Many labs use chillers to control the cooling needed for some processes. To make the device work, a chiller uses a fluid, and the best kind of fluid depends on a range of factors. Part of the selection process depends on lab preferences. This article explores some of the thinking behind picking one chiller fluid over another.

The first question facing lab managers looking for an incubator is whether a dry or humidified incubator will serve their needs. Both designs have their pluses and minuses. Humidified CO2 incubators provide tighter control over cell culture conditions such as temperature, gas mix, and of course humidity.

Portable gas chromatography (pGC) is all about tradeoffs. Users demand value, reliability, ease of use, ergonomics, and measurement quality but with analysis limited to gases.

Most food producers are subject to a broad range of regulations and standards, from industry-wide ones such as ISO 22000 (which sets out several communications and system management guidelines), the United States Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) of 2011 and the European Union Regulation (EC) No. 178/2002 to process-specific ones like the Egg Products Inspection Act (EPIA) or the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA).

Protecting your life’s work with a proper monitoring system has become increasingly important in research. A study conducted by Stanford University revealed that more than $2 billion worth of samples were stored within their freezers. Furthermore, many biorepositories and biobanks have hundreds of freezers storing priceless samples. 

Hettich Lab Technology’s UNIVERSAL 320 benchtop centrifuge offers versatility, longevity, and efficiency within a compact footprint. The UNIVERSAL 320 is a midsized single-solution premium centrifuge well suited and easily adapted for many applications. Lab managers across the globe choose the UNIVERSAL 320 as an investment to serve diverse projects for years to come.

Googling the term “bead mill” retrieves dozens of links to large, process-scale devices. Add the word “laboratory” to the search string, and most products are still industrial strength.

Scientists use homogenizers in a long list of ways, including dispersing, emulsifying, cell lysis and extraction, milling, and more. These tools can homogenize a liquid and a solid, two different liquids, and other combinations of materials.

Choosing the right lab washer depends entirely on what needs to be cleaned and why. Both the labware and the washer features come into play, and these change with advances in technology.

Multichannel pipettes are invaluable when working with multiwell plates. However, prolonged and repetitive pipetting sessions bear the risk of strain and fatigue, often resulting in repetitive strain injuries (RSI) and less reproducible results.

Chromatographers often need to balance the convenience of universal-use columns against the sensitivity and resolution of specialized columns. “Where labs may at one time have employed a nonpolar, all-purpose column, they now seek columns engineered for chemical families or even specific methods,” says Timothy Anderson, GC products manager at Phenomenex (Torrance, CA).

Spectroscopy can cover a range of wavelengths, and this article focuses on the ultraviolet (UV) and visible (Vis) spectra, with a bit of near-infrared (NIR) too. These ranges allow for many applications as well as a variety of technologies.