ART OR SCIENCE?: These elegant tangles of fluorescent actin bundles won the popular vote for the best microscopic photo of the year. See the slide show below for the judges' picks.
Image: DENNIS BREITSPRECHER
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Microscopes have been around for some 400 years, and today they are even accessible via customized cell phones. The act of peering into a microscope of any power can open a whole world of life and beauty that exists right under (or in) our noses. And to capture that rare view for reproduction can also prove to be an art form in itself.
The ability to snap an image seen through an optical microscope—whether it's via fluorescence, polarized-light, dark-field, confocal, deconvolution or other techniques—has brought researchers and novices alike to the intersection of art and science. Since 1974 Nikon has recognized the year's best photomicrographs—pictures taken on a miniscule scale. Here are the top 20 winners of this year's Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition.
View a Slide Show of the 20 Winning Images from under the Microscope
From thousands of entries, four judges (Gary Borisy, director and CEO of Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.; photographer Charles Krebs; Jamie Shreeve, science editor at National Geographic; and journalist Clive Thompson) selected the 20 winners. A popular winner is also chosen via a vote on the contest Web site. This year's popular winner, seen here, is by Dennis Breitsprecher of Hannover, Germany. He captured, at 63 times life-size, fluorescent actin bundles as they grow from the surface of coated beads with an in vitro total internal reflection fluorescence microscope (TIRFM).
Winners from past years are on tour throughout North America or can be seen here.
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21 Comments
Add CommentSlideshows are nice if they don't need to reload the page every picture. Either that or clean up your layout so if I absolutely need to refresh the page, I don't have to scroll down. Time to learn AJAX.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat amazes me is the incredible variety of microscopic techniques that are available to make these images.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeterT
I agree with 1up, but still I appreciate the slideshow. This is what made me bookmark SciAm.com last year. The trippy images take me back to days of 'yore'. (Or at least 'mine.')
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow no way dude thats like the coolest thing I ever seen!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRT
www.anon-web.int.tc
wow slide show is ver nice. Absolutely it s edifice :). I like this magazine...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat photo - just the right magnification to give an engaging picture of the bizarre-ness of the world around us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a great lobster baby!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLovely article and wonderful photos. Thanks you SA on-line. Nice work, Ms. Harmon. I will use these in my Biology and Life Science science classrooms knowing that my students will find them as intriguing as I did.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLovely article and wonderful photos. Thanks you SA on-line. Nice work, Ms. Harmon. I will use these in my Biology and Life Science science classrooms knowing that my students will find them as intriguing as I did.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also show them to my students to help spark their interest in learning (over memorization) - I also order and use the calendars and posters of these prints available from Nikon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn addition, SciAm and Mind are two of my most favorite and practically-useful publications. I will stick up for them by saying: The slideshow works perfectly fine on my computer, no technical delays or setbacks. Perhaps you should check out your own equipment before placing the blame on people who are quite obviously more qualified than you on the topic.
I think you misspelled carbon tetrabromide in the caption.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLoved the snowflake, looks like a really cool ice cube! All of the pics were awesome!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLoved the snowflake, looks like a really fancy ice cube. All the pictures were awesome!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbsolutely stunning I could see myself painting them with such a ray of colors!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDebbie Toronto
I agree with the first comment... The slideshow's waste of bandwidth is unpleasant... unScientific, in that it could be improved with our present knowledge, and unAmerican to not do so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut it is easy to be a critic, and still the images are fantastic...
ver satisfying to a color junky,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisin fact, it would doubt that all were as occuring in nature but rather how many dyed like the cotton altho it were sweet off the bare primaries of most.
I accept the microscope as a gift for geochemical studies in Ukraine ... romabo_@ukr.net
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI accept the microscope as a gift for geochemical studies in Ukraine ... romabo_@ukr.net
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI accept the microscope as a gift for geochemical studies in Ukraine ... romabo_@ukr.net
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI accept the microscope as a gift for geochemical studies in Ukraine ... romabo_@ukr.net
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI accept the microscope as a gift for geochemical investigations in Ukraine...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this