Assembling a Micro-scale Biochemistry Lab Like Snapping LEGOs Together 26
An anonymous reader writes: Microfluidic systems promise to bring the same level of precision and control seen in the electronics industry to chemistry and the life sciences. Typically, devices are fabricated at substantial cost and using borrowed techniques from the semiconductor industry. Researchers at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering have invented a system of discrete microfluidic elements akin to those found in electronic board design. It was inspired by the ease with which LEGO bricks are assembled into a larger structure, and finally allows for the rapid prototyping of "Lab-on-Chip" devices. The original paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Re: (Score:1)
Are they ipad/iphone friendly unlike this site, whose only progress the last 15 years seems to be continually breaking the default comment threshold controls?
Re: (Score:1)
They're mobile-friendly in that they serve you the desktop site. So it's not mobile-optimized, but hey, at least you can still use it. :)
That said, it feels like slashdot still. I don't have a compelling reason to use one or the other.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Hey, NERDS! (Score:2)
I have no idea what you're trying to say.
Don't care (Score:2)
I'm waiting for Lego-On-Chip
Ah, fluidics (Score:2)
When I was a kid my parents had a collection of very old Britannica supplements from the 1960s. Some sort of yearly book for each year after the main books came out.
Anyways, when I was a kid I was always impressed by the pictures and the descriptions. One of the articles was about fluidics, the pictures of plates of metal with holes, piled up and bolted together and doing logic operations with boiling liquids and what not.
I'm just wool gathering, but it seems like the 1960s were unusually fertile in all fie
Re: (Score:3)
One of the articles was about fluidics, the pictures of plates of metal with holes, piled up and bolted together and doing logic operations with boiling liquids and what not.
That is not quite the same, since the goal was logic, rather than chemistry. Fluid/pneumatic logic was used in early embedded ICBM targeting and control systems, because it could withstand a thousand times as much radiation as an electronic circuit of that era.
"FPGA" chemistry on a chip=Star trek replicator (Score:2)
"Make this drug on a chip" is kind of awesome, but the next step is the "FPGA" equivilent where novel compounds can be downloaded to it and have it assemble them from base compounds up. What might be implausible industrially due to having too many steps becomes plausible on the very small scale. From here we have the ability to have standard chemical inputs generate any given chemical output and we're on the way to 3D printers that can print almost anything. Thinking futuristically here, but thats your firs
The grammar of Lego (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Plus it's not an acronym.
Only sheeps say legos. (Score:1)
'nuff said.
No it's not (Score:2)
It's more like bolting meccanoes together.
I'm not sure how I feel about this... (Score:2)
As a chemistry hobbyist, I always wanted one of those big organic-labware sets with pluggable components -- you could build a multi-stage vacuum still, controlled-atmosphere reactor and separator, whatever you wanted -- but true micro- or nano-scale chemistry never seemed as appealing.
By analogy, I always thought playing with discrete components or small-scale logic chips was a lot more engaging than wiring up a microcontroller and loading it with canned or slightly-modified firmware.
On the other hand, you