Special origami microscope costs less than $0.50 to make

The light microscope changed science and medicine forever, but in the 400-plus years since it was invented, this crucial piece of equipment has gotten pretty expensive and fragile. Manu Prakash and his team have designed a brilliant solution—an origami microscope that costs less than 50 cents to make. Prakash first showed the idea in a 2012 TED talk, and in a research paper published this week, Prakash and his team demonstrate the reliable, precise optical capabilities of their cheekily-named Foldscope.