It’s always exciting when a maverick hits the mark. The first polylactic acid (PLA) Petri dish product is a one-to-one replacement for labs using fossil fuel-based plastic plates for cell culture. The maker, a small privately owned company called Diversified Biotech, Inc., collaborated with researchers from Brandeis University to develop it. Fostering eco-justice with a simple swap sounds good, but could this specialized PLA material even improve cell culture?
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Q and A with Polycarbin - The Closed-Loop Lab Plastic system sweeping Life science
If one sustainability conundrum vexes biologists, it is the environmental consequences of single-use lab plastic waste generated by laboratory work. In this conversation with Noah Pyles, we hear what sets Polycarbin apart from typical lab plastic recycling, how their system works, and why it matters…
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Lab equipment that isn't lab equipment
A few years back, the hilarious Science Twitter conversation #reviewforscience made it into the news. A recent Science Twitter thread shows how this creative mindset persists - only the focus moved to lab bench work.
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Strategies for lab plastic shortages
Ironically, after many years of concern about how to reduce single-use lab plastic usage and divert this waste from landfills - we now face shortages. This post explores current events and ways that life science labs are dealing with pipette tips, plates, and tube shortages, as well as a few high-tech options to conserve these resources and improve the reliability of assay results.
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Add operational resilience to the life sciences by targeting cold shipping waste
The concept of ‘operational resilience’ factors in the ways to keep working in changing conditions. As a biologist, you might think of it as applying the principle of adaptation to your lab work. Today’s blog shares simple and effective ways that you can add resiliency to cold shipping biologicals.
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Tackling Waste: 5 Steps to Less Plastic Waste in the Lab
Life sciences laboratories are another area in which plastic waste can be reduced. Approximately 5.5 million tons of plastic waste are produced every year in life sciences laboratories alone, including items like pipette tips, nitrile gloves and cell culture flasks. In the age of global waste pollution and the ubiquity of plastic in the world around us, this is definitely too much. It can’t all be changed, but improvements are possible in some areas.
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Using Rheaply to beat the odds against sharing lab supplies and scientific equipment
Northwestern University has an ace in the hole when it comes to making good use of lab surplus. Labs at the world-renowned Fineberg Shool of Medicine are now connected via a cloud-based resource-sharing technology, called Rheaply. Rheaply combines the ease of use of social media ease with the marketplace functionality of an ebay. No barcode labels necessary!
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Biotech scaling up Nodax™ a Landfill and Waterway biodegradable, biobased plastic
Today’s blog is about (truly) bio-degradable Nodax™ PHA plastic, produced by the biotech company Danimer Scientific. Nodax™ PHA was invented some time ago, but its commercialization has just been ignited by food industry investments. Expect this bioplastic to spread like wildfire.
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