Lego Microtome biological specimen slicer

A microtome is a small machine that biologists use to slice specimens into very thin sections to examine under a microscope. Instructables user lemonie made his own out of Lego! In this video demo, the device cuts garlic in slices just 250 microns thick. That's about twice as thick as a human hair. Seems like the Lego Microtome could be scaled up for slicing paper-thin prosciutto! Lego Microtome (Thanks, Christy Canida!)

• [Takuan]

  sweet! what is the blade?

• [Snig]

  Cool think about the ultramicrotomes (microtomes that give you ultrathin sections) is their use of glass blades, freshly broken. A lot of times it’s still standard operating procedure to use essentially stone age technology to obtain the tools for making samples that go into an electron microscope, if your lab can’t afford a diamond one.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_knife

• [phillamb168]

  Paulie Cicero is gonna be so happy…

• [Xopher]

  Title says ‘microtime’, text says ‘microtome’. I suspect the text is correct, but I don’t know for sure.

• [David Pescovitz]

  Yes, fixed. Thank you!

• [Beanolini]

  #6, Takuan:

  sweet! what is the blade?

  According to TFA, it’s (the remains of) a Bic safety razor.

  I was taught to use a sledge microtome long ago- you have to repeatedly push your hand towards a long, heavy, and extraordinarily sharp blade (which has no problem cutting through bone). It’s somewhat scary.

  The iconic Cambridge rocker microtome has a long exposed blade pointing upwards- great potential for harming oneself.

  I was once told that some microtome blades were supplied in boxes with built-in compasses, so that they could be stored N-S to avoid being blunted by the Earth’s magnetic field.

• [PFlint]

  Lego for purposes such as this beat Star Wars (or any other) sets, any day. Think it, build it, use it. Does it get any better?

• [Sork]

  So there are one million microtomes in one tome?

• [Pantograph]

  Boy, in my youth Lego sets didn’t come with razorblades.