Stars are not perfect spheres. While they rotate, they become flat due to the centrifugal force. A team of researchers around Laurent Gizon from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the University of Göttingen ...
Astronomy
Nov 16, 2016
5
3221
In two new papers, Rice University researchers report using ultracentrifugation (UCF) to create highly purified samples of carbon nanotube species.
Nanomaterials
May 10, 2010
0
0
A simple salad spinner will save lives this summer, if everything goes as planned by two Rice University undergraduates. The spinner has been turned, so to speak, into a rudimentary centrifuge that medical clinics in developing ...
Engineering
May 3, 2010
0
0
Scaling down single-cell reactions to the nanoliter level is critical to minimize the risk of contamination, increase reaction efficiency, and reduce costs. Researchers from the Single-cell Center of the Qingdao Institute ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 22, 2024
2
60
Scientists from the Hochschule Bremen (HSB)—City University of Applied Sciences used a centrifuge to show that the exoskeletons of insects become stronger when they are raised under higher mechanical load. This fundamental ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 6, 2023
0
77
Imperial College researchers have created a spinning disk of plasma in a lab, mimicking disks found around black holes and forming stars.
Plasma Physics
May 15, 2023
1
1705
The moon's craters preserve billions of years of history. Scientists have learned about the conditions of our early solar system by studying the composition, size, and distribution of these holes in the moon's surface, created ...
Astronomy
Sep 20, 2022
0
109
A previously unobserved mechanism is at work in the Sun's rotating plasma: a magnetic instability, which scientists had thought was physically impossible under these conditions. The effect might even play a crucial role in ...
Space Exploration
Oct 28, 2019
5
72
Researchers at Oregon State University are paving the way toward greater safety for coastal residents and infrastructure by developing a better means of modeling the destructive force of tsunami waves.
Earth Sciences
Aug 14, 2019
0
60
A small asteroid has been caught in the process of spinning so fast it's throwing off material, according to new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories.
Space Exploration
Mar 28, 2019
1
401
A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by an electric motor (some older models were spun by hand), that puts an object in rotation around a fixed axis, applying a force perpendicular to the axis. The centrifuge works using the sedimentation principle, where the centripetal acceleration causes more dense substances to separate out along the radial direction (the bottom of the tube). By the same token, lighter objects will tend to move to the top (of the tube; in the rotating picture, move to the centre).
In the picture shown, the rotating unit, called the rotor, has fixed holes drilled at an angle (to the vertical). Test tubes are placed in these slots and the motor is spun. As the centrifugal force is in the horizontal plane and the tubes are fixed at an angle, the particles have to travel only a little distance before they hit the wall and drop down to the bottom. These angle rotors are very popular in the lab for routine use.
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