The One About The Cheap Tiny Microscopes So You Can Look At All The Teeny Critters Crawling Around in Your Teeth
This guy makes “foldscopes” that you can use anywhere to look at microbes without all that fussy expensive equipment. Great!
Some people are a little skeptical about this actually having an impact on science in the developing world. “So you can see the parasites in your blood,” they scoff. “So what?” It’s part of a larger discussion about really hype non-profits like One Laptop Per Child that get all excited about science and technology available to everyone, but then it ends up not being that useful (case in point: it turns out that for most children, having a laptop introduced into their learning curriculum doesn’t really change their skills – but I can GUARANTEE it makes them better at writing silly blogs about magazines). Some people are even worried that if kids don’t see any germs with their foldscopes, they’ll mistakenly think something is squeaky clean, when in fact it’s just that the ‘scope can only view things over 2 microns large.
OK, fine, but isn’t it still really cool to have a cheap microscope so you can look at stuff?
Another guy in the field of “frugal science” invented a nifty little iron thing for people in Cambodia to cook with so they can get more iron into their diets. People didn’t want to use them UNTIL THEY STARTED MAKING THEM FISH-SHAPED. Because fish are lucky in Cambodia apparently. Really? People suddenly were ok with using this weird thing that some foreign scientist gave them once they looked like cute fishies? I guess this a real testament to the power of design and its impact on desire. Speaking of fish, consider the Goldfish cracker. On its own, a really bland and boring cracker. Not even cheesy like a Cheez-It. But it too is shaped like a nice friendly fishy, and lo! Every fucking kid eats Goldfish. So there’s your marketing tip of the day: Fish!
