I had fun at work today.. .. mixed in with the regular work day. I had a very cool set of meetings down at Columbia University with my friends Paul, Bill and Ted. . I was down there to meet with my good friend Ken who’s been a prof there for the last 14 years.. One reason I was down there was to check in on Ken and his colleagues’ work on cool chip technologies.. but my real reason for gong down was to introduce Ken and his students to my friend Ted.. an ultra genius with superpowers in chip design.. I see one of my missions in life is to introduce people to Ted and visa versa..

Ken and his colleagues have been doing some very cool stuff in integrated magnetics and integrated piezoelectrics.. …We also got to hear about their work in biochips.. and that’s what impressed me the most. Ken’s group is doing stuff like interfacing chips to rat neurons and building tiny labs on a chip. It was amazing seeing the amazing stuff they were doing with our  and our competitors’ technology.. stuff i never knew was possible… like this chip… that moved tiny droplets of chemicals around using just switched  electric fields …

 

Or this chip which used unbelievably tiny holes to measure the presence of specific organic molecules such as proteins..

 

or this chip that detected the spread of chemical messengers a colony of bacteria uses to communicate…. What does a colony of bacteria have to communicate.. maybe its’ ‘the weather is fine down in this corner of the petri dish 🙂

 

we also found time for some macroscopic science.. Ken slet both Ted and me sit in his brand new Chevy Volt.. He drives it to work everyday from Westchester on zero gallons of gas.. how cool is that. ?

 

 

Seeing ken and his students was a great break from the routine..  I had pletny of time to think about what I’d seen today as I drove the 7 hours home after my flight was canceled due to weather. These chips that Ken and his group are making are paving the way to new ways to detect and treat diseases.. I love seeign how technology can effect the world like that..

 

OK.. time to sleep.. more tomorrow

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

ps. no trip to NYC is complete without a picture of a cockroach..