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An egg-beater could provide diagnosis plasma and replace an expensive centrifuge where electricity and maintenance training are scarce. The low-cost centrifuge replacement can separate plasma from blood in minutes, which is used in tests to detect lethal infectious diseases responsible for half of all deaths in developing countries, reports Science Centric.

Shock Discovery May Save Lives: $2 Egg-Beater Acts a Centrifuge

The Associated Press reports, "George Whitesides and colleagues at Harvard University, US, say the plasma obtained is easily good enough to use in tests to detect diseases such as Hepatitis B and cysticercosis.


"The object was to separate serum [plasma] from blood using readily-obtained materials in a resource-constrained environment," explains Whitesides. The equipment can be bought from shops for around two dollars. It needs no special training to use, no electricity or maintenance, and can be sterilized with boiling water and reused.

Science Centric notes, "Contrast this with the bulky, sensitive commercial centrifuges, costing thousands of dollars and requiring extensive operation training, and it's easy to see how this development could save lives."