If you (like me) have ever been in charge of buying and/or maintaining lab equipment, you might have griped about its cost, or your inability to repair it. A new DIY movement based on open-source hardware and software could allow for the relatively inexpensive fabrication of laboratory equipment. My latest for Ars Technica has the story:

Imagine a world where lab workers can create their own custom equipment in-house, using either their own designs or ones they’ve downloaded. A glimpse of that world appears in today’s issue of Science, provided by 3D printing, the relatively low-cost fabrication technique where ceramics, polymers, and other materials are deposited in layers to build up a three-dimensional shape. [Read more…]