Nanotechnology Puts a Medical Lab in Your Hand  All the frills
in life are shrinking in size. Laptops, cellphones and even big-
screen televisions have been getting thinner and thinner. So why
shouldn’t necessary technology like medical labs and scientific
tools get the same slimming treatment?  Now they are: advances
in nanotechnology have made it possible to put an entire medical
lab into one high-powered chip, which not only fits in the palm
of your hand, but also performs diagnostic tests in a matter of
minutes.  Researchers are gradually finding ways to create
reliable, nano-sized labs that are able to perform a variety of
diagnostic tests, which used to require teams of people and
weeks of waiting. The tiny wafers of glass or plastic work by
compressing a series of tests. For example, the Guardian reports
Professor Tom Duke at the London Center for Nanotechnology is
working on a “lab-on-a-chip” to test for HIV.  In Duke’s chip, a
drop of blood is separated by nanometer-sized pillars, which
then trap larg