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Stanford bioengineer develops a 50-cent paper microscope
- gourneau 13y agoThis is awesome, I want one. Until then, for folks that can afford there are some really great ~$50 usb microscope web cams. I have this one http://j.mp/usbmicroscope http://j.mp/usbmicroscope, it is UVC compliant and works on Ubuntu/OS X/Windows as a web cam.
- minikomi 13y agoAmazing. This talk is also very good for more depth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoP5MdpMBc4&feature=share&list=PLkCqtkRNkFgA6MRBj1VT7myATRZJIk0vJ&index=8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoP5MdpMBc4&feature=share&lis...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jessedhillon 13y agoKind of wary about putting a sample of Malaria-infected fluid up to my face like that. But mostly I'm jealous that nothing I'm working on stands to have a tenth the impact this could make.
- eru 13y agoYou could put the camera close to the lens, instead of your face there.
- midas007 13y agoExactly. And archive those images. The diagnosis may be mechanical-turked off somewhere else or kept for EMR/EHR.
- pja 13y agoIf it's under a microscope slide cover then you're pretty safe - the fluid is sandwiched between the slide & the cover and isn't going to go anywhere. (You don't normally try and image free standing droplets that could run off for a couple of reasons: Except for the clearest liquids they'd be too optically thick to see anything useful and you'd have problems focusing on objects that can move in the z direction as well as laterally with respect to the lens.)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jnbiche 13y agoPlus, malaria isn't transmitted via fecal-oral or respiratory route, so holding it up to your face isn't terribly risky. Taking the sample is much more risky, since there are sharps involved. Now, if it were cholera...
- HCIdivision17 13y agoThe laser cutting surprised me. I know it's almost certainly just for prototyping, but I couldn't help but think that a full scale industrial process could drive costs far lower. I would love to work on the line trying to produce a quarter million a day per line. Ram a ribbon of that paper between an anvil roll and a pattern cutter, with another line rounding and polishing ball bearing lenses. I hope it takes off - these sorts of cheap tech solutions will bootstrap the rest of the world faster than anything else!
- tedsanders 13y agoYeah, their plan is to use a die cutter for mass production of the paper parts. The glass beads used as lenses are already mass produced for other applications. Source: I've worked with them on an educational pilot of foldscope.
- boothead 13y agoIf there somewhere I can acquire some of these? I'd absolutely love to get them into the hands of my daughter and her classmates!
- partoutok 13y agoYes. From one of the comment: > To sign up for the “10,000 Microscope Project” where Prakash will give away 10,000 build-your-own-Foldscope kits to 10,000 people who pledge to share their experiences and experiments on his website, go here: http://www.foldscope.com/contact-us/ http://www.foldscope.com/contact-us/
- plaes 13y agoAnyone know where I could find schematics? I would like to do it with kids in our summer tech camp.
- WestCoastJustin 13y agohttp://www.foldscope.com/ http://www.foldscope.com/ has some info about the project, but you can also signup for their beta program. re: > To signup, please send an email to signup@foldscope.com with description of community you are involved with or one question you would like to tackle. See categories below for details. @ http://www.foldscope.com/#/10ksignup/ http://www.foldscope.com/#/10ksignup/
- jnbiche 13y agoSchematics don't seem to be available to the public.
- Groxx 13y agoThat's one of the better "we made a thing" videos I've seen in a long time. Major props to the video team and Manu Prakash, that was excellent. And the thing is cool, bordering on "coolest thing in a long time". This would also be phenomenal for use in schools, especially with younger kids. I really really want to see lots of these built and sold and in everyone's hands.
- tedsanders 13y agoI agree that these are great for teaching kids science, but there are a few hurdles. First, kids don't really know what makes a good slide - they'll take opaque things like a orange peel and hope to see something (you can only see transparent or semi-transparent stuff). Second, it takes a fair bit of attention to learn how to hold it up to your eye and move the focusing stage around. Third, it's hard for a young kid to build one of these without supervision, and if you're a teacher in a 30-kid classroom, you can't supervise kids individually. None of these problems are insurmountable, but they do prevent Foldscope from being an instant educational hit.
- richardw 13y agoI think most of the educational value is gained from having access to a microscope, not having each child able to build one. A teacher who builds one in class with the kids watching and then selects a useful slide and projects it on a wall will likely get you 95% of the benefit. "Look at this unboiled water vs this boiled water". I didn't have to build my microscope at school but it was still educational to have access to one. This is primarily for kids that don't have what we had. (At least from an educational perspective - the medical perspective is arguably more important.)
