Controlled Environments

Interphex 2026 featured over 600 exhibitors at the Javits Center in New York City, taking place April 21 through 23. At the show, six technologies were awarded Interphex Exhibitor awards across various categories.  The Interphex Exhibitor Awards recognize leading vendors at the show each year for innovative, state-of-the-art technologies. The submissions are reviewed by a…

The Artemis II crew has completed its lunar flyby and is embarking on its return trajectory to Earth after setting a new record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from our home planet, 252,760 miles.  Artemis II is the first crewed mission to the lunar vicinity in over 50 years, since Apollo 17…

In regulated research and manufacturing environments, safety and compliance are shaped long before a cleanroom space or a lab becomes operational. Decisions about airflow, room adjacencies, material flow, and surface finishes directly affect contamination control, workflow efficiency, and regulatory readiness. For organizations scaling research, manufacturing, or product development in controlled environments, facility design can directly…

At least 1 in 10 medicines in low- and middle-income countries are substandard or falsified. A 2023 UNODC assessment estimated 267,000 deaths per year from falsified antimalarials alone in sub-Saharan Africa, with nearly 170,000 more from counterfeit antibiotics. In the U.S., the problem is smaller in scale but growing: the CDC has warned about counterfeit…

Laboratories chasing defensible PFAS data for U.S. drinking water compliance are dealing with a wave of challenges that makes the seemingly simple goal elusive. In addition to growing PFAS testing demand, other challenges include blank contamination, sloppy field handling, method deviations and reporting errors. The EPA’s PFAS drinking water rule is live, requiring approved methods…

Not long ago, femtosecond and picosecond lasers were fragile laboratory curiosities that required constant alignment and delicate handling. Today, they are the backbone of a nearly $3 billion market (Mordor Intelligence, Ultrafast Lasers Market Size & Share Analysis). Driven by a shift from legacy Ti:Sapphire systems toward Yb-doped fiber and thin-disk architectures, modern ultrafast sources…

The IRS has changed the requirements to file for the US R&D Tax Credit. These changes will affect how R&D organizations document their work. Adding requirements to IRS Form 6765 Section G, organizations will now need to keep contemporaneous documentation in a specific format to comply with the tax law. How will Section G affect…

When a cryogenic storage failure hit Karolinska Institutet’s Neo building over the 2023 Christmas holidays, it destroyed decades of samples in just five days. An interruption in the automatic liquid nitrogen refill for 16 of 19 cryogenic tanks allowed temperatures to rise beyond safe limits. Karolinska Institutet’s (KI) internal report later quantified the damage: approximately…

High-Rate Delay-Tolerant Networking (HDTN) is software for streaming and networking communications in space. The software has the potential to enable a solar system internet, allowing space exploration teams to receive data from rovers and other space vehicles and to maintain connections between spacecraft and Earth.  The software can transfer data up to 10 times faster…

A team from Sandia National Laboratories received an R&D 100 award for their Fentanyl Analog Independent Detection (FAID) system. With the portable chemical sensor, the team aims to aid frontline personnel, including first responders and law enforcement, in the detection of fentanyl analogs.  Fentanyl analogs are alterations of fentanyl that are often more deadly than…

When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s (TCJA’s) R&D capitalization rules took effect in 2022, one of the biggest concerns for R&D-intensive companies was that the Section 174 R&D capitalization requirements would stifle innovation. The Trump Administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed in July, brings significant relief for U.S. companies conducting R&D domestically…

Researchers from the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have created a new nanopore sensor for single-biomolecule detection. Their findings were published in the journal PNAS.  Nanopore sensors detect and analyze individual molecules by measuring ionic changes as the molecules pass through openings in the device. Nanopore sensors can be made…

A newly launched website for VACUU·LAN Lab Vacuum Systems from BRANDTECH Scientific positions its offerings as an alternative to inefficient and unreliable traditional central vacuum systems. While many labs still rely on large, continuously running pumps piped throughout a facility, a modular, on-demand approach claims to offer dramatic savings in energy, water, and maintenance, as…

There are over 500,000 detectable earthquakes each year, with major earthquakes—those with a magnitude of 7.0 or higher— occurring monthly, often causing severe damage and even casualties. Global industries are becoming increasingly reliant on cleanroom environments, with an expected 5.9% demand increase expected by 2030. To maintain strict control over air quality, temperature, and humidity,…

For decades, the Nyquist-Shannon theorem—a foundational principle of signal processing—dictated that fully sampling a signal at or above twice its highest frequency was essential for capturing critical information. Now, a Pennsylvania startup called Lightscline suggests we may be entering a “post-Nyquist era.” According to a recent Nature Scientific Reports paper, the company’s neural-network-based software, inspired…

Sandia National Laboratories has partnered with leading research institutions to tackle a potential energy crisis driven by the increasing energy demands of artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies. Jeffrey Nelson, a principal investigator at Sandia, highlighted the issue’s urgency: “Computing alone is projected to consume a significant portion of the total planetary energy production…

Stretchable, wearable gadgets took a significant stride in 2024, thanks to a flurry of breakthroughs that could make soft, body-conformable electronics and power sources a reality. Researchers worldwide have unveiled improvements in flexible, high-precision sensors and displays, while engineers in China revealed a self-healing, stretchable lithium-ion battery that could power next-generation wearables. Meanwhile, LG Display…

Working smarter, not harder has long been a corporate catchphrase, but it has taken on newfound importance in critical environment control. While traditional methods have relied on brute-force measures like continuously blasting high volumes of conditioned air to maintain adherence to cleanroom standards, that method has clear drawbacks. “Previously, especially 20–30 years ago, controlling a…

The life sciences and analytical instruments industry has been on a roller coaster for the past several years. When the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in 2020, businesses rapidly expanded to meet the moment. But four years later, the market is decidedly unusual, for lack of a better term. Many analytical instruments organizations are rife with…

Picture a nuclear-powered surgical robot targeting glioblastoma. Or imagine hijacking a botfly larva to perform delicate internal interventions. These scenarios may sound far out, but Endiatx CEO Torrey Smith talks about them as if describing an ambitious home improvement project — challenging but entirely feasible with the right approach and tools. Though these scenarios sound…

If you read much about AI, you’ve likely noticed the growing number of models capable of “reasoning” and acting autonomously. This isn’t just about chatbots; it’s transforming scientific discovery. Google DeepMind recently launched a 15-day weather forecasting agent, bringing new levels of accuracy to complex atmospheric modeling. OpenAI’s latest reasoning model, o1, has demonstrated potential…

As many as 2.1 million manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2030, according to an influential 2021 projection from Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a growth rate of 0.1% from 2023 to 2030, yielding only 110,000 projected new jobs, resulting in a potential overall change from 12.9 million…

The relentless demand for faster, smaller and more efficient electronic devices is finally pushing existing silicon technology to its physical limits. Decades of phenomenal innovation have largely delivered the prophesy of Moore’s Law, which predicts that the number of transistors that can be crammed onto a silicon chip should double every two years, but there…

In many respects, 2024 was a year of building upon the foundations laid by previous technological and scientific advances. While AI continued to evolve at a rapid clip, progress was in many ways more incremental than last year when GPT-4 redefined expectations for genAI. But AI continues to make definable improvements across a range of…

In 1959, John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” redefined what was possible in jazz. Its unprecedented chord progression (later known as “Coltrane changes”) and relentless tempo pushed boundaries, challenging even seasoned musicians like Tommy Flanagan. The track eventually developed a reputation for being the “most feared song in jazz” for its fiendishly difficult improvisational demands. Today, genomics…