A water droplet applied to a specially treated silicon chip speeds upward unassisted during a demonstration in a University of Rochester lab March 11, 2010. Researchers at the University led by professor Chunlei Guo have devised a way, by carving intricate patterns in silicon with extremely short, high-powered laser bursts, to transport liquid uphill on a silicon chip without a pump. The discovery could contribute to the design of elegant and effective systems to cool computer chips, which are made of silicon. Cooling silicon chips is widely acknowledged in the computer engineering field to be the biggest problem holding designers back from making faster computers. // photo: J. Adam Fenster/University of Rochester