Today’s article is written by guest blogger Vince Debes, this year’s winner of the Promega Art Contest for Creative Scientists. He will be starting a Master of Science program in Geological Sciences in the School of Earth and Space Explorationat Arizona State University this fall.
It’s incredible how seemingly insignificant actions can lead to major events years down the road. When my partner and I were testing out our new camera shutter remotes in the Grand Tetons on the way to do field work in Yellowstone, I never imagined an image we captured would lead to a grand prize in the Promega Art Contest for Creative Scientists. The four-minute-long exposure was taken at midnight with a full moon and shows the ghostly, almost imperceptible, movements of Colter Bay marina vessels against a backdrop of trailing stars and the stolid Tetons.
This blog was written by guest blogger and 2018 Promega Social Media Intern Logan Godfrey.
Only 30 years ago, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
was used for the first time, allowing the exponential amplification of a specific
DNA segment. A small amount of DNA could now be replicated until there was
enough of it to study accurately, even allowing sequencing of the amplified DNA.
This was a massive breakthrough that produced immediate effects in the fields
of forensics and life science research. Since these technologies were first
introduced however, the molecular biology research laboratory has been the sole
domain of PCR and DNA sequencing.
While an amazing revolution, application of a technology
such as DNA sequencing is limited by the size and cost of DNA sequencers, which
in turn restricts accessibility. However, recent breakthroughs are allowing DNA
sequencing to take place in jungles, the arctic, and even space—giving science
the opportunity to reach further, faster than ever before.
The newfound accessibility of DNA sequencing means a
marriage between fields of science that were previously largely unacquainted.
The disciplines of genomics and wildlife biology/ecology have largely progressed
independently. Wildlife biology is practiced in the field through observations
and macro-level assessments, and genomics, largely, has developed in a lab
setting. Leading the charge in the convergence of wildlife biology and genomics
is Field Projects International.
Scientific inquiry —looking at the world and asking questions about what we observe—is a natural human behavior. Why is the sky blue? What would happen if I did this Mom? Ask any grade school teacher. Kids do science naturally. They are not afraid of questions. They are not afraid of nature. They are not afraid of experiments and data collection.
One other things kids do really well is: fold paper. I never cease to be amazed at the elaborate fortune tellers, hoppers, boats, hats and other creations that my daughter and her friends make at a moment’s notice out of virtually any scrap of paper they can find.
Recently members of the Prakash Lab at Standford University announced the Foldscope: an optical microscope that is printed and folded from a single flat sheet of paper. These microscopes, which can provide magnification of up to 2000X, can be produced for less than $1.00/each. Furthermore these scopes weigh less than 10g (a couple of coins), require no external power source, can be dropped from 3-stories without damage, and can even be stepped on.
These characteristics make the Foldscope ideal for field work, particularly in remote locations where access to power and other resources is difficult. Prakash and colleagues have published their work in a PLOS One paper and have demonstrated many uses for these Foldscopes including high-resolution brightfield microscopy, fluorescence microscopy, and darkfield microscopy. Continue reading “Fold It Up and Discover a Whole New World”
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