It’s currently 6 in the morning and I have a severe case of jet lag. After a two-week road trip in Hokkaido, Japan, I come back with some samples of my travels, in Foldscope form. I took as many samples as I had slides to carry, and some turned out great while others didn’t show much. Here are just a few of my favorites:

I found this butterfly wing as roadkill. It was stuck to the front of our rental car, and I’d always wanted to see what a butterfly wing looked like. Surprisingly, it looks like a bunch of tiny “feathers” made of chitin stuck to one another. You can see the different pigmentation of the wings in the video, which is what gives the butterfly’s wings a pattern.

Moving on to my next sample. I went to a flower garden called Farm Tomita during my trip. The grounds were covered in hundreds of different flowers, and I picked a small flower that was purple. Its species is Salvia pretenses and is commonly known as sage. I filmed the length of the flower. Take note of the little lobes (the “hairy” structures inside the flower) and the structure of the stem (and lack thereof of both pigmentation and organelles).

That’s it for now. I’ll be back soon with more Foldscoping adventures. I have to admit, this was a lot better than laying in my room not being able to sleep.

Alice