Blog 1 - A 50-cent paper microscope
A 50-cent microscope that folds like origami Manu Prakash an Indian bio engineer a student of from Stanford University who was on mission to bring radical new technology to global health, once he traveled to a mosquito-infested rainforest in Thailand a couple of years ago, there he visited a clinic where there were $100,000 microscope that sat idle in a locked room. It was then Prakash realized that what global health workers really need is a low cost, simple-to-use, portable microscope that could be arranged in the field to diagnose disease and decided to develop one himself. As a result he developed a Foldscope - a ‘use and throwaway’ microscope that Prakash made out of thick, waterproof paper and a glass, polymer lens that’s the size of a large grain of sand. While it can be used by simply holding the device up to the sun or a light bulb, there’s also a version illuminated by tiny LEDs powered by an inexpensive watch battery. The framework of the Foldscope is printed onto a sh...
Comments
Post a Comment