January 2015

Micromotors Powered by Stomach Acid

January 29, 2015

SEM image of micromotors ( Image Credit: Jacobs School of Engineering/UC San Diego) Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have shown that a micromotor fueled by stomach acid can take a bubble-powered ride inside a mouse. [more...]

Rapid Test Kit Detects Dengue Antibodies from Saliva

January 29, 2015

This is a 3-D model of IBN’s rapid test kit that detects dengue-specific antibodies. (Credit: IBN, A*STAR) Finding out whether you have been infected with dengue may soon be as easy as spitting into a rapid test kit. The Institute of [more...]

Programmable Electrowetting with Channels and Droplets

January 29, 2015

Banerjee, A.; Noh, J.H.; Liu, Y.; Rack, P.D.; Papautsky, I. Programmable Electrowetting with Channels and Droplets. Micromachines 2015, 6, 172-185; doi:10.3390/mi6020172. In this work, we demonstrate continuous and discrete functions in a [more...]

iChip: The Future of Antibiotic Discovery

January 29, 2015

Two weeks ago, a team led by scientists from Northeastern University published a study describing a new class of antibiotics called teixobactin, which they found in the soil of a field in Maine. The Internet subsequently lit up with both [more...]

10X Genomics Emerges With $80M

January 25, 2015

10X Genomics first product (Image Credit: 10x Genomics) Making Illumina’s industry-leading gene sequencing machines better? There’s an app for that. That’s the shorthand pitch from fresh-from-stealth sequencing company 10X Genomics, [more...]

New Method to Generate Arbitrary Optical Pulses

January 23, 2015

This is an example of custom-shaped pulses at 100-GHz repetition rate. Image Credit: Univ. of Southampton Scientists from the Univ. of Southampton have developed a new technique to generate more powerful, more energy-efficient and low-cost [more...]

New Laser-patterning Technique Turns Metals into Supermaterials

January 20, 2015

A femtosecond laser created detailed hierarchical structures in the metals, as shown in this SEM image of the platinum surface. (Image credit: The Guo Lab/University of Rochester) By zapping ordinary metals with femtosecond laser pulses [more...]

Innovative Photonic Crystal Nanolaser Biosensor Detects Adsorption of Biomolecules

January 20, 2015

This image shows a top view of the group’s nanolaser, in which the center narrow slot (horizontal line) is the main part of the sensor. The periodic holes form a photonic crystal, and although the size of the holes appears to [more...]

Novel Microfluidic Device Allows Electroporation of Stem Cells During Differentiation

January 20, 2015

Photo credit: Prof. Horacio D. Espinosa and Prof. John A. Kessler at Northwestern University, USA. Electroporation is a powerful technique in molecular biology. By using an electrical pulse to create a temporary nanopore in a cell [more...]

Tiny Microfluidic Device Helps Analyze Behavior of Blood from Sickle Cell Disease Patients

January 20, 2015

Patients with sickle cell disease often suffer from painful attacks known as vaso-occlusive crises, during which their sickle-shaped blood cells get stuck in tiny capillaries, depriving tissues of needed oxygen. Blood transfusions can [more...]

Why Rain Has That Distinctive Smell

January 20, 2015

Aerosol generation after drop impingement on porous media is a three-step process, consisting of bubble formation, bubble growth, and bubble bursting. Image Credit: Youngsoo Joung, MIT Ever notice an earthy smell in the air after a [more...]

EVG Nanoimprint Lithography Technology

January 16, 2015

A 6″ full area nanoimprinted wafer, processed by EVG NIL solutions EVG’s SmartNIL technology stands out the company in the UV nanoimprint lithography market. In conjunction with a multi-use softstamp technology, SmartNIL provides [more...]

Manipulating nanoribbons at the molecular level

January 16, 2015

Figure 1: Bottom-up synthesis of graphene nanoribbons from molecular building blocks 1 and 2. (a) The resulting ribbon, or heterojunction, has varied widths as a result of different width molecules 1 and 2. (b) Scanning transmission [more...]

Microfluidic Device Observes T Cell Interaction

January 15, 2015

MIT researchers have designed a microfluidic device that allows them to precisely trap pairs of cells (one red, one green) and observe how they interact over time. (Credit: Burak Dura) The immune system is a complex network of many [more...]

Microfluidic Method for Primary Neuron Culture and Analysis

January 15, 2015

Figure 1: Rat primary cortical neurons were seeded and cultured on the microfluidic plate for 21 days, and the medium was replenished every day until Day 5. After Day 5, the medium was replenished every two days. The phase contrast images [more...]

Ultrasonic Welded Microfluidic Device for In vitro Diagnostics

January 11, 2015

Welding with ultrasonic vibrations is a cost-effective and safe method for joining the two halves of a polystyrene microfluidic test chip in such a way that the function is assured. The cross-section in the test channel has to remain [more...]

Sorting Machine – Skittles and M &M

January 11, 2015

Skittles M&M’s Sorting Machine ( image credit: IVC wiki) The machine is fully autonomous and will sort an entire 1.5kg/56oz bag in approx. 5 minutes. It is made of an AVR microcontroller (Arduino Uno), color sensor, distance [more...]

A Simple and Low Cost Method to Fabricate NOA Microfluidic Chips

January 11, 2015

Microfluidic chips are often made of silicon or glass which presents the drawbacks of being relatively expensive, time consuming and has limitations to the geometries that can be realized. PMMA is an optimal solution to overcome these [more...]

Material Incorporates DNA for a New Class of Biosensors

January 9, 2015

A lipid membrane functionalised with DNA-linkers. (Credit: Lorenzo Di Michele) A new responsive material ‘glued’ together with short strands of DNA, and capable of translating thermal and chemical signals into visible physical changes, [more...]

Top Flow Cytometry Instruments, Reagents and Software To Look Forward to In 2015

January 9, 2015

I. Instrumentation The field of flow cytometry is seeing various trends in instrumentation–on one end are smaller, more compact and more powerful instruments for the high end needs of researchers, and on the other end are easier to use [more...]