This was a picture I took short after receiving the FoldScope, but held back on posting. This is actually a picture of the foot bacterial colonies from the colony counting experiment from weeks back. I thought the FoldScope would be a phenomenal opportunity to look at the already “visible” colonies to see what lie past the naked eye. The picture is an enlarged view of what appeared to be “two colonies”. Upon closer inspection, it seems more like several tiny colonies. This makes me think about the implications and our understanding of the prior experiment. Was the number of colonies we counted then not representative of what actually exists? Does this number influence our understanding of what environments better foster bacterial growth? The FoldScope may not have the answers to all of these questions, but I think using it allowed me to discover the reason why it was given to us. Our interpretations are not always final, nor the most informed. Finding a solution requires different perspectives (literally!) to fully understand what influencers exist. The FoldScope has allowed me to realize that usually, we are not necessarily “answering” a question. We are grappling with it.
