Here's what you might not know about these banes of childhood: Though other species of lice infest other mammals and even birds, Pediculus humanus capitis lives on the human scalp and nowhere else. A louse spends the first week or so of its life as an egg, or nit, before hatching into a nymph. Over the course of about seven days, the nymph will molt three times, growing bigger each time, until it reaches the adult stage.

Individual Foldscopes, as Dr Prakash dubs them, are printed on A4 sheets of paper (ideally polymer-coated for durability). A pattern of perforations on the sheet marks out the 'scope's components, which are colour-coded in a way intended to assist the user in the task of assembly—for the Foldscope has no written instructions to guide, or possibly frustrate, the user.