- boothead 13y agoIf you can drop a bunch of tablets in a village and kids can get themselves up to speed with no supervision, I sure that these problems are insurmountable :-) The more I read about learning, the more I think structure, testing and to a lesser extent supervision are detrimental to younger kids. My little girl brings home weekly spelling tests at the age of 5, I'd much rather give her things like this, a minimal amount of instruction and let her loose! http://www.dvice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian_kids.php http://www.dvice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian_kids.php
- xmonkee 13y agoWhat is the component providing the actual magnification?
- Cogito 13y agoThe article mentioned spherical lenses produced as a by product of an industrial process: The poppy-seed-sized lenses where[sic] originally mass produced in various sizes as an abrasive grit that was thrown into industrial tumblers to knock the rough edges off metal parts
- kroo 13y agoTiny spherical lenses. From the article: > One of the unique design features of the microscope is the use of inexpensive spherical lenses rather than the precision-ground curved glass lenses used in traditional microscopes. These poppy-seed-sized lenses where originally mass produced in various sizes as an abrasive grit that was thrown into industrial tumblers to knock the rough edges off metal parts. In the simplest configuration of the Foldscope, one 17-cent lens is press-fit into a small hole in the center of the slide-mounting platform. Some of his more sophisticated versions use multiple lenses and filters.
- psc55 13y agoSounds too good to be true. I'll believe it when I can buy/build it. Until then it's vapourware, period.
- tedsanders 13y agoIt's not vaporware. I've built them myself. Why make such a critical and cynical comment? I ask sincerely and not judgmentally. What value does it offer other readers?
- kefka 13y agoWe in the tech community deal with "X made! Follow us for commercial release"... And that day never comes for many projects. So yes, skepticism is warranted in the sciences. And frankly, until I can buy one or download the CAD drawings, it effectively does not exist.
- avivo 13y agoI understand where this perspective is coming from - I could have thought the same thing when I first heard about it - but in this case it's definitely not vapourware. I have designed, cut, and built foldscopes, and I can confirm that they work incredibly well and are cheap and quick to make. (I knew the professor involved from my time at MIT, and worked with the group on alternate designs, as I had some previous background in folding of various sorts.)
- midas007 13y agoBack up that bus without running people over... I've used them IRL and seen micro-scopic features, so your assessment seems to lack evidence. Anyhow, crazy awesome clinical, education and novelty value. There are plenty of situations where donating lab equipment is as cruel as giving someone a white elephant, but this is the polar opposite. The cost is mostly in the bead. The tricky part is holding it a precision distance from the focusing plane, which the paper contraption accomplishes (clearly it's been simplified). The other neat aspect of the prototypes was that one part can be sanded down more on one side than another, where sliding a part allow very fine focus.
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- quarterwave 13y agoHow does the microscope cost compare with paying the technician who will do the diagnosis? Assuming even $1000 per tech - which is roughly the per capita GDP(nom) of many countries - in this case maybe it's just better to buy the scopes in volume from Alibaba? So the real value of the 50-center may be for people to make their own samples, and use a local shop to upload a cell phone picture to an online analysis service. Running on the cloud, maybe?
- eru 13y agoThe more expensive microscope will be good enough when you already know what application you have in mind. The almost free microscope let's you explore without risk.
- teddyh 13y ago…but apparently nobody can actually get the thing unless they are chosen as one of 10.000 beta testers. And who knows what the actual license will be on the designs, if they are ever released.
- avivo 13y agoI'm really excited that this is now public! Congrats to Manu, Jim, et al. FYI, a paper with technical details is available here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1403.1211.pdf http://arxiv.org/pdf/1403.1211.pdf
- agumonkey 13y agoI skimmed through and it seems dedicated to the optical side of foldscope, while I was very curious on how they achieved micrometer precision, IIUC of lens parameters (position, focus) through folding ...
