The Role of Contact Line (Pinning) Forces on Bubble Blockage in Microchannels

This paper highlights the influence of contact line (pinning) forces on the mobility of dry bubbles in microchannels. Bubbles moving at velocities less than the dewetting velocity of liquid on the surface are essentially dry, meaning that there is no thin liquid film around the bubbles. For these “dry” bubbles, contact line forces and a possible capillary pressure gradient induced by pinning act on the bubbles and resist motion. Without sufficient driving force (e.g. external pressure) a dry bubble is brought to stagnation. For the first time, a bipartite theoretical model that estimates the required pressure difference across the length of stagnant bubbles with concave and convex back interfaces to overcome the contact line forces and stimulate motion is proposed. To validate our theory, the pressure required to move a single dry bubble in square microchannels exhibiting contact angle hysteresis has been measured. The working fluid was deionized water. The experiments have been conducted on coated glass channels with different surface hydrophilicities that resulted in concave and convex back interfaces for the bubbles. The experimental results were in agreement with the model’s predictions for square channels. The predictions of the concave and convex back models were within 19% and 27% of the experimental measurements, respectively

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Transition from laminar to turbulent flow in liquid filled microtubes

The transition to turbulent flow is studied for liquids of different polarities in glass microtubes having diameters between 50 and 247 ??m. The onset of transition occurs at Reynolds number ~1800???2000, as indicated by greater-than-laminar pressure drop and micro-PIV measurements of mean velocity and root-mean-square velocity fluctuations at the centerline. Transition at anomalously low values of Reynolds number was never observed. Additionally, the results of more than 1500 measurements of pressure drop versus flow rate confirm the macroscopic Poiseuille flow result for laminar flow resistance to within -1% systematic and ??2.5% rms random error for Reynolds numbers less than 1800.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe