Foldscope meets Stentor

Mar 20, 2016 • 2:25 AM UTC

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140x Magnification

Microorganisms

Manu Prakash

I am a faculty at Stanford and run the Prakash Lab at Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Foldscope community is at the heart of our Frugal Science movement - and I can not tell you how proud I am of this community and grassroots movement. Find our work here: http://prakashlab.stanford.edu

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Today, I and a small group of hardy Foldscopers had the privilege to host a event at Mini-Maker Faire with Prof Wallace Marshall of UCSF. If you have not see as yet – watch his incredible iBiology talk here: http://www.ibiology.org/ibioeducation/exploring-biology/cell-bio/signaling/ten-craziest-things-cells-do.html
Now, what’s fun with the Foldscope is to actually watch up close all these crazy things Wallace describes. And so we caught a Stentor and put them in a Foldscope. I used double sided tape as a spacer (soon Alice will be describing an incredible tricky to make reversible wet mounts – I will let her describe the wonder).
Now, here is Wallace and I getting excited about Stentor under a Foldscope. Watch it yourself.

Here you see the ciliary apparatus; and when surprised – it’s ball-up reaction. So much to learn from this magical animal.
I will let everyone who came describe parts of what they did. Just wanted to quickly share the excitement 🙂
Cheers
Manu