Foldscope: A 50-cent Microscope That Folds Like Origami

Manu Prakash and his team have created a microscope made of paper that's just as easy to fold and use. It's cheap but sturdy, magnifies samples 2,000 times and could revolutionize healthcare in developing countries.

"Prakash originally designed the Foldscope to detect deadly blood-borne diseases such as malaria, African sleeping sickness, schistosomiasis and Chagas in the developing world, which includes India, where he grew up. According to the World Health Organization, globally there were 219 million cases of malaria alone in 2010, and about 660,000 were fatal."

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