Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Salad Spinner Made Into Life-Saving Centrifuge

Posted by samzenpus on from the kitchen-and-lab-equipment dept.

lucidkoan writes "Two Rice University students have transformed a simple salad spinner into an electricity-free centrifuge that can be used to diagnose diseases on the cheap. Created by Lauren Theis and Lila Kerr, the ingenious DIY centrifuge is cobbled together using a salad spinner, some plastic lids, combs, yogurt containers, and a hot glue gun. The simple and easily-replicated design could be an invaluable tool for clinics in the developing world, enabling them to separate blood to detect diseases like anemia without electricity."

5 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Why only third world? by PolyDwarf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Something I never understood about the "This could be great for the third world" items..

    Why wouldn't it be great for the first and second worlds too?

    I would assume scale and speed aren't up to par with more focused medical devices... But, for the price of one of those, you can buy a bunch of 35 dollar ones.

  2. This has been done cheaper, clearner and easyer by Qbertino · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And earlier!

    http://gizmodo.com/5063917/diy-egg-beater-centrifuge-can-save-lives

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  3. They are missing a few things! by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 1, Interesting

    What about duct tape and paper clips?

    MacGyver would not approve without those items included.

    It is a shame, a entire generation that would not recognize MacGyver if they met Richard Dean Anderson.

    --
    Fight Spammers!
  4. Re:Nice work, but... by Reziac · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And there's an even simpler non-electrical centrifuge: a human spinning a bucket.

    My veterinarian in Montana, being a livestock vet who had little use for expensive or breakable gadgets, simply packed the blood tube in towels in a bucket, tied a rope to the bucket handle, and sent whoever was handy out to the parking lot to whirl it around their head a few dozen times. Worked fine.

    --
    ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  5. Re:Nice work, but... by Khyber · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "They're not terribly expensive, they're sturdy as hell, and they're durable and easy to sterilize -- which almost certainly cannot be said of something made of disposable plastics and hot glue."

    I see someone has never DIY a full hydroponics system before using almost those exact materials - disposable plastics (cat litter buckets) and hot glue (to hold the net pots to the modified lid.)

    It's fucking TRIVIAL to clean and sterilize.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.