page_title: Contamination
section_title: Contaminated samples
hierarchical_section_title: Contamination / Nuances of contamination / Contaminated samples
caption_attribution_description: English: Contamination on an agar plate to show how important it is to work sterile
context_page_description: Contamination is the presence of a constituent, impurity, or some other undesirable element that spoils, corrupts, infects, makes unfit, or makes inferior a material, physical body, natural environment, workplace, etc.
context_section_description: In the biological sciences, accidental introduction of "foreign" material can seriously distort the results of experiments where small samples are used. In cases where the contaminant is a living microorganism, it can often multiply and take over the experiment, especially cultures, and render them useless. A similar affect can be seen in geology, geochemistry, and archaeology, where even a few grains of a material can distort results of sophisticated experiments.
caption: Contamination on agar plate
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