Long back, Vivekananda spoke about going to Indian villages with a telescope and microscope to spread the knowledge of science. From this Nature Medicine article of Paroma Basu, I understand that a group called Jodo Gyan has come quite close to achieving the microscope part, at least (and the Rs. 150 bamboo microscopes look, oh so, lovely!). Here is the abstract of Basu’s article:
Funding is tight. Grants are rejected. Research equipment is too expensive. And these are complaints heard in well-heeled laboratories in the US and UK. In the following pages, we present inspiring examples of scientists who, using materials as simple as litmus paper, bamboo and blenders, prove that science on a shoestring is possible—and sometimes even better than the alternative.
Link via B-squared (which has the photograph of the cool microscope — even if you have no access to Nature Medicine).
PS: I could locate the Jodo Gyan homepage (which, unfortunately, does not contain much of information though).
January 23, 2009 at 10:16 pm |
[...] the things that I bought from Jodo Gyan (about whose microscope I have written already — I am glad yo say that I now am a proud owner o…) for myself — apart from some pictorial puzzles, lego pieces and books that we got for [...]