In a paper in the Journal of Immunological Methods, Wendy Dittmer of Philips claims to have achieved a 100, 000-fold increase in detection speed by hurrying magnetically tagged molecules of parathyroid hormone towards the spin valve with an electromagnet instead of allowing them to diffuse there.

ECONOMIST: Labs on a chip

The job ad acknowledges Valve's debt to the personal computer but said the firm was trying to speed up the pace of innovation by "jumping in" itself.

BBC: Game maker Valve Software recruits hardware experts