determined to Survive
Percevero is our seal of the month, and true to the origins of his name (Latin for “to persevere”) this pup was determined to survive. He was found extremely underweight, dehydrated and suffering from pneumonia and parasites, trying to cross a four-lane road in San Francisco. With 6 weeks of care at the Marine Mammal Center involving fish mash feedings and a course of antibiotics he rapidly doubled in size and was soon given a clean bill of health. Percevero, together with six other young sea lions was released at Point Reyes National Seashore.
Find out more www.marinemammalcenter.org
With Help from the Coast Guard Leo Returns to the Wild.
Meet Leo this month’s “adopted” seal. Leo is a Steller sea lion who was found stranded and orphaned on a beach in Ocean Shores, Washington. After temporary care at a local wildlife facility Leo boarded a Coast Guard C-130 aircraft and was transported to The Marine Mammal Centre. Leo was in for a long-term rehabilitation, but while in care he was taught to catch fish and socialise with other seals. After 5 months, and after tripling in size he got another flight with the Coast Guard- this time a return flight to Washington state for release at a favourite hangout location for Steller sea lions!
Find out more www.marinemammalcenter.org
Aloha to Kilo the Orphaned Hawaiian Monk Seal!
Little Kilo is our "Seal of the month". She was found orphaned, starving and weighing just 37 pounds when she was brought to Ke Kai Ola Hawaiian monk seal hospital. After seven months of care Kilo gained more than 100 pounds and was able to be released in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands where she is helping to rebuild this endangered population.
Thank you to The Marine Mammal Center for making a difference in the life of Kilo and other marine mammals.
Find out more: www.marinemammalcenter.org
Meet "Heyerdahl" our Seal of the Month
Heyerdahl was one of more than 40 newborn harbor seal pups brought to The Marine Mammal Center for care. Being so young, and without the antibodies from his mother’s milk Heyerdahl was at higher risk of illness, needed isolation and required care from a separate team of volunteers. This Spring, there was an unusual number of harbor seals pups requiring care, twice the number usually cared for at this time of year, putting additional pressure on the The Marine Mammal Center’s resources.
Just as he would in the wild, after 3 weeks Heyerdahl transitioned from drinking milk formula to eating whole fish and then when he was able to compete with pen mates and chase fish on his own he was finally released at Cypress Point in Monterey County. Thank you to the team at The Marine Mammal Center!
Find out more www.marinemammalcenter.org
The Adorable “Bogey” is Our Seal of the Month!
Bogey’s story doesn’t start well, he was only a few days old when he was orphaned near Pebble Beach Golf Links. Bogey needed tube feeding five times a day until he could tolerate whole fish and then he had to learn to live independently. It took many months to achieve the happy ending where he was released with two other harbor seals at Point Reyes National Seashore.
Once again it has been a delight to know that our small contributions can be part of the larger success story of The Marine Mammal Center.
Thank you to the team at The Marine Mammal Center!
Find out more www.marinemammalcenter.org
South East Water Analyst Wins
SEAL Analytical ran a competition during WWEM 2018, the water wastewater and environmental monitoring event. The winning entry was submitted by John Robertson, senior chemist in water quality for South East Water, who received his prize at the company’s Farnborough laboratory.
Sadie Vick from SEAL presented John with his prize, commenting: “Visitors were invited to guess the number of flared ICP pump tubes in a jar, and it was surprising how varied the answers were. I congratulate John on his win and it was great to be able to make the presentation alongside one of our Rohasys Minilab robots.”
John’s responsibilities include the development of new methods; responding to changing requirements from the Drinking Water Inspectorate and a wide range of external customers including other water companies, councils and building management organisations. He is also responsible for improvements in lab efficiency and says: “SEAL’s Rohasys robot helps throughput enormously; typically we test hundreds of samples every day and the robot automates the preparation and measurement of turbidity, pH, conductivity and true colour, following automatic filtration.”
The SEAL booth at WWEM 2018 featured a new smaller Minilab robot with a reduced footprint; automating the analysis of 42 samples. The Rohasys robot in the South East Water lab is 1.2 meters wide but other sizes are available to suit different requirements. For example, the largest Rohasys robot to-date is 4 meters wide, automating the analysis of 512 samples.
The Blonde Bomber is our "Adopt-a-Seal" from The Marine Mammal Center.
The Blonde Bomber is a young Californian sea lion spotted at the famous PIER 39 in San Francisco with a packing strap “noose” around his neck. Luckily, someone knew to call the Marine Mammal Centre for help. This month we have adopted the Blonde Bomber as part of the Marine Mammal Center’s Adopt-a-Seal® of the Month Club. We have found adopting a seal to be the perfect way for us to help make-a-difference and to support an organization dedicated to conservation through marine mammal rescue and rehabilitation, scientific research, and education.
Once the Blonde Bomber was relocated to the hospital, skill veterinarians removed the packing strap and cleaned his swollen wound. Living up to his name, it only took a week of rest and food before the Blonde Bomber returned to the wild.
The lesson for all of us is we can help these curious creatures by cutting packing straps and other plastic loops before disposing of them.
