A cork borer, often used in a chemistry or biology

laboratory A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physic ...

, is a metal tool for cutting a hole in a cork or rubber stopper to insert glass tubing. Cork borers usually come in a set of nested sizes along with a solid pin for pushing the removed cork (or rubber) out of the borer. The individual borer is a hollow tube, tapered at the edge, generally with some kind of handle at the other end. A separate device is a ''cork borer sharpener'' used to hone the cutting edge to more easily slice the cork. Cork borers are also used to take samples from living trees, for

tree ring Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmos ...

analysis (dendrochronology), and for taking samples for experiments when a constant diameter is required, e.g. When testing the

water potential Water potential is the potential energy of water per unit volume relative to pure water in reference conditions. Water potential quantifies the tendency of water to move from one area to another due to osmosis, gravity, mechanical pressure and mat ...

of a potato, a cork borer is used to maintain a constant surface area. A cork borer is also used to punch holes on an agar plate and to perform well diffusion assays in microbiology to study

bioactivity In pharmacology, biological activity or pharmacological activity describes the beneficial or adverse effects of a drug on living matter. When a drug is a complex chemical mixture, this activity is exerted by the substance's active ingredient or ...

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{{Laboratory equipment Laboratory equipment