Lego Blocks Simulate Microfluidic Filters

BuzzSkyline writes "Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are playing with Lego blocks to discover how arrays of nanoscopic obstacles could sort cells and other tiny particles by size. Ball bearings dropped through an array of Lego pieces submerged in glycerin serve as an analogue of the tiny systems, with bearings of different sizes taking different paths through the array. An academic paper describing the Lego research recently appeared in the journal Physical Review Letters (subscription required)."

Well as long as I don't have to reverse polarity

[Anonymous Coward]

Lego? Microfluidic Filters? Yeah and if I reverse the polarity on the main communications array, a tachyon pulse will be generated.

Re:Well as long as I don't have to reverse polarit

[weirdcrashingnoises]

Nonsense, obviously the emergency capacitors would absorb any access energy created by the array. The only side effect was in they overloaded they would discharge through the main reactor core overloading several systems, possibly causing a flux in the hyper-drive which would create a tach...

oh wait you are right.

Re:

[weirdcrashingnoises]

wow...

access = excess

in = if

me = just woke up, sorry about that.

Re:

[LrdDimwit]

Don't worry about it. You've already displayed more attention to detail than those involved with actually writing the dialog for the real show.

How is this new?

[Taibhsear]

Biochemists already do this with proteins [wikipedia.org] and other biochemicals and I'm sure other fields have done this with other things. Is this only new and exciting because legos are being used?

Re:

[John Hasler]

This is entirely different. The particles come out of the filter at different places rather than at different times.

its plinko

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plinko
its plinko

Way Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

I build microfluidic devices and man it can be time consuming to design fabricate and test them. To design a good device you have to draw up the design, fabricate it (often in a clean room) and then assemble and test it. With this I could just get a little slimy and in 30 minutes have a good idea if what I have is going to work...Now I just have to convince my boss I'm not just playing with Legos at work

Coin bank!

[jollyreaper]

Lurve those things.

I hate when headlines do this.

[johnthorensen]

Reporters and the like are always trying to get an 'angle' obviously, but still - it's a little lame to emphasize the Lego portion of this. I love Legos, but let's face it - this apparatus could have been built out of many other things. The real 'science' behind this story is the construction of a scale model and details upon how the researchers were able to prove similitude [wikipedia.org] between the large and micro scales. Not that pop sci articles aren't valuable, but using Lego as a hook to a legitimate science publication seems gimmicky.

Re:

[Speare]

I love Legos, but let's face it - this apparatus could have been built out of many other things.

The researcher answers the question:

* Lego is available and accessible, moreso than developing tools or using ad hoc scavenged parts to make your own pegs
* Lego is machined to fairly high standards of consistency and clean geometry, which helps this particular study

Re:

[eh2o]

Seems like it would be better to just simulate in on the computer. Legos submerged in glycerin sounds like a terrible mess.

Legos

[R2.0]

Is there anything they can't do?

(And I know the "proper" company defined term is Lego blocks. Fuck you.)

Science CAN be fun!

[Drakkenmensch]

I'm impatiently waiting for Construx quantum physics and Lincoln Log genetics.