Tag Archives: microscopes

The Foldscope Is A Legit Paper Microsope That Fits In Your Pocket

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There exists and entire world at the microscopic level that we never get to see outside of pictures in textbooks and online. But there’s something really cool about being able to check out the inside of a cell you just scraped off the walls of your own mouth, or being able to examine the bulb of a hair you just plucked out of your own head. With the Foldscope, not only can you do that, but you can then unfold it and pack right back into your pocket. It provides 140X magnification, which is enough for “imaging live individual cells, cellular organelles, embryos, swimming bacteria and much more.”

The Foldscope has been around for 5 years, but started out as a project to provide third world countries affordable access to scientific instruments. So the company “built, designed and shipped (free of any cost) 50,000 Foldscopes to kids (and teachers, home-school moms, classrooms, naturalists, gem collectors, bee-keepers, tribal kids, camel herders, space scientists, parasitologists, scrap-metal collectors.. you get the point) around the world in 130+ countries.” Now it’s your turn to own one, and you’ll only have to pledge $20 to do so. Know that this money will get you more than just the Foldscope, but an entire scientific kit including slides, Petri dishes, strainers, pipettes, tweezers… If you’ve got even a passing interest in science, this could kick it into high gear.

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[ Project Page ]

2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell and William Moerner

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The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell and William Moerner for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.For a...

$1 Folding Microscope With 2,000X Magnification And 800nm Resolution

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Foldscope

Peering into the abysmally small doesn’t always require fancy equipment. Or at the very least, it doesn’t seem to require expensive equipment since the Foldscope pictured above costs less than a dollar to make and can magnify objects up to 2,000X. Made by a research team at PrakashLab at Stanford University, Foldscope is ultimately meant to be used in developing nations where being able to accurately diagnose specific diseases greatly improves survival, and where traditional microscopes may be out of range.

Foldscope is an origami-based print-and-fold optical microscope that can be assembled from a flat sheet of paper. Although it costs less than a dollar in parts, it can provide over 2,000X magnification with sub-micron resolution (800nm), weighs less than two nickels (8.8 g), is small enough to fit in a pocket (70 × 20 × 2 mm3), requires no external power, and can survive being dropped from a 3-story building or stepped on by a person.

The team is currently looking for 10,000 Beta testers. To sign up you have to send them a proposal of what you’d do with yours, through the link available below.

[ Product Page ] AND [ Signup Page ] VIA [ Reddit ]

The post $1 Folding Microscope With 2,000X Magnification And 800nm Resolution appeared first on OhGizmo!.

50-Cent Paper Microscope could be a Life-Saver

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Can Third World diseases and maladies be cured by means of an instrument that is dirt cheap and very easy to build and use? The correct answer is a resounding yes. A researcher and professor at...

Scientists generate 281-gigapixel cell map using electron microscope

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Scientists generate 281gigapixel cell map using electron microscope

Electron microscopes can produce incredibly detailed and even 3D views of sub-cellular structures, but often at the cost of losing the bigger picture. Researchers at Leiden University in the Netherlands, however, have leveraged a technique called virtual nanoscopy that enables researchers to observe the whole of a cell and its intricate details in a single image. With the method, the team stitches together nanometer resolution photographs of what's gone under the scope to create a map with adjustable zoom a la Google Maps. Their study created a 281-gigapixel image (packed with 16 million pixels per inch) of a 1.5-millimeter-long zebrafish embryo. If you'd like to take a gander at the ultra-high resolution fish or read up on the group's findings for yourself, check out the source links below.

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Scientists generate 281-gigapixel cell map using electron microscope originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Aug 2012 04:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Via:PhysOrg
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  • Source:The Journal of Cell Biology, (2)
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