Comments on: How to Take Stunning Microscopic Images–Without a Microscope

By: Raju

Raju — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 04:29:39 +0000

how?

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:53:13 +0000

How odd that there’s no way to see the content without commenting.

By: Harsh

Harsh — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:07:39 +0000

cool..really cool :)

By: Jiri Polivka

Jiri Polivka — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 20:37:35 +0000

As a small boy I saw a ~1942 journal for tinkerers. It described an easy-to-make microscope with a lens made of a water drop. The design comprised a metal strip anchored on a side of a wooden board with a large ~2″ hole in it. The other flat side of the metal strip was held above the hole with a screw and a nut. Next to the screw, in the metal strip there was a ~0.1″ hole. With a grease applied on this hole circumference, a water drop hung down against the 2″ hole in the wooden board. Across the large hole one can put a glass sample carrier, light entering from below e.g. by a mirror. Look into the drop from above- and it magnified ~100x!
The cost was zero, but this contraption allowed me to use a powerful microscope in looking at microbes in water, tiny components of vacuum tubes (after breaking the bulb), insects, butterflies and many more fascinating micro-objects.
My later better and more expensive microscopes gave me less fascination than this self-made toy. Recommended to anyone!

By: Veronique Greenwood

Veronique Greenwood — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:47:01 +0000

Hey folks–it seems that people were indeed having difficulty seeing the gallery’s text on their phones, but we’ve fixed the problem now. Thanks for telling us about it, and do let us know if anything else crops up. Happy browsing!

By: bob mcbob

bob mcbob — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:39:50 +0000

opera mobile. I have heard opera was proxied through their servers, so I guess that explains the same IP address.

By: Veronique Greenwood

Veronique Greenwood — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 20:41:05 +0000

Everyone’s who is having trouble seeing the text appears to be coming from the same IP address. Can you guys let me know here in the comments what browser you’re using?

By: Annoying

Annoying — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 19:02:15 +0000

To save time for others, here’s the text of the article:

To see the world on the microscopic level, you usually need, well, microscopes. But with sensitive cameras and a gel that deforms around even the ink on a printed page, a team at MIT has developed a compact, portable equivalent. A device about the size of a soda can, it can register objects as small as two micrometers across.
A little pad of gel, coated on one side with metallic paint, is at the center of the device. When pressed against a finger, a dollar bill, or a Post-It, the paint on the gel gently bends to fit the form of the object. Cameras arrayed above the gel snap images of the pattern imprinted in the paint, and computer vision algorithms reconstruct the surface in 3D. The result is beautifully detailed imagesof such objects as the individual barbules of a feather, shown above.

By: Annoying

Annoying — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:59:10 +0000

Why can’t I just read the article? How annoying is that?

By: majikthijs

majikthijs — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:52:54 +0000

hope the text is worth having to type the comment on my iphone

By: Trent

Trent — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:20:51 +0000

Just want to read the article

By: lamanga2004

lamanga2004 — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:21:38 +0000

Bingo bango bongo

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 04:46:48 +0000

Cool pix

By: JZ

JZ — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 01:50:09 +0000

Neat!

By: Tuesday

Tuesday — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 01:43:12 +0000

How about a picture of the device itself?

By: mousspouss

mousspouss — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 01:41:28 +0000

cool

By: goosarino

goosarino — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:47:22 +0000

Correct horse staple battery

By: hello

hello — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:37:11 +0000

Cool

By: M

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:15:08 +0000

hmmm

By: Grewr

Grewr — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 23:51:02 +0000

Peanut trees leek

By: Hh

Hh — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:37:42 +0000

Fuvking hate mobile versions of websites. Can it.

By: hm

hm — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:10:30 +0000

Hm…

By: CaitastropheGee

CaitastropheGee — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:04:28 +0000

Commenting for article?

By: Scribble

Scribble — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:39:07 +0000

Commenting to see the article… (the pics are incredible, btw)

By: See.o.r.e.why

See.o.r.e.why — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:28:04 +0000

Can see article, only pictures. Very awesome stuff though!

By: Matthew

Matthew — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:13:11 +0000

I love science

By: bala

bala — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:58:49 +0000

you must be kidding me

By: High

High — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:51:56 +0000

Test

By: ncoffin

ncoffin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:17:01 +0000

Commenting to see the article. But while I’m here, I’d just like to thank you for all the excellent writing you’ve done. I’ve been a reader for what seems like a long time now, and I’ve always enjoyed your work.

By: mike

mike — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:41:58 +0000

Very cool stuff.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:32:45 +0000

Trying to see the story!

By: Thopter

Thopter — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:26:09 +0000

The youtube video on the third image really clears things up

By: Derek Stockhall

Derek Stockhall — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:08:55 +0000

Sounds intriguing. I have a keen interest in all innovative ideas in science.

By: Daniel Oliveira

Daniel Oliveira — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:55:03 +0000

Comment first, read story later. That’s a great strategy ;-)

By: bob mcbob

bob mcbob — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:13:58 +0000

I see just the pics.

Now that I’ve commented, I can see the story.

By: John Lerch

John Lerch — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:01:37 +0000

Of course it depends on which person we’re coating in silver lycra as to whether we want every curve to be clear or not.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:00:16 +0000

Very cool!

By: JKJ

JKJ — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:57:00 +0000

Nice pics, where is the text?

By: Pauline

Pauline — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:41:59 +0000

Wow, I want one! And I would think every law enforcement department in the country wants one too – what a great tool for recording fingerprints.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:41:22 +0000

Where is the “how”?

Ahhh… There it is. Didn’t show On my screen before I commented. Very cool.