Smartphone Becomes a Microscope

Researchers have discovered an inexpensive way to provide powerful microscopes for science students. Using low-cost materials they are able to turn normal smartphone cameras into fluorescent microscopes. They call it the “Glowscope”, and it can see things as small as one-thousandth of a millimetre. The resolution and sensitivity of modern smartphone cameras are actually greater than what you find in some expensive microscopes. Glowscope enhances the smartphone camera to make it into a microscope. To do this they added a clip-on macro lens, theatre lighting filters, and a hunting flashlight. The total cost was less than €50, yet the Glowscope has the same resolution as microscopes costing many thousands of euros.