October 30, 2016 at 11:31PM

Today I Learned: 1) In the late Victorian era, there was a very wealthy woman by the name of Isabella Stewart Gardner. She married into yet more wealth, and spent a good amount of it patronizing art of every kind. Her house was a veritable art gallery in itself, and when she died, her will stated that her house be turned into a museum. The will also specified that if any piece of art were removed from its original position, the entire estate would be put up for auction and the proceeds donated to Harvard. You can still go there -- it's a beautiful collection of collections, ranging from classical sculpture (imported from Europe) to medieval furnishings and paintings (also imported from Europe) to some of the most avant-garde painting of Gardner's time. 2) When the printing press was first invented, most printed books had very large margins so that illuminators could come in after printing and add illustrations around the edges. It was a big deal when printers first started adding illustrations directly by print, and there were artists who specialized in print art. 3) It's possible to 3D-print molds for microfluidic devices, using relatively inexpensive printers. An iGEM team from Uppsala, Sweden, used a 3D printer to manufacture microfluidic rigs for heat-shock transformation of bacteria. Including the cost of the master and chip, they managed to bring the cost of transformation down moderately (from something like $2.5/transformation to something like $1.4/transformation). The chips looked really nice, too.