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One of the most poignant moments of this was when we were having trouble visualizing the plastics using a light microscope.

As the tip sweeps across the surface, it builds a precise, line-by-line image of the surface, revealing details invisible to conventional light microscopes.

It is the computational processing of images that reveals the finest details of a sample placed under all kinds of different light microscopes.

Doing that involved a combination of flow cytometry -- a laser-based technique used to detect and analyse the chemical and physical characteristics of cells or particles -- and light microscopes.

The imaging itself can be done with a simple light microscope, with no specialized equipment required.