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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."

15 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Iran circumvents IAEA.. Walmart stock up 5% by Orga · · Score: 2, Funny

    Irans elite military units placed orders for large quantities of salad spinners from walmart.com early Tuesday. UN officials release statement citing possible miscalculation of sanction effectiveness.

    1. Re:Iran circumvents IAEA.. Walmart stock up 5% by The+Archon+V2.0 · · Score: 4, Funny

      aren't those centrifuges a bit more powerful?

      That's the Iranians' dark secret: They are developing new salad technology. They don't want to nuke the Jews, they just really love Caesar salad and don't want the other Muslim extremists to laugh at them.

  2. Nice work, but... by Angst+Badger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is clever thinking on the part of the students, but hand-cranked centrifuges have been around for a long time. 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.

    Besides, if you're in a part of the developing world where you have surplus salad shooters and the electricity to power your hot glue gun -- which is, come to think of it, a good description of the eighth grade science classroom where I first encountered a manual centrifuge -- you can probably afford the manual centrifuge.

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    1. Re:Nice work, but... by ciaohound · · Score: 4, Funny

      not terribly expensive, they're sturdy as hell, and they're durable and easy to sterilize

      Say, that would make a great salad spinner!

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    2. Re:Nice work, but... by dkuntz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Chances are, imo, at least, is that they'd be manufactured somewhere where there was electricity, as well as surplus salad shooters. And while manual centrifuges may be inexpensive, can you really get more inexpensive that bulk buying plastic salad shooters and refills for hot glue guns? This, to me, sounds like something that could be sold in developing nations for $5-10 per unit, if not less. And being all manually powered, I dont see why soaking it in bleach, or boiling water wouldnt help sterilize it (not perfectly...and an autoclave would need electricity..and probably damage/melt it...). And with the production costs and sales costs so low, the cost of replacing it if it's too worn down, or contaminated, would not be that expensive. Especially the units were donated by some large charity or some overly right person who will never spend their billions of dollars before their great great great grandchildren are dead...

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    3. Re:Nice work, but... by raddan · · Score: 2, Informative

      No kidding. What's next? Ox-powered cars? Have we forgotten that centrifuges predate electric motors?

    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.

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    5. Re:Nice work, but... by patman600 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not to nitpick, but I just can't help myself. This device can actually spin 30 tubes, not 1. So, 7.5x more than a manual centrifuge. I'll give you the other points, but I am genuinely curious as to how important sanitation is in this context. The stated use case is checking for anemia in undeveloped countries, how necessary is sanitizing the centrifuge for that?

    6. 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.

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  3. 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.

    1. Re:Why only third world? by scorp1us · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because of lawsuits, QA, FDA auditing and controls. We are a litigious society who will sue when we get test results messed up. Also, key to predictable results is uniformity.

      It is a sad but true thing that 3rd-world lives are not held in as high regard as 1st world lives. Look at Predator drone strikes: over 300 innocents killed. Do this in a 1st or 2nd world country and there would be more far more outage.

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  4. Re:Why is this in idle? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can we swap kdawson for samzenpus please.

    Seems like somebody forgot to unmount the scratch monkey.

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  5. Re:Nice work, but...No but, smart thinking. by irreverant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What I took from the article was not that they re-invented the wheel, but where able to use analytical thinking and problem solving skills TO re-invent the wheel. They were able to think outside the box and develop a centrifuge (that works) from parts that you can find around a house. I think these students are creative - partner that with their education and it's amazing to think what they will be possible of doing or making in the future. Our future lie's in the hands of our youth - i feel good about our future with students like this.

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  6. 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

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  7. Obvious. Why is this news? by gweihir · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A centrifuge used as a centrifuge. What is newswothy here? The developing world does not need this incredible level of arrogance implied here either. Of course they know how to centrifuge things without electricity. They may not have technology, but intelligence is evenly distributed (or maybe even better there, given this drastic example that at least in some places of the western world, it is rather low.)

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