Monthly Archives: December 2009

Technology Review investigates the slow process of microfluidics commercialization

By Lily | Published: December 21, 2009
Today Technology Review came out with a great article speculating why the commercialization of microfluidics has been so slow. In “Shoveling Water: Why does it take so long to commercialize new technologies?” David Rotman uses Fluidigm as a case study and adds a twist by applying ideas from W. Brian Arthur’s The Nature of Technology, [...]
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Microfluidic art from the Folch lab

By Lily | Published: December 20, 2009
One of the best things about microfluidics research is the images. Colored dyes are used to track liquid flow, often producing beautiful photographs such as those seen in the artistic collaboration between George Whitesides and Felice Frankel. Albert Folch’s lab at the University of Washington has created their own microfluidic art gallery using images from their [...]
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Tracking science news across the web

By Lily | Published: December 11, 2009
I studied engineering, not journalism, so the way science research enters the mainstream has always been mysterious to me, like wondering how migrating birds find their way thousands of miles to another continent. I wonder how journalists decide what topics get covered and when to break the news, since the process of doing research tends [...]
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Worth a thousand words

By Lily | Published: December 3, 2009
Sometimes there’s no substitute for a demo. In experimental work, techniques are commonly passed on from person to person. (I somehow ended up pipetting left-handed for years because of the single time my left-handed advisor showed me how to do it.) But what if you want to try a protocol that’s new to your lab? [...]
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Microfluidics tackles HIV

By Lily | Published: December 1, 2009
In recognition of World AIDS Day today, here’s a highlight of some of the microfluidics work addressing HIV. In particular, Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology professor Utkan Demirci has published several recent papers on using microfluidics for HIV, in addition to work from the Toner lab, Rodriguez lab, Whitesides lab and others. Using microfluidics for point-of-care [...]
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Dec 3rd: The Social Responsibility of the Scientist

By Lily | Published: December 1, 2009
I’ve been interested in technology and culture issues for a long time. I remember as a kid reading a speech by Richard Feynman on the value of science. In it, he tells a story about how science is like a key that can open the gates of heaven or hell, depending on how we use [...]
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