As mobile phones have become increasingly powerful, with multicore processors and a wealth of sensors, they’ve been identified as a viable tool for use in citizen science projects. One example is Project Budburst [2], a participatory sensing project to identify phenological changes in the environment as a way to confirm or refute global warming. Using their free mobile application and a cellphone camera, volunteers snap photos of specific plants during different stages of their lifecycle (e.g., first bloom, first leaf). Conducting a global study of this magnitude would require vast resources, but through participatory sensing, Project Budburst has been able to collect nearly 14,000 data samples in five years, at minimal cost. The data from Project Budburst has shown shifts in phenological activity for stages of certain plant species.

As the saying goes, “Let’s kill two birds with one stone.” But instead of killing the bird, let’s collect data about it. Let’s connect scientists with students, and build a mutually beneficial relationship where citizen scientists have a new source of data, and students gain real-world knowledge of why science is so important. Mobile phones are a particularly attractive tool for connecting these domains due to their lasting “cool” factor. But as it stands, a mobile phone in a child’s hand is rarely used for science, but rather the consumption of media and games, or texting with friends.

(PS. Also, don’t forget about our donation program to provide SkyLights to global health & science education causes.)

So stop by and check it out, at the moment we have up a video version of the SkyLight instruction manual (which you can also find  here on the website) and I’m sure we will be adding a few nerdy snippets as the moment strikes us.

Said very-important-research was published last month in the Journal of the American Society of Cytopathology and will be presented by Jana Wimmer, MD, at the  92nd Annual Meeting of the Texas Society of Pathologists in January. I will quote the introduction and conclusion for you here, and those of you interested in all the (important and interesting) parts in-between, please read away! Coolest! And (as the title implies) important! Because as you all know, science is science. And this science says that the difference of images taken with SkyLight & smartphone versus those taken with the mounted digital camera is not statistically significant and worth their weight especially in a low-resource setting. SkyLight for the win! (At least the win of equality!) 

Introduction:

We compared the images from a SkyLight smartphone-microscope camera adapter, a relatively inexpensive eyepiece-mounted apparatus that enables digital photographs to be taken of a microscopic image using a smartphone camera, to an Olympus DP70 digital microscope-mounted camera.

Conclusion:

A digital photograph of a microscopic image is a practical means of obtaining a quick consult for cytology cases. Although the Olympus DP70 camera produced slightly better results when in direct comparison with the SkyLight adapter with a smartphone camera, the difference was not statistically significant. Both methods were limited in their diagnostic accuracy based on a single static image. However, in a low-resource setting, the SkyLight smartphone-microscope camera adapter with smartphone camera can provide comparable results at a more economical cost.

And last but not least, happy (almost) New Year!

More good news: More SkyLights are being built practically as I type.

Even more good news: We are expecting the new units to arrive the week of December 17th. This means that any purchases between now and that time we have a bit of a delay as far as shipping goes. I promise we have not forgotten about you and are working to get you your SkyLights ASAP.

In the meantime, let the holiday celebrating begin. ♥

Samsung Galaxy S II + butterfly eyeball of Greta oto

And while you are at it, peep all the other companies on the list because they are all amazing!

And send us a cool picture or two if you have extras to share, at info@skylightscope.com!

Aaand last but not least, don’t forget that we have some really helpful (I promise!) instructional videos available for those of you who already have a SkyLight or for anyone just doin’ the research!