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Dremelfuge Classic loaded with tubes
The Do-It-Yourself-Dremel-Centrifuge, DremelFuge, now nearly meets the capabilities of the best centrifuges! As previously posted for DIYbio (in “Cathal has designed a simple centrifuge using open source hardware technology, and you can order one yourself!“), the DremelFuge is an adapter which turns a Dremel rotary-tool into a lab-quality centrifuge capable of use in various bioprotocols.
As Cathal states on the DIYbio mailing list:
“After a design revision which is now “official” and for sale on Shapeways, the Dremelfuge can hold tubes securely, with liquid load, up to the full speed of a Dremel 300. At a top speed of 33,000 RPM, this means the tubes experience about 52,000RCF (g).”
Dremelfuge Classic OpenSCAD solid model rendering
Dremelfuge Classic loaded with tubes
DIYBio brand petri dishes!
We had our first DIYBio workshop in Broad Hall on the UCLA Campus over the weekend. The student community from both north and south campus were involved, which included art and science/math majors.
Romie Littrell started things off with a short presentation on the concept and history of DIYBio. His talk kicked off discussion focusing on the safety and security of biotechnology that is open to the public.
Romie (middle, blue) presents to DIYBio attendees.
Big discussion on safety and terrorism issues of biotechnology
The highlight of the workshop included an extraction of DNA from everyday food products, akin to the extraction of DNA from strawberries.
DNA from a cup of green tea!?
lysing cells through a syringe
Everyone is in awe
Looking for the nucleic acid precipitate
Homemade centrifuge
Other demos at the workshop included a sampling of a biological polymer made from cornstarch and other products found in every kitchen. The red color and taste reminded me of Twizzlers.
Tor Nowlan and Max Belasco explain to us the elegance behind this!http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9863797&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
DIY bio Los Angeles Workshop at UCLA! February 27th, 2010 from Kenneth Wei on Vimeo.
We had a diverse group of visitors throughout the workshop over 4 hrs. Other than science and art professionals, a lawyer and stay-at-home mother with toddler came to participate.
Check out our Flickr page for more pictures from this specific event. Stay tuned for an exciting announcement in the coming weeks on the next workshop and the start of our long term project!
ASPEX is a company that builds tabletop Scanning Electron Microscopes (tabletop SEMs). To promote their product, they are offering free scanning of samples to the world at large.
Rendering of ASPEX's tabletop scanning electron microscope.
You can see a gallery of some of the scans they have made on their website. My favorite sample is an old stir bar some folks from chemistry-blog.com sent in. The SEM can also use x-ray fluorescence (a byproduct of electron bombardment) from the samples for elemental composition analysis (called EDS or XFR) – in the case of the stir bar, the analysts found a microscopic chunk of Chromium stuck to the surface! Leftovers from some experiments, I guess. Wow.
a microscopic chunk of a Chromium-containing compound on the surface of an old stir-bar.
They emailed us recently inviting us to take advantage of their offer. It sounds pretty cool and I’m going to mail in a sample of one of Paul Stamet’s LifeBoxes.
I CAN HAZ SEM?
I also casually asked if I could possibly borrow on of their tabletop SEMs for a couple of weeks to play with here in Boston, pretty please with sugar on top? They wrote back and said yes!
So sometime this spring they are going to drop off a demo unit for a couple of weeks and we are going to have a scanning electron microscope bonanza. Hopefully it will be so cool that ASPEX will be happy to lend the unit to other local diybio groups too.
DEETS
So to mail a sample to ASPEX, check out their online instructions, print this PDF, and mail your sample to:
ASPEX Corporation Free Sample Submissions 175 Sheffield Dr. Delmont, PA 15626
Note: I’ve been told that they’ve gotten a lot of demand for the service and are a little backlogged, but that samples are scanned about 2-4 weeks after delivery and emailed to the sender (if you get an image back, post a link below).
DIYbio 