Ted英语演讲：只要50美分,就能拥有如折纸般的显微镜——Manu Prakash
也许你以前曾经买过那些那些摺纸玩具，他们能够做出洋娃娃或天鹅？TED 的研究会员 Manu Prakash 和他的团队成功做出像折纸一样简单的显微镜。讲者在这段影片中提供了让人惊奇的示范，并告诉我们这个装置将如何对开发中国家的健康问题造成影响。另外，这项技术也能够让所有事情都变成有趣的手作科学实验。
Manu Prakash在Ted英语演讲：只要50美分,就能拥有如折纸般的显微镜
也许你以前曾经买过那些那些摺纸玩具，他们能够做出洋娃娃或天鹅？TED 的研究会员 Manu Prakash 和他的团队成功做出像折纸一样简单的显微镜。讲者在这段影片中提供了让人惊奇的示范，并告诉我们这个装置将如何对开发中国家的健康问题造成影响。另外，这项技术也能够让所有事情都变成有趣的手作科学实验。
The year is 1800. A curious little invention is being talked about. It’s called a microscope. What it allows you to do is see tiny little lifeforms that are invisible to the naked eye. Soon comes the medical discovery that many of these lifeforms are actually causes of terrible human diseases. Imagine what happened to the society when they realized that an English mom in her teacup actually was drinking a monster soup, not very far from here. This is from London.
就在西元1800年 有一个神奇的小装置引起了众人的关注 它就是显微镜 它的功用是 让你看见那些 肉眼看不到的生命形式 很快在医学上也发现 这些微小的生命形式也是造成 许多可怕疾病的成因 想像当时的社会发生什么事 当他们了解到 一位拿着茶杯的英国妇女 实事上正在啜饮一杯致病怪兽汤 这是在离这里不远的伦敦
Fast forward 200 years. We still have this monster soup around, and it’s taken hold in the developing countries around the tropical belt. Just for malaria itself, there are a million deaths a year, and more than a billion people that need to be tested because they are at risk for different species of malarial infections.
两百年过后的现在 世界上依旧存在这些致病怪兽汤 只不过喝着他们的人大部分在开发中国家 还有赤道地区 就拿疟疾来说 它一年造成了一百万人死亡 而这世界上有十亿人 因为高风险而需要被检测 以应付不同种的疟疾感染
Now it’s actually very simple to put a face to many of these monsters. You take a stain, like acridine orange or a fluorescent stain or Giemsa, and a microscope, and you look at them. They all have faces. Why is that so, that Alex in Kenya, Fatima in Bangladesh, Navjoot in Mumbai, and Julie and Mary in Uganda still wait months to be able to diagnose why they are sick? And that’s primarily because scalability of the diagnostics is completely out of reach. And remember that number: one billion.
现在要辨认这些怪兽的身分 其实非常简单 只要拿一个染剂，例如说吖啶橙 萤光染剂或吉姆萨染液 再搭配显微镜的话，你就会发现 它们全都有自己特殊的面貌 如果真是这样的话 那为什么住在肯亚的Alex 住在孟加拉的Fatima、来自孟买的Navjoot 还有乌干达的Julie跟Mary 仍旧需要等上几个月 才能够被诊断出他们染上了这个疾病？ 这主要是因为对他们来说 以显微镜作为诊断工具是完全不可能的 然后请记住这个数字：十亿人
The problem lies with the microscope itself. Even though the pinnacle of modern science, research microscopes are not designed for field testing. Neither were they first designed for diagnostics at all. They are heavy, bulky, really hard to maintain, and cost a lot of money. This picture is Mahatma Gandhi in the ’40s using the exact same setup that we actually use today for diagnosing T.B. in his ashram in Sevagram in India.
这个问题主要是出自显微镜本身 即使现在科学十分发达 研究用显微镜并不是针对田野测试设计的 它们一开始也不是被设计 拿来作为临床诊断的工具 它们很重、占空间、难以维护 而且需要很多钱才能拥有一台 这张照片是40年代，甘地正在他的聚会所 用与现在完全相同的方式 在印度的塞瓦格兰姆 诊断结核杆菌的存在
Two of my students, Jim and James, traveled around India and Thailand, starting to think about this problem a lot. We saw all kinds of donated equipment. We saw fungus growing on microscope lenses. And we saw people who had a functional microscope but just didn’t know how to even turn it on. What grew out of that work and that trip was actually the idea of what we call Foldscopes.
