Building microfluidic devices one drop at a time

Building designed granular towers one drop at a time.

A dense granular suspension dripping on an imbibing surface is observed to give rise to slender mechanically stable structures that we call granular towers. Successive drops of grain-liquid mixtures are shown to solidify rapidly upon contact with a liquid absorbing substrate. A balance of excess liquid flux and drainage rate is found to capture the typical growth and height of the towers. The t...

Drop formation in non-planar microfluidic devices.

Microfluidic devices can be used to produce single or multiple emulsions with remarkably precise control of both the contents and size of the drops. Since each level of a multiple emulsion is formed by a distinct fluid stream, very efficient encapsulation of materials can be achieved. To obtain high throughput, these devices can be fabricated lithographically, allowing many devices to operate i...

Building communities one bacterium at a time.

T he biosphere is brimming with examples of symbiotic interactions between distantly related organisms that have evolved mutually beneficial relationships to ensure their survival. One might assume that there are many examples of syntrophic interactions among microorganisms because of their diversity and abundance (1, 2). Remarkably few cases between 2 or more microbial species have been descri...

Building relationships--one patient at a time.

Building Trust - One Gift at a Time

This paper reports an experiment evaluating the effect of gift giving on building trust. We have nested our explorations in the standard version of the investment game. Our gift treatment includes a dictator stage in which the trustee decides whether to give a gift to the trustor before both of them proceed to play the investment game. We observe that in such case the majority of trustees offer...