If you happen to be in the jungle with nothing but paper, a ball lens, a button battery, an LED, a switch, 3 cents worth of copper tape, and a need to see if there is E. coli in the drinking water, you’re in luck! You can make your own microscope.
Writes Keith Hartnett at the Boston Globe, “In recent years there’s been a trend in international development work towards building low-cost versions of key tools for widespread dissemination—inexpensive computers that let Indonesian fisherman check the weather before they go out to sea, or clean-burning stoves that replace coal and improve air quality in family huts.
“Now a laboratory at Stanford University has introduced a microscope that’s made of paper, assembled using principles of origami, and costs less than $1 to manufacture. It’s called Foldscope. …
“Despite the simple construction, Foldscope is a capable tool of real science. Users can adjust the focus using paper tabs, and the engineering team, led by bioengineer Manu Prakash and funded in part by the Gates Foundation, explained in a paper [PDF] that Foldscope ‘can provide over 2,000X magnification with submicron resolution.’ ” More. Hat tip to MIT Technology Review.
I wonder if I could get a gig folding paper at John’s Optics for Hire. I just made an origami fortune-teller for John’s son on Saturday, after all.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Remarkable! I like how lightweight and portable it must be!
Everything gets smaller and lighter. My son’s co. made a portable ophthalmoscope for a client, but other barriers remain. Like how can an ophthalmogist see behind your eye w/o putting in those dilation eye drops that make it hard to see for four hours?