The patch clamp method measures membrane currents at very high resolution when a high-resistance 'gigaseal' is established between the glass microelectrode and the cell membrane (Pflugers Arch. 391 (1981) 85; Neuron 8 (1992) 605). Here we describe the first use of the silicone elastomer, poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), for patch clamp electrodes. PDMS is an attractive material for patch clamp re...

To take capillary effect into account, a series of primary drainage experiments of water by a sample oil fluid have been studied. The experiments performed under different low flow rates on a horizontal glass type micromodel as a model of porous media. Based on conventional macroscopic flow equations, the relative permeabilities and capillary pressure are determined by parameter estimation tech...

Single-bounce hollow glass capillaries with ellipsoidal shapes have been used at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source recently for various microbeam experiments, with focal spot sizes from 12 to 23 microm, divergences from 2 to 8 mrad, intensities up to 450 times the intensities of incident X-rays, and working distances up to 55 mm. Simple formulae are developed in this paper to explain c...

material into cells and for extracting and transferring cellular components between cells. Any microinjection system will typically comprise three basic functions: the imaging of the target cell and the micropipette, the positioning of the micropipette, and control of the pressure inside the micropipette. The XenoWorksTM Microinjection system has been devised to fulfill the requirements for the...

Cell-sized lipid bilayer membrane vesicles (giant vesicles, GVs) or semi-vesicles were formed from egg yolk phosphatidylcholine on a platinum electrode under applied electric voltage by electroformation. Micromanipulation of the semi-vesicle by first pressing its membrane with a glass microneedle and then withdrawing the needle left a GV in the interior of the vesicle. During the process, an aq...

The possibilities and limitations of analyses of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBPs) by capillary gas chromatography and capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry have been investigated. Metal capillary columns (WCOT) coated with Apiezon L and OV-101 were not suitable for PCB analyses. Good results were obtained in the separation of model mixtures of PCBs and of Aroclor 1242 on a glass capil...

The capillary rise technique has been used to experimentally study the “surface tension” of liquid marbles formed by encapsulating water droplets with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) powder of 1, 35, and 100 μm particle size. In a typical experiment, a glass capillary tube was inserted into a water marble to measure the capillary rise of the water. The Laplace pressure exerted by the water marbl...