The origami microscope, dubbed Foldscope, designed by Prof Prakash and his team, can be fitted on to one sheet of A4 paper making it extremely easy to ship in large numbers.
It can be assembled in seven minutes, includes no mechanical moving parts, operates with no external power and is very sturdy. Everything from the lenses to the batteries come on the paper.
“You can throw it in water, stand on it, jump on it and throw it from a five-storey building,” said Mr Prakash.
Initially they made 1,000 of the microscopes “at a price point where they were almost disposable,” said Prof Prakash.
And in lab tests Foldscopes optically outperforms traditional field microscopes for disease diagnostic applications.
via BBC News
