1. Dr. Jan Michels

Water flea ( Daphnia atkinsoni ) sports a comblike crown of thorns (green, spiny structure in head) to make itself unappetizing to predators. The crown, which measures about 200 microns across, emerges in offspring of parents that sense a chemical signal emitted by the tadpole shrimp ( Triops cancriformis )....[More]

1. Dr. Jan Michels

Water flea (Daphnia atkinsoni) sports a comblike crown of thorns (green, spiny structure in head) to make itself unappetizing to predators. The crown, which measures about 200 microns across, emerges in offspring of parents that sense a chemical signal emitted by the tadpole shrimp (Triops cancriformis). Jan Michels of Christian Albrechts University of Kiel, Germany, who won first prize, used confocal laser scanning microscopy to create the image. Exposed to the laser light of the microscope, a dye that stains the exoskeleton fluoresces green, and some of the internal tissues fluoresce on their own, including the compound eye, which turns blue and red.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

2. Dr. Rachel Wang

Core of corn emerges in this close-up of the nucleus of a plant cell undergoing meiosis, a form of cell division. Chung-Ju Rachel Wang of the University of California, Berkeley, deployed a technique called 3-D structured illumination microscopy to produce high-resolution images of parts of synaptonemal complexes: specifically, two protein strands aligned in parallel, no more than 200 nanometers apart, that provide structural support to chromosomes (not shown) during meiosis....[More]

2. Dr. Rachel Wang

Core of corn emerges in this close-up of the nucleus of a plant cell undergoing meiosis, a form of cell division. Chung-Ju Rachel Wang of the University of California, Berkeley, deployed a technique called 3-D structured illumination microscopy to produce high-resolution images of parts of synaptonemal complexes: specifically, two protein strands aligned in parallel, no more than 200 nanometers apart, that provide structural support to chromosomes (not shown) during meiosis. The powerful new technique revealed the twisted helical structures of 10 such complexes, each digitally colored to distinguish one from the other.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

3. Dr. Jeremy Pickett-Heaps

This classic microscopic subject is used in every textbook to illustrate sex in lower organisms, and it shows the power of sexual attraction even in simple algae....[More]

3. Dr. Jeremy Pickett-Heaps

This classic microscopic subject is used in every textbook to illustrate sex in lower organisms, and it shows the power of sexual attraction even in simple algae. The "male" cell becomes quite amoeboid as it squeezes through the narrow fertilization tube that the partner cells ("gametes") have just built between them. The cytoplasm is full of vacuoles which grow and then discharge their watery content out of the gametes, shrinking the two merged protoplasts into a compact resting spore. When mature, this diploid cell can withstand severe and prolonged stress (such as drought) before undergoing meiosis and germinating into a new generation.
Shot in time-lapse over two hours on to laser video disc.

4. Mr. Charles Krebs

Gem-quality algae, each a single cell about 40 microns in diameter, exhibit the red coloration of the carotenoid pigment astaxanthin in their interiors....[More]

4. Mr. Charles Krebs

Gem-quality algae, each a single cell about 40 microns in diameter, exhibit the red coloration of the carotenoid pigment astaxanthin in their interiors. Astaxanthin made by such algal cells is exploited to make salmon pinker. Charles Krebs, a professional photographer from Issaquah, Wash., employed phase-contrast illumination for capturing this picture of a sample from an outdoor birdbath.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

The unicellular alga, Penium, treated with the microtubule poison, oryzalin, and labeled with the antibody JIM5.

6. Dr. Alvaro Migotto

Deadly tentacle of a Portuguese man-of-war stands out as a delicate pink ribbon containing toxin-filled beads (each about 300 microns in diameter) that can be released in the presence of prey or by inadvertent contact with an unwitting human victim....[More]

6. Dr. Alvaro Migotto

Deadly tentacle of a Portuguese man-of-war stands out as a delicate pink ribbon containing toxin-filled beads (each about 300 microns in diameter) that can be released in the presence of prey or by inadvertent contact with an unwitting human victim. Alvaro E. Migotto of the University of São Paulo captured this photomicrograph soon after a floating colony of Physalia physalis was plucked from a canal near the university’s center for marine biology. The muscle bands, responsible for the tentacle's flexibility, appear as whitish, winding lines in the background.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Sensory axons covering the tail of a three-day-old larval zebra fish. Axons are labeled with red, cyan and yellow fluorescent proteins.

Flower of Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress).
Confocal, 20x objective lens.

9. Ms. Haruka Fujimaki

Salmon embryos remained still long enough for a Mount Holyoke College undergraduate student to snap their picture. Haruka Fujimaki applied bright-field optics to capture an image of the larvae that she had raised as part of an Atlantic salmon stock-restoration project in western Massachusetts....[More]

9. Ms. Haruka Fujimaki

Salmon embryos remained still long enough for a Mount Holyoke College undergraduate student to snap their picture. Haruka Fujimaki applied bright-field optics to capture an image of the larvae that she had raised as part of an Atlantic salmon stock-restoration project in western Massachusetts. The three larvae, with eyes measuring about two millimeters in diameter, had just hatched and were still attached to yolk sacs for nourishment.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

10. Mr. Gist Croft

Skin cells from a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were reprogrammed to become stem cells that then differentiated into motor neurons, the cells afflicted in the disease....[More]

10. Mr. Gist Croft

Skin cells from a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were reprogrammed to become stem cells that then differentiated into motor neurons, the cells afflicted in the disease. Gist Croft of Columbia University and Mackenzie Weygandt of Project ALS used an inverted fluorescent microscope to take snapshots of the motor neurons’ 25-micron-wide nuclei (green) and their long, connecting fibers, or axons (red), to compare diseased cells with their healthy counterparts.  [Less] [Link to this slide]