Nikon Small World Photomicrography 2021 winners
- Published
This beautiful image by Jason Kirk is the competition winner - but can you guess what it is? It is an oak leaf super close-up. White trichomes protect the leaf from extreme weather and insects, the purple stomata regulate the flow of gases and turquoise vessels transport water through the leaf. (All photos courtesy of Nikon Small World.)
Coming in second, this striking photograph of two populations of neurons by Esmeralda Paric and Holly Stefe. Neurons are information messengers that use electrical impulses and chemical signals to transmit information between different areas of the brain, and between the brain and the rest of the nervous system.
Third prize in the Nikon Small World competition went to Frank Reiser for this incredible shot featuring the leg, claw and breathing organs of a louse. The parasitic insect was photographed using a special light to illuminate the specimen - using all its parts in great detail.
Runner-up Paula Diaz took this photo of a neuron in a rat at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, Chile. We love the incredible colours coming out from the middle.
You will never look at a fly the same way again after this! This is the proboscis, or sucking mouthpart, of a housefly taken by Oliver Dum in Germany.
Pass the salt, please. You'll struggle to with this! Believe it or not this is a table salt crystal magnified ten times then photographed by Saulius Gugis in Illinois in the US.
Chances are you are wearing at least half of this photo yourself! These are cotton fabric fibres and pollen cells at ten times magnification, taken by Dr Felice Placenti in Italy.
This cool snap, that looks like a deep sea creature, is actually a cell in breast tissue taken by Jakub Sumbal in the Czech Republic.
This curious green and pink oval is actually the cross section of a mouse intestine by Dr. Amy Engevik of the Medical University of South Carolina.
This beautiful photo shows the vein and delicate scales on a Morpho didius butterfly wing. Do not be fooled by the yellow, the Morpho didius is a blue butterfly. It was taken at 20 times magnification by Sebastien Malo from France.
If you are a bit squeamish you may want to skip this one. This is the head of a tick taken by Drs. Tong Zhang and Paul Stoodley of Ohio State University. You can see the mouthparts that can suck onto animal and human skin - sometimes for days. Incredible!
This is not a strange wintery fairytale forest - it is the inside of a mouse's brain! This super-detailed snap of the vasculature that supply blood to the brain was taken by Dr Andrea Tedeschi at Ohio State University
- Published17 April 2020
- Published24 February 2020
- Published12 April 2020
