DAQ system, best option?

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Hi everyone, I am new here, have been reading the forums and searching the internet, but have yet to come up with a solution to my problem… I work in a research unit where we use thermistors to measure temperature amongst other items (humidity, O2 saturation, etc). I am looking to build my own little DAQ system using arduino boards, however I have failed to find the connection (no pun intended) between using the arduino and its modular attachments, and relaying the digital signal back to an interface like Labview or MatLAB. Basically, my ultimate goal would be to have a stack of arduino units measuring different things (one for analog inputs for 6-8 different temperature readings using thermistors, one for ECG, one O2 sensor, etc) and have all the raw signals be recorded by a software similar to MATLAB or LabVIEW - a free software would be awesome. My main question is - apart form the USB connection, how do I/what software will communicate with my arduinos and realize that they are basically DAQ systems with various analog channels?

For starters, is it possible? I would like to think it is considering the amount of various sensors available at SparkFun…

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It is simply configuring the Ardiuno (Atmega processor) pins for analog input, init the ADC and write a loop that reads the ADC, switch input and read the ADC again until all inputs are read. Then send the data out the UART to the USB adapter into the PC.Lots and lots of info on the web and in various forums on doing this.

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PLX-DAQ is a free Excel macro that can read data from an Arduino, via the serial port, directly into a spreadsheet. Download it from Parallax.