Science lovers, rejoice. According to the latest research at the University of California, Davis, researchers have managed to use the iPhone 4s for use as a microscope and spectrometer. Pretty cool, right?
"Field workers could put a blood sample on a slide, take a picture, and send it to specialists to analyze," says Sebastian Wachsmann-Hogiu, a physicist with UC Davis' Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Center for Biophotonics, Science and Technology in a statement.
According to the paper Cell-Phone-Based Platform for Biomedical Device Development:
"The construction of the iPhone microscope was as simple as adding a small ball lens mounted directly on top of the phone," authors wrote last March for PLoS ONE.
According to a prepared statement:
The team used a 1-millimeter-diameter ball lens that costs $30-40 USD in their prototype, but mass-produced lenses could be substituted to reduce the price.
On top of the cell phone, a spectrometer was also created by the same team. Researchers wrote that black electric tape was used for both sides of a little tube. A narrow slit was created for the measurement of light.
In March, researchers published a paper called Cell-Phone-Based Platform for Biomedical Device Development and Education Applications for PLoS ONE on the microscope and spectrometer. According to a statement, researchers will share their latest findings at the Optical Society's Annual Meeting in California.
To learn more, visit the PLoS ONE paper here.
via PLoS ONE
Image 1: iPhone via The Optical Society
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com