Small wonder

Carl Kaufman

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Once you had to wait in line to see a pill-shaped bacterium flick its flagellum under the microscope. Now there’s an app for that.

Last fall, biology students at Yale began using a new mobile technology that links their iPads to a tiny camera inside their instructor’s microscope. “This technology allows the instructor to explain to all the students simultaneously what they are actually seeing in real time,” says Maria Moreno ’93PhD, a biology lecturer who used the system in her course. Students can take still images on their tablets for use in their papers and projects. It’s so useful, says Moreno, that she thinks “the iPad in the classroom will become a staple item.”