Shapes of things to come  Tue, 12/03/2013 - 8:40am  Schematic
shows how the application of an electrical field transforms a
spherical drop clad with nanoparticle surfactants into an
ellipsoid.Oil and water don’t mix, as any chemist or cook knows.
Tom Russell, a polymer scientist from the Univ. of Massachusetts
who now holds a visiting faculty appointment with Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)’s Materials Sciences
Div., is using that chemical and culinary truth to change the
natural spherical shape of liquid drops into ellipsoids, tubes
and even fibrous structures similar in appearance to glass wool.
Through the combination of water, oil and nanoparticle
surfactants plus an external field, Russell is able to stabilize
water drops into non-equilibrium shapes that could find valuable
uses as therapeutic delivery systems, biosensors, microfluidic
lab-on-a-chip devices or, possibly, as the basis for an all-
liquid electrical battery.  “Using the in situ formation of
nanoparticle surfactants on a