A Standing Ovation, BioJava Percolates, As Seen on TV

A Standing Ovation; BioJava Percolates; As Seen on TV Courtesy of VistaLab GADGET WATCH | A Standing Ovation Studies show that routine use of a pipettor can produce repetitive stress injuries and discomfort in the neck, shoulder, elbow, hand, and wrist. Mt. Kisco, NY-based VistaLab (www.vistalab.com) decided to find out why. The company asked ergonomics experts to study how people use pipettes and to recommend design improvements that could ease the pain. The experts offered four suggestions: Keep the elbow close to the body Avoid significant rotation of the forearm Maintain a palm-down position to reduce stress in the carpal tunnel Keep the hand within 12 vertical inches of the work surface The company then asked a design firm to create a prototype device that would allow users to meet these criteria. The result: VistaLab's Ovation® BioNatural Pipette. The colorful Ovation line features a nonaxial design, contoured grip, and a low-force, thumb-contoured plunger. Tip acquisition is accompanied by an audible click; the force of tip insertion cocks a mechanism to minimize the effort required to eject the tip. Both fixed- and variable-volume models are available. --Jeffrey M. Perkel SOFTWARE WATCH | BioJava Percolates The open-source BioJava project released version 1.3 of its Java-based bioinformatics toolkit this past December. Project cofounder Matthew Pocock says BioJava (www.biojava.org) is a programming library that handles common bioinformatics tasks, including text file parsing, database communication, sequence statistics such as GC content and hydrophobicity, and graphics rendering. "Basically, it does a lot of mundane things, which are a nightmare to do yourself," explains Pocock. The new version features code support for EnsEMBL databases and taxonomies, faster sequence file I/O operations, and improved BLAST report handling. BioJava's functionality is "roughly equivalent" to that of other so-called Bio* toolkits such as BioPerl and BioPython, says Pocock, so the programmer's choice depends largely on personal considerations. There are differences, though, in perceived usability. In a message posted to the BioJava Web forum, developer Thomas Down says, "a lot of people are put off ... by the apparent complexity of the library." Pocock acknowledges that BioJava's documentation isn't as friendly to newcomers as it could be, but, he says, "That's something we've realized now and we're starting to put a lot of effort into." In the meantime, the "BioJava in Anger" Web site (bioconf.otago.ac.nz/biojava) offers tutorials on common programming tasks. --Jeffrey M. Perkel Courtesy of CSI: Miami WANNABE WATCHED | As Seen on TV Scientific instrumentation companies whose equipment lends accuracy to television dramas get something in return: visibility. Elizabeth Devine, technical adviser for CSI: Miami--a spin-off from the popular US crime-lab drama, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation--contacted Miami-area law enforcement to find out which instruments they use. They pointed Devine to Paul Steinberg, Thermo Finnigan sales representative. Enter Trace DSQ, Thermo Finnigan's newest single-quadrupole gas chromatography mass spectrometer, supplied on loan. "It's actually a fully operational, $80,000 GC/MS system. We couldn't get a mock system in time," says Steinberg. The CSI series has similar verbal agreements with Hewlett Packard, Eppendorf, and Applied Biosystems, most of which are eager to showcase their most cutting-edge technologies. The sets are likely better equipped than real forensics labs, says Deb Cole, the show's art coordinator. Exposure is great, but Steinberg is not predicting a windfall. "I can't go out on a limb and say it's going to help sales at all." But, he says, the taste of celebrity gives employees a new outlook on their often hard-to-explain jobs. "We can point and say, 'You know CSI: Miami? We work with those instruments.'" --Brendan A. Maher

A Standing Ovation, BioJava Percolates, As Seen on TV

A Standing Ovation; BioJava Percolates; As Seen on TV

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