Inventive doctor creates makeshift test tubes out of bubble wrap

[image credit: NPR]

Diagnostic equipment is scarce in remote health clinics

In developing countries, rural health clinics have a hard time obtaining all of the equipment they need to diagnose and treat patients.

Solution: Improvise test tubes from bubble wrap

Harvard chemist George Whitesides found that the spaces inside bubble wrap are completely sterile. One glass test tube can cost between $1 and $5. Bubble wrap, by contrast, is dirt cheap. One square foot of it, with about 100 to 500 bubbles depending on bubble dimensions, costs only 6 cents. The packaging material is readily available all over the globe, and scientists often have it around the lab because other equipment is shipped in it.

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