Microscopy remains one of the few areas of science in which enthusiastic amateurs can make others take notice. Nonprofessionals routinely produce stunning images of creatures and objects too tiny for the eye to resolve. This crowdsourcing of microscopic imagery arrived long before the invention of the smartphone and networked communications: the amateur has long made a mark with the microscope—in the early years, by hand drawing images that appeared underneath the lens, and, in more recent times, with the added realism brought by the photograph.

This noble tradition continues in our pages, as we offer a selection of photographs from the Olympus BioScapes International Digital Imaging Competition—a magnet for hobbyists as well as scientists who wish to show off their picture-taking skills. This year’s entries feature the work of a lay microscopist who found his subject while hiking on a mountain in Greece. To produce another entry, a cell biologist took a sophisticated microscope acquired at an auction to snap a shot of a translucent zooplankton skeleton. The photo session had nothing to do with his work but served to memorialize the skeleton’s sheer structural beauty. Inspect for yourself the hypervivid color and intricate geometry of these Lilliputian neighbors that we too seldom get a chance to meet.

» Slide Show: Dazzling Miniatures

» Video & Slide Show: Stunning Images Under the Microscope Capture the Lives of the Tiniest Creatures

Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "Dazzling Miniatures."

This article was originally published with the title Dazzling Miniatures.

3 Comments

1. 1. promytius 09:27 AM 11/14/11

   monkeys in rooms typing away madly CAN produce amazing treasures, as we can see. Isn't random selection great to look at? Who's a better artist than Mother Earth?

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

2. 2. Bruce Voigt 10:06 PM 11/21/11

   Wouldn't it be awesome to change the world for the better with just two sheets of rolled up paper!
   
   LETS DO IT! -- Take one sheet and role it up making a tube (just tiny pieces of tape to hold).
   At the center of the tube start marking small arrows away from you at an angle spiraling to the end (mark that end south.
   Go back to center and in the same direction start marking arrows to the other end (mark that end north.
   
   Do the same with the other sheet but make it a bit bigger so one will fit inside the other. You have just made two pretend bar magnets!
   
   Taking the two magnets insert the north pole into the other north pole. Note the arrows are clashing (repelling).
   Now insert the north pole into the south pole and the arrows are melding (attracting). This is where it gets real interesting! Looking at the north pole end, the arrows show the direction of magnetic force to be counter clock wise. Turning it around the south pole shows the arrows or force to be clock wise. Now "what is this" one direction has turned into two directions at the same time! yes but, yes but you say Its just how you look at it Two directions at the same time indeed.
   
   OK lets bend one around (horse shoe) and look at both ends at the same time. Don't miss any thing here because this is how the world works.
   Note that the forces meld into a figure eight and that is how every thing in this world is held together.
   

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

3. 3. Bruce Voigt 04:39 AM 11/22/11

   The cell has a nucleus with chips (nuclei) of itself in orbit.
   
   Horizontally to the nuclei orbit, chips are flung out to produce a pole on each side of the orbit.
   
   The cell Earth with one orbit, rock with two some minerals and all life with three and a new species (brain) with four.
   
   By chewing pollen the bee produces a glob of wax. Immediately after the placement, the saliva or water of the glob interacts in repelling the wax away from the glob's nucleus.
   
   The wax takes on the shape produced from the three nuclei orbits of the water nucleus. What is called evaporation leaves an empty six pole or six sided wax structure.
   
   What on earth would have ten poles? Ghost, spirit, bigfoot, ufo? hmmmmmmmm
   cbc.ca bruce voigt
   
   PS -- The Earth has its nucleus nuclei orbiting "equatorially" from West to East. Through centrifugal force nuclei spiral horizontally away from the orbit producing our North (counter clockwise) and South (clock wise) poles.
   
   The text book diagram showing the Earths Magnetic Field is perhaps "wrong"!
   
   

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this