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Paper Microscope Magnifies Objects 2100 Times and Costs Less Than $1
ananyo writes: "If ever a technology were ripe for disruption, it is the microscope. Microscopes are expensive and need to be serviced and maintained. Unfortunately, one important use of them is in poor-world laboratories and clinics, for identifying pathogens, and such places often have small budgets and lack suitably trained technicians. Now Manu Prakash, a bioengineer at Stanford University, has designed a microscope made almost entirely of paper, which is so cheap that the question of servicing it goes out of the window. Individual Foldscopes are printed on A4 sheets of paper (ideally polymer-coated for durability). A pattern of perforations on the sheet marks out the 'scope's components, which are colour-coded in a way intended to assist the user in the task of assembly. The Foldscope's non-paper components, a poppy-seed-sized spherical lens made of borosilicate or corundum, a light-emitting diode (LED), a watch battery, a switch and some copper tape to complete the electrical circuit, are pressed into or bonded onto the paper. (The lenses are actually bits of abrasive grit intended to roll around in tumblers that smooth-off metal parts.) A high-resolution version of this costs less than a dollar, and offers a magnification of up to 2,100 times and a resolving power of less than a micron. A lower-spec version (up to 400x magnification) costs less than 60 cents."
this is of-course a dupe, but hey, what else is new.
Ted talk on this device.
You can't handle the truth.
Back around 1985 I worked with a teacher in a grade school with a lot of low income students creating a microscope that the kids could build and use out of trash quickly. We used a cardboard box that used to hold wooden matches and cut a flap in the wide sides so light could illuminate the inside and covered one end with aluminum foil. Other boxes could also be used but the slide made it easy to focus. A small hole was punched in the center of the foil. The object to be examined was placed inside on top of the part of the box that slid in and out (which was now exposed to light) and a drop of water put in the hole in the foil. It worked remarkably well and the kids had a great time with it looking at all sorts of things inside and outdoors but maybe the greatest thing was that the kids started thinking about how things worked and coming up with novel solutions rather than just buying something to do the job.
For only $0.50, you can get this nicer toy microscope [alibaba.com] on Alibaba.
No, you can't. For $10,000 you can get 20,000 of them, but you can't get one at $0.50.
What's the magnification? I think it might be a bit shy of 2,100x.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The whole point of this, the whole point, is to make specialized idiot-proof diagnostic tools. Did you watch the Ted talk? It's short and informative. If you see the vid, you'll see that many of these places have a fancy microscope already that no one can use. With this thing they can create a specialized single use malaria detector for example. Very little training is required to insert slide, look at image, malaria? Yes/No. That's the point of this, that's what they are trying to achieve. It's a good idea, and it could transform diagnosis in the third world.