10,000 free folding microscopes traded for inspiring ideas

The Foldscope -- a low-cost microscope that can be constructed like origami out of a sheet of paper with components embedded -- has the potential to revolutionize health care in developing countries -- but it has the potential to do something else, too.
Creator Manu Prakash of Stanford University's Prakash Lab wants to inspire a new generation of up-and-coming young scientists. To this end, he has created the Ten Thousand Microscope Project. Prakash will be giving away 10,000 Foldscopes to "people who would like to test the microscopes in a variety of settings and help us generate an open-source biology/microscopy field manual written by people from all walks of life." … Read more