from the like-Unix-pipes-but-with-real-fluids dept.
Spotted over at Singularity Hub is an article on Modular Microfluid Mini Laboratories.
This is from work done at USC Viterbi, although there isn't an open access version of the paper.
Microfluidics deals with the chemical processing of a small volume of fluids, with applications such as DNA analysis or in clinical diagnostics, amongst others. This project has developed small generic processing blocks for the basic functions of a microfluid system, which can then be arbitrarily connected and reconnected in (3D) configurations to prototype new system arrangements rapidly:
“People have done great things with microfluidics technology, but these modular components require a lot less expertise to design and build a system,” says co-author and USC chemical engineering and materials science professor Noah Malmstadt. “A move toward standardization will mean more people will use it, and the more you increase the size of the community, the better the tools will become.”
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by c0lo on Sunday September 28 2014, @03:18AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:12AM
Damn! I would have sworn that the submission had got through the spellchecker... My Bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @11:15AM
Urk! Right you are... fixed. Thanks for calling that out, and for the humorous way you did it, too!
- martyb
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:08AM
“A move toward standardization will mean more people will use it, and the more you increase the size of the community, the better the tools will become.”
No open access version of the paper? Hmm, not really science, then, is it? Copyright and proprietary rights are the opposite of standardization, they violate standardization, and lead to systemd. (How did that get into my post?)
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:38AM
We fucked beta and forked the thing.
Now it's time to do the same on systemd.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:48AM
I remember seeing this at Maker Faire NYC about 4 years ago. It was one of the, oh, about 11 revolutions in the making that were there that year. This would change the game in places like Africa where field operations at organizations like Medecins sans Frontieres often work on a shoestring. Microfluidics would change the game here, too, if the guys would open source their work. Then we could have sets at biohacker spaces or people's clinics all over the place and the jig would be up for the pharmaceutical medical industrial complex.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Sunday September 28 2014, @04:30PM
But where's the money in that?
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:00PM
Very good question (and excellent use of playing the Devil's Advocate) and the answer (my attempt below) is even better :D
The money is in the massive scale and cost reductions for everyone (with benefits to health and security as well, even national security) enabling everyone that ever could to jump ahead and do all the things they can now imagine and attempt or even make trivial that could otherwise take centuries or maybe never happen.
It can apply to nearly anything, GNU/Linux & FOSS/Libre software etc. is a pretty good example: people using it still do their part to earn money as best they can but they do it in a world a few steps ahead of a world where there was no such thing and nothing similar took its place. It lowers a barrier and one gets increased activity with increased potential.
It's the same as continuing the work of breaking the guilds [wikipedia.org] (and these days many huge companies behave as guilds and are repeating the mistakes). Breaking the guilds enabled far more people to fully reap the benefits of a massive increase in knowledge and prosperity from what we now call the enlightenment [wikipedia.org] with the scientific revolution [wikipedia.org] and the industrial revolution [wikipedia.org]. It hadn't happened that way before as far as anyone knows, certainly not on a such a massive self-organizing scale, and humanity took many steps up on a new kind of evolutionary ladder we had mostly only been toying with up until that point. Now science has become far too encrusted by some of that self-organization getting stale and needs to get much more accessible to truly reap the rewards thus Open Access, likewise other parts of the legacy need a solid kick in the pants with for example Open Hardware, Free Culture, reforming copyrights and patents, and so on.
We need to get more people back on the Enlightenment track and not just scientists, because people don't have to be “super-scientists” or “wizard coders” or anything like it (I'm certainly not) in fact the more practical in nature the more potent it can be and they only have to realize the benefits to everyone including themselves, how well it actually works and scales, how fast it can evolve and improve, and that it doesn't require any political mumbo-jumbo at all. The good news is that more people than ever already realize at least to some degree.
<levity>Best part? Since the money is in cost reductions to you (and everyone else) for the rest of eternity you can't be taxed on the massive aggregating and multiplying indirect “hidden” profits!</levity> :D
A future that starts today is bigger than a future that starts tomorrow :)
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))