Jonas King from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., scored first prize with this shot of a mosquito (Anopheles gambiae) heart magnified 100x, taken with a fluorescence microscope.

This image of the head of a five-day-old zebra fish at 20x, captured with a confocal microscope, earned Hideo Otsuna of the University of Utah Medical Center second prize.

Sticking with the zebra fish theme, here's a picture of olfactory bulbs, magnified 250x, taken by Oliver Braubach of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

This photo of a wasp nest magnified at 10x is the work of Ricardo Taiariol of La Spezia, Italy, who used extended depth-of-field stereomicroscopy.

Using a dark-field microscope, Viktor Sykora of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, snapped this image of a bird of paradise (Strelitzia reginae) seed, magnified 10x.

John Huisman of Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, snapped this photo of living red seaweed from the genus Martensia, magnified 40x by a bright-field microscope.

SEVENTH PLACE:

A magnification of 2,500x was required for this image of an endothelial cell attached to synthetic microfibers, stained with microtubules, F-actin and nuclei—the work of Yongli Shan of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who used fluorescence and confocal microscopy....[More]

SEVENTH PLACE:

A magnification of 2,500x was required for this image of an endothelial cell attached to synthetic microfibers, stained with microtubules, F-actin and nuclei—the work of Yongli Shan of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who used fluorescence and confocal microscopy.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Honorio Cocera-La Parra from the University of Valencia in Spain took this photomicrograph of the mineral cacoxenite, magnified 18x by a reflected-light microscope.

Taken by Duane Harland of AgResearch, Ltd., in New Zealand using a fluorescence microscope, the image of this flea (Ctenocephalides canis) is magnified 20x.

Using reflected- and transmitted-light microscopy, Yanping Wang of the Beijing Planetarium took this image. It is crystallized soy sauce, magnified 16x.

The immortal life of these HeLa cells expressing Aurora-EGFP (green) was frozen in time at 100x by Paul D. Andrews of the University of Dundee in Scotland. He used deconvolution microscopy.

Gregory Rouse of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., used dark-field microscopy to snap this 10x photo of a juvenile bivalve mollusk in the genus Lima sp.

13TH PLACE:

This live mushroom coral, magnified to 6x, was imaged with a fluorescence microscope. James Nicholson, a volunteer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Culture and Collaborative Research Facility, snapped the picture....[More]

13TH PLACE:

This live mushroom coral, magnified to 6x, was imaged with a fluorescence microscope. James Nicholson, a volunteer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Culture and Collaborative Research Facility, snapped the picture.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Stephen Lowry at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland imaged these spiral vessels from a banana plant stem, magnified 32x using polarized-light microscopy.

Using polarized-light microscopy, Ralf Wagner of Düsseldorf, Germany, captured this visual of divaricatic acid from a lichen (Evernia divaricata), magnified 10x.

16TH PLACE:

This 100x close-up of stigma from a four o'clock flower ( Mirabilis jalapa ) was made possible by epifluoresence microscopy and 3-D reconstruction....[More]

16TH PLACE:

This 100x close-up of stigma from a four o'clock flower (Mirabilis jalapa) was made possible by epifluoresence microscopy and 3-D reconstruction. Robert Markus at the Biological Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Szeged took the photo.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Using reflected light–illumination microscopy, Charles Krebs of Issaquah, Wash., snapped this photomicrograph of a ichneumon wasp's compound eye and antenna base, magnified 40x.

Gerd Guenther of Düsseldorf, Germany, entered this image of soap film, magnified 150x—the product of incident bright-field microscopy.

19TH PLACE:

This picture features a Wistar rat retina, outlining the retinal vessel network and associated communication channels, magnified 100x. It is the work of Cameron Johnson of the University of Aukland in New Zealand, who used a confocal microscope....[More]

19TH PLACE:

This picture features a Wistar rat retina, outlining the retinal vessel network and associated communication channels, magnified 100x. It is the work of Cameron Johnson of the University of Aukland in New Zealand, who used a confocal microscope.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

20TH PLACE:

John Hart from the University of Colorado at Boulder took this image, which is a crystallized melt of sulfur and acetanilide magnified 10x. Hart used a transmitted-light microscope with crossed polars....[More]

20TH PLACE:

John Hart from the University of Colorado at Boulder took this image, which is a crystallized melt of sulfur and acetanilide magnified 10x. Hart used a transmitted-light microscope with crossed polars.  [Less] [Link to this slide]