The Nokia Lumia 1020 can actually be used as a microscope

Who would have thought that the Nokia Lumia 1020, with its 41-megapixel camera, is capable of actually helping out mankind when it comes to medical research? Yes sir, this particular smartphone, which has seen 50 of these puppies band together to provide a unique look at New York City life, is now being utilized to assist medical research where microscopes are concerned. Dr. John Paul Graff and Dr. Mark Li-cheng Wu have decided to make use of the Nokia Lumia 1020 in order to snap photos of the intestinal spirochetosis, which happens to be as small as just a few microns in length.

A mobile phone and medicine are not two things that you would naturally think of going hand in hand. But the Nokia Lumia 1020 is no ordinary handset. Last month, two doctors wrote in the medical journal Histopathology and made the surprising claim that the 1020 could revolutionize the medical research world. Over on Nokia Conversations, the pair talk about what they meant. Dr Mark Li-cheng Wu and Dr John Paul Graff explain how they have used Nokia’s flagship handset in the study of disease, including helping patients with HIV. They were able to take photographs of bacterium through a microscope using a Nokia Lumia 1020 and then take advantage of the massive resolution to zoom in on what they needed to see. The ability to work with RAW DNG photos meant that highly detailed images were available. But it was not just the quality of images that made the doctors think about using the handset. Image stabilization meant that it was fairly easy to take photos through a microscope without unwanted motion blur starting to creep in.