我的两个学生Jim和James 他们游历了印度和泰国 并开始思考了这个问题 我们看了各式各项被捐赠去的器材 还有已经长出真菌的显微镜片 我们也看见那些有一些人虽然有良好的显微镜 却不知道该怎么使用它 我们从那次旅途中滋生出一些想法 我们把其命名为摺纸式显微镜
So what is a Foldscope? A Foldscope is a completely functional microscope, a platform for fluorescence, bright-field, polarization, projection, all kinds of advanced microscopy built purely by folding paper. So, now you think, how is that possible? I’m going to show you some examples here, and we will run through some of them. It starts with a single sheet of paper. What you see here is all the possible components to build a functional bright-field and fluorescence microscope. So, there are three stages: There is the optical stage, the illumination stage and the mask-holding stage. And there are micro optics at the bottom that’s actually embedded in the paper itself. What you do is, you take it on, and just like you are playing like a toy, which it is, I tab it off, and I break it off.
什么是摺纸式显微镜？ 一个摺纸式显微镜 具有完整的功能的显微镜 它是一个能够把光学及萤光显微技术 或是偏光显微技术以及投影显微法 还有其他所有先进的显微技术 用摺纸完全实现的平台 你一定在想，这怎么可能呢？ 我要给你们看几个例子 我们也会在这里做一些示范 从一张简单的纸开始 你可以看到上面有各种可能的零件 可以用来做出具功能的 亮视野显微镜以及萤光显微镜 它有三个层级 镜片、光源 还有固定样本的地方 而在底部有微型的镜片 它们就直接嵌在纸里头 你唯一需要做的是，把零件取下来 就像你在玩玩具那样 其实还真的蛮像的啦 我沿着标示好的边缘 把它取下来
This paper has no instructions and no languages. There is a code, a color code embedded, that tells you exactly how to fold that specific microscope. When it’s done, it looks something like this, has all the functionalities of a standard microscope, just like an XY stage, a place where a sample slide could go, for example right here. We didn’t want to change this, because this is the standard that’s been optimized for over the years, and many health workers are actually used to this. So this is what changes, but the standard stains all remain the same for many different diseases. You pop this in. There is an XY stage, and then there is a focusing stage, which is a flexure mechanism that’s built in paper itself that allows us to move and focus the lenses by micron steps.
这张纸上没有任何说明和语言 取而代之的是一种附在上面的颜色密码 它会精准地告诉你 该如何组装出一台显微镜 完成之后，你会拿到像这样的东西 它具有标准的显微镜所有的功能 像是一个XY平台， 一个可以放上玻片样本的地方 像我手上这个 我们不想改变制造样本的方法 因为这方法是个很多年来 已经被最佳化的标准 很多健康相关工作者 也已经习惯这种样本 所以我们改变的是显微镜 不过所有染剂使用的方法还是一样 视是哪种疾病而定 你把它放进来 固定在XY平台上， 之后有一个可以让你聚焦的功能 它是内建在纸本身的弯曲机制 能够让我们以微米的等级 去移动镜片并让镜片聚焦
So what’s really interesting about this object, and my students hate when I do this, but I’m going to do this anyway, is these are rugged devices. I can turn it on and throw it on the floor and really try to stomp on it. And they last, even though they’re designed from a very flexible material, like paper.
这个产品最有趣的地方就在于 我的学生讨厌我这样 不过我还是要做 这些显微镜十分耐用 我可以启动它并把它扔在地上 然后狠狠的踩 即使他们是用像纸一般 有弹性的材料做成 在我踩完之后，它们的功能还是能够完好如初
Another fun fact is, this is what we actually send out there as a standard diagnostic tool, but here in this envelope I have 30 different foldscopes of different configurations all in a single folder. And I’m going to pick one randomly. This one, it turns out, is actually designed specifically for malaria, because it has the fluorescent filters built specifically for diagnosing malaria. So the idea of very specific diagnostic microscopes comes out of this.
另一个有趣的事实是，我手上的是 我们送出去用来诊断的标准工具 但是单单在这个资料夹里 我就有30种不同的摺纸式显微镜 每一个都有自己独特的设计 让我随机挑一个 这个，事实上 就是专门为了疟疾设计的 因为它有特殊的萤光滤镜 可以用来诊断疟疾 针对不同疾病设计显微镜的点子 就是来自这里
So up till now, you didn’t actually see what I would see from one of these setups. So what I would like to do is, if we could dim the lights, please, it turns out foldscopes are also projection microscopes. I have these two microscopes that I’m going to turn — go to the back of the wall — and just project, and this way you will see exactly what I would see. What you’re looking at — (Applause) — This is a cross-section of a compound eye, and when I’m going to zoom in closer, right there, I am going through the z-axis. You actually see how the lenses are cut together in the cross-section pattern. Another example, one of my favorite insects, I love to hate this one, is a mosquito, and you’re seeing the antenna of a culex pipiens. Right there. All from the simple setup that I actually described.
