Ratchets in hydrodynamic flow: more than waterwheels.

The transport of objects in microfluidic arrays of obstacles is a surprisingly rich area of physics and statistical mechanics. Tom Duke's mastery of these areas had a major impact in the development of biotechnology which uses these ideas at an increasing scale. We first review how biological objects are transported in fluids at low Reynolds numbers, including a discussion of electrophoresis, then concentrate on the separation of objects in asymmetric arrays, sometimes called Brownian ratchets when diffusional symmetry is broken by the structures.