Thank you to the team at The Marine Mammal Center!
Find out more www.marinemammalcenter.org
Introducing Bilbo, our "Adopt-a-Seal" from The Marine Mammal Center.
The Marine Mammal Center’s Adopt-a-Seal® of the Month Club is the perfect way for us to help make-a-difference and to support an organization dedicated to conservation through marine mammal rescue and rehabilitation, scientific research, and education.
Each month we are introduced to a seal that has been rescued by the center and find out about the patient and their progress. This month we were introduced to Bilbo. Bilbo is a 9-month-old elephant seal pup, found on a beach in San Luis Obispo with major shark bite wounds on his shoulders and belly. Bilbo received much needed medical treatment at The Marine Mammal Center. Veterinarians found Bilbo had a fractured jaw and fractured right front flipper, in addition to neck, back and shoulder wounds. Even though veterinarians needed to partially amputate a flipper bone and remove a broken canine tooth, after a month of care Bilbo got his second chance of life when he was released amongst many other elephant seals in his age group in Cappuccino Bay, San Simeon.
We’ve loved meeting Bilbo!
Find out more www.marinemammalcenter.org
Meet Zachary, our "Adopt-a-Seal" from the Marine Mammal Center.
When we heard about the Marine Mammal Center’s Adopt-a-Seal® of the Month Club we couldn’t wait to join up! This was the perfect way for us to help make-a-difference and to support an organisation dedicated to conservation through marine mammal rescue and rehabilitation, scientific research, and education.
Each month we are introduced to a seal that has been rescued by the centre, and find out about the patient and their progress. This month we were introduced to Zachary. Zachary was found skinny and starving, alone on Pajaro Dunes Beach. Her rescuers dared to hope she had a future when she was at least strong enough to growl at them. Tube feedings of “fish smoothies” eventually gave way to whole fish and saw Zachary double her weight in one month. Zachary’s story had a very happy ending when she got her second chance at life after being released back into the wild in December 2015.
We’ve loved having the opportunity to “adopt” Zachary for a month!
For immediate release
SEAL launches new instruments for lab speed & efficiency
The SEAL Analytical booth at Analytica 2018 (Hall A1, Booth 516) will feature a host of new products designed to improve laboratory performance. The company has a longstanding reputation for developing advanced, automated Discrete and Segmented Flow Analyzers (SFA), but following the acquisitions of Thomas Cain and ROHASYS, the SEAL Analytical booth will also feature new products for both automated digestion, and robotic sample handling and treatment systems.
Analytica 2018 will provide the first opportunity in Europe to see the new AA500 SFA with auto start-up/shutdown and new software. The AA500 was developed to incorporate feedback from users of SEAL’s hugely popular AutoAnalyzers, which are able to run several parameters simultaneously on large numbers of samples. Delivering high levels of performance and reproducibility, the AA500 provides maximum sensitivity by ensuring that the reaction always goes to completion, and with a digital true dual-beam detection system with real-time referencing, the highest reproducibility and very lowest detection limits are achieved.
SEAL will also launch the new AQ270 entry level Discrete Analyzer. With reduced functionality, this instrument retains the key advantages of its sister products, but has been developed to meet the needs of a smaller laboratory with a limited budget.
For automated digestion, SEAL staff will demonstrate enhanced software that runs the new DEENA 3; an automated chemical addition, sample preparation and digestion system, used in the analysis of metals in environmental laboratories.
Visitors will also be able to view a new range of ROHASYS robotic handling systems for the automation of BOD, COD, pH, EC, colour, turbidity, alkalinity, total acid, total base etc. The ROHASYS product range includes small systems for small footprints and low workloads, through to custom designed fully automated preparation, reading, filtration and weighing robots, with full LIMS integration.
Summarising, SEAL President Stuart Smith says: “With so many new products on show, a visit to the SEAL booth will be an essential part of every Analytica 2018 visitor’s program.”
For immediate release
UK’s National Oceanography Centre’s (NOC) Ocean-going lab … the real test of a nutrient analyzer
The UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) undertakes integrated ocean research and technology development from the coast to the deep ocean. As such, the NOC has a heavy requirement for seawater analysis. However, in addition to analytical work at the NOC’s facilities in Southampton and Liverpool, the organisation's researchers also need to be able to analyse samples on board a variety of research vessels. Under these conditions, high levels of precision and reliability can be a challenge for most laboratory equipment, so NOC has invested in SEAL Analytical segmented flow analyzers (SFAs) - the AA3 and the QuAAtro.
“The QuAAtro is the workhorse of our Southampton laboratory,” says the NOC’s Dr Sinhue Torres-Valdes. “It has a compact footprint and provides automatic analysis of large numbers of samples, with only small sample volumes required. The AA3 is employed for ‘on-ship’ analysis because as a modular SFA it is easier to maintain in the event of any problems whilst away from shore.”
Wholly owned by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) the NOC is a leading institution for sea level science, coastal and deep ocean research and technology development, tackling the greatest environmental challenges of our age, including sea level change, the oceans’ role in climate change, predicting and simulating the behaviour of the oceans through computer modelling, and long-term monitoring technologies.
