Plain-language companions to the papers: what a method does, why it was built that way, and what it does not solve. Written for researchers outside the specific subfield.
These notes are plain-language companions to peer-reviewed work. Every factual claim traces to the paper linked at the end of the note.
6 min read
Controlled radical polymerisation used to require sealed, degassed glassware. Oxygen-tolerant chemistry moved it into open well plates, and that one change is what puts polymer synthesis within reach of a liquid-handling robot.
7 min read
Small-angle X-ray scattering analysis is full of judgement calls that vary between analysts. Automating it is less about speed than about making those calls explicit, and about flagging the profiles where the answer should not be trusted.
6 min read
Machine learning on biomaterials data keeps running into the same problem: the published record is a survivorship-biased sample of what worked. High-throughput experimentation is one of the few ways to fix that at the source.