Reporting in Science, Gabriel Villar and colleagues say that tiny water droplets can be engineered to work together sort of like cells — moving in concert, passing electrical signals. Villar built a machine that fabricates these pseudo-cellular networks while he was getting his Ph.D. in the departments of chemistry and physics at Oxford. He says that water droplet networks (with some major advancements) could be made into artificial tissues.
Meet the Producer
About Flora Lichtman
Flora Lichtman is a host of Science Friday. In a previous life, she lived on a research ship where apertivi were served on the top deck, hoisted there via pulley by the ship’s chef.