Build your own window to another world

Our News in Briefs often get overlooked.

They are, well, brief. So I thought I'd expand on one of the stories from our latest episode. Chris told us all about a new type of camera lens, which can be made extremely quickly and cheaply from a polymer solution. Great news for anybody wanting to make a cheap microscope – for example health workers or vets out 'in the field'. 

But a microscope is more than just a lens, there are sample platforms, light sources and focussing dials. What use is making a cheap lens if no one can use it?

Some clever engineers from Stanford University might have just answered this question. And the answer is? Origami!

An origami microscope from engineers in Stanford University.
The paper, published in PLoS ONE, even contained this lovely origami planning sheet.

The authors claim that their origami microscope – called the 'Foldscope' – can be constructed in under 10 minutes, costs less than $1 in parts and can even survive being dropped from a three-storey building!

The designers see the main function of the microscope as being for engaging school children with the 'microworld' – imagine catching a glimpse of a hidden world from a microscope that you printed and built yourself!

The 'Do It Yourself' nature of this microscope reminded me of an experiment that Musings's very own Chris showed Dave and I after we recorded the last episode. Using only a laser pointer, Chris was able to cast a shadow of a drop of water, showing microscopic strands of hair (which might have been yeast colonies). We even saw something moving in the water drop. This was a single bacterium.

Here's a photo that Chris posted on Twitter. You can just about see a bacterium in the bottom left of the image. Cool huh?

Try it yourself. Pass a laser pointer through a drop of water to cast a shadow – you might be amazed by what you see! 

There's something very 'Through The Looking Glass'-ish about peering into the microscopic world that covers our planet, and this 'build it yourself' microscope, published in an open source journal, is an incredible way for scientists to share this world with everybody.