• Subscribe

Magnifying the life of things with a smartphone microscope

Germinated bacillus anthracis spores stained and imaged with a smartphone microscope modified for fluorescence. Courtesy PNNL.

This is one of the entries in the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL) annual Science as Art contest. Aside from its eerie beauty, what makes this image of a germinated bacillus anthracis (the bacterium that causes anthrax) significant is that it was captured on a smartphone microscope.

That’s right: The image comes to you via a portable microscope attachment for smartphones that offers up to 1000x magnification. As you can see, it takes amazing pictures — better yet, it can be 3D printed for less than $1.

The attachment slips easily and snugly over the camera lens of a smartphone, and is a great way to get kids interested in science.

“There are many uses out there including human and veterinary medicine in developing countries," says Janine Hutchison, a microbiologist at PNNL. “School districts have a hard time providing enough microscopes for students, so our science education staff is getting it into the hands of local schools.”

Details on how to make this inexpensive microscope attachment are available at the PNNL website.

Scientists at PNNL have designed a 3D-printable microscope for mobile devices using pennies worth of plastic and glass materials. The microscope has a wide range of uses, from education to in-the-field science. Video courtesy PNNL.

Join the conversation

Do you have story ideas or something to contribute? Let us know!

Copyright © 2023 Science Node ™  |  Privacy Notice  |  Sitemap

Disclaimer: While Science Node ™ does its best to provide complete and up-to-date information, it does not warrant that the information is error-free and disclaims all liability with respect to results from the use of the information.

Republish

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:
  1. You have to credit our authors.
  2. You have to credit ScienceNode.org — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
  3. You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on ScienceNode.org” containing a link back to the original article.
  4. The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.