- jnbiche 13y agoThis is an incredibly exciting project -- congrats to the Prakash lab. One of the most exciting advances in global health and science education I've seen in a long time. Given where some of their funding is from (Gates Foundation, NIH Fogarty Institute Global Health Equity Scholars (GHES) Fellowship, other global health foundations), I really hope they open source this design under an appropriate open source license. The benefits to the developing world of having this design available to the public under an open source license are tremendous. The only details I can find for licensing don't look too promising (hopefully I'm wrong): http://techfinder.stanford.edu/technology_detail.php?ID=29223 http://techfinder.stanford.edu/technology_detail.php?ID=2922... Edit: Is the CAD file public?
- delinquentme 13y agoI was asking myself JUST this as I've got a printer lined up :D
- midas007 13y agoEarlier prototypes: https://pictures.lytro.com/barry.allard/albums/47077 https://pictures.lytro.com/barry.allard/albums/47077
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoFor me this is linked to the 19bn for WhatsApp. We only spend stupid amounts on IM apps when we think there is nothing else left to spend money on. Its similar to the USPO comment at the end of the 19C - "Everything that can be invented has been invented". With that attitude you will sink your billions into anything - but this shows there is always scope (#) for invention and innovation. (#) See what I did there.
- pja 13y agoThis is pretty much Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's original microscope design (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leeuwenhoek_Microscope.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leeuwenhoek_Microscope.png ) using modern materials. So in that sense, it has already been invented! Which doesn't mean that it's not worthwhile & important of course: the reapplication of old technologies can lead to great things.
- turnip1979 13y ago1) This is wicked cool. 2) The feat itself is impressive. Sucks they have to "sell" it with the malaria application. I guess science has almost always been like that.
- omegamu 13y agoInteresting, I like how they call it "Microscopy." Kind of a throw back to those old pin-needle hole microscopes.
- mhb 13y agoWhy is this impressive? It's not made out of paper. I see plastic lenses, LEDs and batteries. I can buy a microscope on eBay for less than $2 (http://www.ebay.com/bhp/pocket-microscope http://www.ebay.com/bhp/pocket-microscope). Why is it better for the housing to be made out of paper than plastic? Here's my 2 cent microscope "made out of water": http://citizenscientistsleague.com/2013/08/29/the-instant-microscope-just-add-water/ http://citizenscientistsleague.com/2013/08/29/the-instant-mi...
- delinquentme 13y agoreproducibility. consistency. scale. And the ruggedness of the instrument doesn't hurt.
- TrainedMonkey 13y agoTry buying something on ebay in the middle of Africa. I can assure you it would be a different experience.
- jnbiche 13y agoThe pocket microscopes you linked to provide 60x magnification. Imaging of most microbial infections that can be diagnosed visually requires at least 1000x magnification. The Foldscope project provides over 2000x magnification. Also, the 50-cent cost is right now. They hope to get the cost down significantly lower by scaling up production. Finally, it doesn't hurt that the Foldscope is significantly more rugged than a plastic microscope. You could easily stack a thousand of them in a small pack and bring them to some remote region on foot, horse, or motorcycle.
- tedsanders 13y agoA big advantage of the paper design is that they can be flatpacked and shipped by the thousands cheaply.
- frozenport 13y agoThis is a hole. You can do the same thing with a coke cap and a bright light. Also notice that the work wasn't published in a scientific journal. As somebody who works in optics this is the most infuriating thing I have seen in a while. ITS A BLOODY HOLE.
- tedsanders 13y agoIt's not just a hole. There is a ball lens that provides 140x magnification. The lens can be translated in the x, y, and z directions. To me, that's deFinitely a microscope. Why are you so infuriated?
- mhb 13y agoHe's infuriated because, despite the hype, the TED talk and the Gates funding, it's not clear why this is better than other simple microscopes which can be made for even less money. Also, why does it need to be so cheap? Not everyone in a poor community needs one of these. Surely they could buy/receive a more conventional instrument and share it.
- tedsanders 13y ago"other simple microscopes that can be made for even less money" What microscopes are cheaper? It seems incredibly hard to beat this on price without sacrificing a lot of magnification or durability.
- mhb 13y agoBy trading off field of view, eye relief, brightness and aberrations you can get any arbitrary magnification by sticking in a different sized plastic ball lens. Just like all the 500x junk telescopes that are sold. Given all the attention this is getting, I have to conclude that I'm missing a critical element of what makes this notable. I get that it's very cheap and can be stepped on, but maybe you can explain the application for this that wouldn't be better served by the shared use of a more conventional design made out of plastic instead of paper and which could still survive rough handling.