Researchers trick iPhone for use as microscope
Science lovers, rejoice. According to the latest research at the University of California, Davis, researchers have managed to use the iPhone 4s for use as a microscope and spectrometer. Pretty cool, right?
Sebastian Wachsmann-Hogiu and his team explained in a prepared statement that this technology may be used by scientists working in countries where technology is limited.
"Field workers could put a blood sample on a slide, take a picture, and send it to specialists to analyze," says Sebastian Wachsmann-Hogiu, a physicist with UC Davis' Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Center for Biophotonics, Science and Technology in a statement.
According to the paper Cell-Phone-Based Platform for Biomedical Device Development:
"The construction of the iPhone microscope was as simple as adding a small ball lens mounted directly on top of the phone," authors wrote last March for PLoS ONE.
According to a prepared statement:
The team used a 1-millimeter-diameter ball lens that costs $30-40 USD in their prototype, but mass-produced lenses could be substituted to reduce the price.
On top of the cell phone, a spectrometer was also created by the same team. Researchers wrote that black electric tape was used for both sides of a little tube. A narrow slit was created for the measurement of light.
While it's too soon to know how this technology will be used, researchers said in a statement that this technology could be used in the future for diagnostic tests.
In March, researchers published a paper called Cell-Phone-Based Platform for Biomedical Device Development and Education Applications for PLoS ONE on the microscope and spectrometer. According to a statement, researchers will share their latest findings at the Optical Society's Annual Meeting in California.
To learn more, visit the PLoS ONE paper here.
via CNET
via PLoS ONE
Image 1: iPhone via The Optical Society
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com