20 bizarre and beautiful winners from Nikon Small World 2017

Photomicrography picks out details in the world around us that are invisible to the naked eye, and every year NSW picks out the best of a brilliant bunch – check out this year’s winners.

Published: October 4, 2017 at 11:00 pm

When you look at around you there so is much more to see than just what your eyes can pick out. Just out of sight is a tiny, microscopic world teeming with life, from microbial beings to intricate patterns formed in everyday materials that can both delight and inform, for example Jean-Marc Babalian’s photograph of Volvox algae is reminiscent of Pac Man, or the Netherlands Cancer Institute’s of human skin cells helping us understand how diseases progress. Both of these photos were at the top of theNikon Small Worldcompetition, which rewards those photographers putting their lenses closer than any of us could dream with our regular cameras.

#20 - MicrobialSunrise

20th Place - Tracy Scott

Ithaca, New York, USA

Aspergillus flavus (fungus) and yeast colony from soil

Transmitted Light, 40x

#19 - Body wall 1.08mm by 0.57mm 544 image stitch

19th Place - Dr. Dylan Burnette

Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology

Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Embryonic body wall from a developing Mus musculus (mouse)

100x (objective lens magnification)

#18 - Synapta skin x 200 polarized light n° 3

18th Place - Christian Gautier

Biosphoto

Le Mans, France

Synapta (sea-cucumber) skin

Polarised Light, 100x

#17 - NSW_2017-03-24-20.37.42 ZS PMax

17th Place - Harald K. Andersen

Steinberg, Norway

Dyed human hair

Darkfield, 40x

#16 - 1

16th Place - Marek Miś

Marek Miś Photography

Suwalki, Poland

Parus major (titmouse) down feather

Polarised Light, Darkfield, 25x

#15 - AdamsRA_Megaloglossus_woermanni

15th Place - Dr. Rick Adams

University of Northern Colorado, Department of Biological Sciences

Greeley, Colorado, USA

3rd trimester fetus of Megachiroptera (fruit bat)

Darkfield, Stereomicroscopy, 18x

#14 - NikMestraTwo

14th Place - David Millard

Austin, Texas, USA

Common Mestra butterfly (Mestra amymone) eggs, laid on a leaf of Tragia sp. (Noseburn plant)

Incident Illumination, Image Stacking, 7.5x (objective lens magnification)

#13 - Orchid Cuckoo Bee_Side View

13th Place - Levon Biss

Levon Biss Photography Ltd

Ramsbury, United Kingdom

Exaerete frontalis (orchid cuckoo bee) from the collections of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Reflected Light, 10x (objective lens magnification)

#12 - Krebs_1_NSW2017

12th Place - Charles Krebs

Charles Krebs Photography

Issaquah, Washington, USA

Opiliones (daddy longlegs) eye

Reflected Light, Image Stacking, 20x (objective lens magnification)

#11 - CREDIT CARD 1 E10 AT 160X FINAL CONTEST

11th Place - Steven Simon

Simon Photography

Grand Prairie, Texas, USA

Plastic fracturing on credit card hologram

10x (objective lens magnification)

#10 - Phyllobius roboretanus (4-5 mm), 2,2x.

10th Place - Dr. Csaba Pintér

University of Pannonia, Georgikon Faculty, Department of Plant Protection

Keszthely, Hungary

Phyllobius roboretanus (weevil)

Stereomicroscopy, 80x

#9 - christmas_tree

9th Place - Catarina Moura, Dr. Sumeet Mahajan, Dr. Richard Oreffo & Dr. Rahul Tare

University of Southampton, Institute for Life Sciences

Southampton, United Kingdom

Growing cartilage-like tissue in the lab using bone stem cells (collagen fibers in green and fat deposits in red)

Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) and Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering (CARS), 20x for collagen; 40x for fat deposits

#8 - P4_Rat_Cochlea

8th Place - Dr. Michael Perny

University of Bern, Institute for Infectious Diseases

Bern, Switzerland

Newborn rat cochlea with sensory hair cells (green) and spiral ganglion neurons (red)

Confocal, 100x

#7 - crop test4_sharpen

7th Place - Dr. Ryo Egawa

Nagoya University, Graduate School of Medicine

Nagoya, Japan

Individually labelled axons in an embryonic chick ciliary ganglion

Differential Interference Contrast

Confocal, Tissue Clearing, Brainbow (labeling technique), 30x (objective lens magnification)

#6 - lily pollen

6th Place - Dr. David A. Johnston

University of Southampton/University Hospital Southampton, Biomedical Imaging Unit

Southampton, United Kingdom

Lily pollen

Confocal, 63x (objective lens magnification)

#5 - Mold on a tomato

5th Place - Dean Lerman

Netanya, Israel

Mold on a tomato

Reflected Light, Focus Stacking, 3.9x

#4 - SmallWorld2

4th Place - Teresa Zgoda

Rochester Institute of Technology

Rochester, New York, USA

Taenia solium (tapeworm) everted scolex

200x

#3 - Volvox2 x100 DIC JM Babalian

3rd Place - Jean-Marc Babalian

Nantes, France

Living Volvox algae releasing its daughter colonies

Differential Interference Contrast, 100x

#2 - תמונה2

2nd Place - Dr. Havi Sarfaty

Eyecare Clinic

Yahud-Monoson, Israel

Senecio vulgaris (a flowering plant) seed head

Stereomicroscopy, 2x

#1 - HaCaT_cells

1st Place - Dr. Bram van den Broek, Andriy Volkov, Dr. Kees Jalink, Dr. Nicole Schwarz & Dr. Reinhard Windoffer

The Netherlands Cancer Institute, BioImaging Facility & Department of Cell Biology

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Immortalized human skin cells (HaCaT keratinocytes) expressing fluorescently tagged keratin

Confocal, 40x (objective lens magnification)

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