直到现在，你们都还没机会看到 我用已经组装好的显微镜看到的东西 所以接下来我要示范一下 请把灯光调暗 这些摺纸式显微镜 也具有投影显微镜的功能 我手上有两副显微镜，我要把它们 面对后面的墙壁 然后把我能够看到的东西投影出来 这样你们就知道它的功能 你们现在看着的是 （掌声） 这是一个复眼的的剖面 而当我要让成像放大的时候 我可以通过Z轴来调整 你完全可以从这剖面 看见这些水晶体是如何被切下来的 另一个例子来自我最喜欢的昆虫 我最喜欢咒骂的昆虫 也就是蚊子 你现在看到的是尖音库蚊的触角 就在那边 你能够用我刚刚讲的 简单装置看到所有的细节
So my wife has been field testing some of our microscopes by washing my clothes whenever I forget them in the dryer. So it turns out they’re waterproof, and — (Laughter) — right here is just fluorescent water, and I don’t know if you can actually see this. This also shows you how the projection scope works. You get to see the beam the way it’s projected and bent.
对了，经过我妻子的实地测试 也就是把我忘在衣服口袋的摺叠显微镜 连同脏衣服一起拿去洗 烘干完之后 我们发现它们可以防水 （笑声） 这里有一杯单纯的萤光水 我不知道你们看不看的见 不过你可以从这看出投影镜片是如何运作的 你可以看光束被投射以及弯曲的情形
Can we get the lights back on again?
可以再把灯打开吗？
So I’m quickly going to show you, since I’m running out of time, in terms of how much it costs for us to manufacture, the biggest idea was roll-to-roll manufacturing, so we built this out of 50 cents of parts and costs. (Applause) And what this allows us to do is to think about a new paradigm in microscopy, which we call use-and-throw microscopy. I’m going to give you a quick snapshot of some of the parts that go in. Here is a sheet of paper. This is when we were thinking about the idea. This is an A4 sheet of paper. These are the three stages that you actually see. And the optical components, if you look at the inset up on the right, we had to figure out a way to manufacture lenses in paper itself at really high throughputs, so it uses a process of self-assembly and surface tension to build achromatic lenses in the paper itself. So that’s where the lenses go. There are some light sources. And essentially, in the end, all the parts line up because of origami, because of the fact that origami allows us micron-scale precision of optical alignment. So even though this looks like a simple toy, the aspects of engineering that go in something like this are fairly sophisticated.
因为时间快用完了 接着我要很快的让你们看看 我们需要花多少成本来制造这些 我们最大的想法是采用连续卷轴式制造 所以可以用50美分就制造出了这个 （掌声） 而这样的成本让我们可以 想出显微镜的新应用范例 也就是可抛式显微镜 我要给你一个快速的写照 让你们知道上面的零件有哪些 这里有一张纸 这是我们在思考这个想法的时候画的 这是一张A4大小的纸 你可以亲眼看到三个层级 如果你把注意力放在右上中间 可以看到光学元件 我们不得不想出办法 在纸上以高产率来制造镜片 因此，它利用一个自动组装的制程 和表面张力 在纸上生产出无色的镜片 那就是镜片在的地方 还有光源 最后这些零件不得不排列整齐 这样才能符合摺纸的形式 因为摺纸能够让我们 以微米的精准度来做光学校正 所以即使这看起来像一个简单的玩具 在里面蕴含的工程技术 也是相当复杂的
So here is another obvious thing that we would do, typically, if I was going to show that these microscopes are robust, is go to the third floor and drop it from the floor itself. There it is, and it survives.
另外还有一件我们不得不做的事情 基本上，如果我要告诉你们 这些显微镜十分耐用 我们要从三楼把它们丢下去 就像这样，而且它还完好如初
So for us, the next step actually is really finishing our field trials. We are starting at the end of the summer. We are at a stage where we’ll be making thousands of microscopes. That would be the first time where we would be doing field trials with the highest density of microscopes ever at a given place. We’ve started collecting data for malaria, Chagas disease and giardia from patients themselves.
所以对我们来说，下一步行动 就是完成田野的实地测试 我们将从今年夏末开始 我们正在制造上千个显微镜 这将会是我们第一次 让一个地方拥有最高的显微镜普及率 并做实际测试 我们已经开始从病患那收集有关疟疾 美洲锥虫症和梨形鞭毛虫症的数据
And I want to leave you with this picture. I had not anticipated this before, but a really interesting link between hands-on science education and global health. What are the tools that we’re actually providing the kids who are going to fight this monster soup for tomorrow? I would love for them to be able to just print out a Foldscope and carry them around in their pockets.
而我希望能够让你们看见 虽然我以前从没想过 那就是动手作的科学教育 以及全球健康问题 之间的有趣联系 在未来，我们该给那些 正在对抗致病怪兽汤的孩子们 什么样的工具呢? 我希望他们能够 直接列印出一个摺纸式显微镜 并放在口袋中随身携带
Thank you.
谢谢
(Applause)
（掌声）