The NOC's analyzers are managed by Mark Stinchcombe who has been with the organisation for around 13 years following an MSc in Oceanography at the University of Southampton. He says: "Prior to the purchase of the SEAL equipment, we were experiencing poor reproducibility with older equipment; rough weather was affecting the baseline and we suspected that was due to the movement of a filament inside a light source inside one our analyzers during rough seas. We therefore acquired the SEAL analyzers because they are robust and unaffected by the rigours of a ship in the mid-Atlantic."
In addition to the ability to operate both at sea and in a land based laboratory, Mark also requires three other important features in his analytical instrumentation. First, he needs the ability to analyse large numbers of samples very quickly because, whilst at sea, he can be responsible for analysing samples from a number of scientists simultaneously, and also because his land based laboratory at the NOC provides an analytical service to a broad community encompassing research scientists, students and a number of industrial clients. Secondly, with samples coming from a wide variety of different sources, including seawater, estuarine waters, pore water, phytoplankton culture and biological samples, he needs to be able to measure a broad range of concentrations. Thirdly, he requires low detection limits so that his work is not limited when measuring at low levels. SEAL SFAs are therefore ideal for Mark's work, offering high sample throughput with low sample volume, which reduces both cost and waste.
The SEAL analyzers provide low detection limits with excellent reproducibility. At first they were employed to measure nitrate+nitrite, nitrite, silicate, ammonium and total dissolved nitrogen. However, the NOC also needs to be able to analyse total dissolved phosphorus, and whilst this method was not available as standard for seawater, SEAL’s technical support staff have worked with Mark and Sinhue to adapt a freshwater total phosphorous method to meet the NOC’s needs. “The development of this new method took years to refine, but we have been delighted with the result,” Sinhue says.
The range of projects supported by these analyzers is diverse, including for example, work to assess ocean acidification and ocean biogeochemistry; including ocean productivity, nutrient biogeochemical cycles and research to understand how currents distribute nutrients in the ocean. The analyzers are also employed to check the data recorded by 'Ferryboxes' - real-time continuous monitors mounted inside flow-through chambers to measure the quality of water that is pumped from a subsurface inlet as ferries travel from port to port.
SEAL Analytical’s President Stuart Smith says: “We are delighted to be involved with the work at the NOC and it is particularly pleasing that we have been able to develop a new method specifically to meet their needs. This is an excellent example of the way in which we are continually looking for ways to refine and improve instrument software and hardware, working closely with customers to ensure that they get the most out of their SEAL analyzers.
“Instrument manufacturers often claim that their equipment is robust and reliable but by successfully using the AA3 both onshore and offshore, Mark has shown that ours is no idle boast. Around the world, seawater analysis is becoming a very popular application for our segmented flow analyzers, and it is very gratifying that we are contributing to the success of the important work that is being undertaken at the NOC.”
Mark explains the advantages of the SEAL SFA instruments in a brief video:
By letter and by email
SEAL Analytical Ltd has relocated
In response to customer demand, SEAL have recently added new recruits to our Technical and Sales Support staff in the UK.
As our growth has continued, we are now pleased to announce that SEAL Analytical Ltd has expanded and moved into a new facility. This new facility is designed to enhance the services that we provide to you and includes:
- A state-of-the-art method development lab
- A customer training centre
- Increased warehouse space for on-demand parts and consumables
- Increased space for product maintenance and repair
- Amended operational hours to meet your needs
Our new trading address will be:
3 TALISMAN BUSINESS CENTRE,
DUNCAN ROAD,
PARK GATE,
SOUTHAMPTON,
SO31 7GA
Our Banking address (for payments and supplier invoices) will remain as 7 Regis Place, Bergen Way, Kings Lynn, PE30 2JN.
Please update your records.
Our phone and fax numbers will not change.
Thank you for working with us to achieve this growth. We look forward to continuing to serve you for all your scientific instrument, consumable and technical support needs for many years to come.
Yours sincerely,
On behalf of SEAL Analytical Ltd
Stuart Smith
International Sales and Support Director
For immediate release Thursday
Thursday,26th September 2013
SEAL Analytical
Acquisition of Thomas Cain
SEAL Analytical, the leading global supplier of automated colorimetric analyser instrumentation today announces the acquisition of Thomas Cain, a manufacturer of automated chemical addition, sample preparation and digestion systems for the analysis of mercury and metals to environmental laboratories.
Thomas Cain designs, manufactures and distributes the DEENA range of graphite block digestion systems which are supplied throughout the world. The company also designs and manufactures a range of automation options for these systems which reduce or remove the need for manual intervention in hazardous processes during the sample digestion. The Thomas Cain ERICA sample preparation systems provide a fully automated liquid handling system for mixing samples, standards and reagents. Ranges of standard and bespoke consumables for different sample and digestion types are available for both systems. Full details of Thomas Cain products can be seen at www.thomascaininc.com
The acquisition further enhances SEAL Analytical‘s capabilities in the water and soil analysis market by increasing the installed base of laboratories served and widening the range of products and services offered.