• Microscopic laser battle wins top honors in Nikon Small World contest

    Olena Kamenyeva's Nikon Small World video shows a lymph node's immune response.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    A laser attack on a lymph node provides the drama behind the top-rated video in Nikon's 2012 Small World in Motion competition, which celebrates time-lapse movies made on a microscopic scale.

    The filmmaker behind the winning video, titled "Sensing Danger," is Olena Kamenyeva, a researcher at the National Institute of Heallth's NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation. Kamenyeva's experiment involved shooting a laser beam at a lymph node taken from a mouse's groin. The color-coded time-lapse view shows how white blood cells responded to the damage.

    Kamenyeva said the movie "shows an efficient innate immune reaction in the lymph node, which typically has been studied for the development of adaptive immune response." The action was captured using a two-photon microscope, equipped with an L25.0 x 0.95 water immersion objective.

    In this week's announcement of the winners, Nikon Instruments said the movie won first place because it demonstrated the delicate balance between science and art. "Dr. Kamenyeva's image is the perfect combination of cutting-edge science with aesthetics that we look for in Small World, to help raise the profile of science with scientists and non-scientists alike," said Eric Flem, communications manager for Nikon Instruments.

    Nikon has been running its Small World contest for photomicrography since 1975, but this is only the second go-round for the "Small World in Motion" video competition. That just shows how quickly time-lapse photography has taken hold in scientific microscopy.

    Sperm from two males compete within reproductive tract of a female fruit fly.

    Second-place honors went to Stefan Lüpold, a biologist at Syracuse University, for a movie showing sperm from two different male fruit flies competing within the reproductive tract of a female fly. In the 400x time-lapse video, the sperm cells look like red and green worms scurrying through a complex network of tunnels.

    "Competition between sperm is a widespread phenomenon throughout the animal kingdom and a powerful evolutionary force driving species diversity," Lüpold said in his contest entry. "However, it has been nearly impossible to study the fundamental biological processes associated with such sperm competition, occurring whenever sperm from different males mix inside of females. The very recent development of genetically modified fruit flies that produce sperm with either green- or red-fluorescent heads (as seen in the movie) is now allowing us to answer important biological questions."

    Nils Lindström's video shows the development of a kidney.

    Third place went to Nils Lindström of the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute for a short subject titled "Growing Complexity in the Kidney." The time-lapse video packs four days' worth of kidney cell growth, as seen through fluorescence imaging, into 21 seconds.

    Nikon said the video provides a "striking example of how a kidney starts from a simple structure and gradually becomes a highly complex collecting duct system in a matter of days."

    The top three winners will receive Nikon equipment worth a total of $3,500. (That's $2,000 for first, $1,000 for second and $500 for third prize.) An additional 10 entries were cited for honorable mentions. To see the full array of 13 videos, check out the Nikon Small World in Motion website or the YouTube gallery.

    More small wonders:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor, and was on the judging panel for the 2011 Nikon Small World Competition. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • How beauty was found in a slimeball

    Colonial rotifers get jiggy with it in a video entered in the Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition. Australian high-school teacher Ralph Grimm assembled the video from microscopic images.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    You might not think something wonderful can be found in a ball of slime — but Ralph Grimm's prize-winning video of the creatures living in a bit of pond scum proves it's possible.

    Grimm's microscopic view of a colony of rotifers, complete with googly eyespots, won first prize in this year's Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition. More than 2,000 pictures of tiny life-science subjects were submitted from all over the world — and today Olympus announced that Grimm led the top-10 list. You can see all 10 prize-winners, plus a selection of the entries receiving honorable mentions, in our slideshow.

    Grimm, a 45-year-old high-school teacher from the Australian town of Jimboomba, says he found the microscopic colony in a bit of drab-looking leaf debris that he dredged up from a pond on his property. "They look very plain," Grimm told me. "They look like slimeballs. You wouldn't take notice unless you knew what you were looking for."

    Fortunately, Grimm knew exactly what he was looking for, thanks to his long-running passion for microscopy. He recalled that he got his first microscope as a gift at the age of 7. "Once I learned to use the instrument, I got hooked on it. It's followed me along all my life," he said.

    When Grimm got the slimeball under his microscope and cranked the magnification to 200x, he couldn't believe his eyes. "I had never seen this species of rotifer before," he said. Rotifers are tiny animals that live primarily in fresh water and gobble up gunk. As I mentioned last year in an item about the critters, there's a good chance that you've swallowed down more than a few rotifers if you drink unfiltered tap water. Some might think they're icky, but Grimm thought they were so cool that he set aside everything else he had planned for the day.

    "Forget about lunch. Don't worry about breakfast," he said. "This is how I spent the entire day, just filming." After capturing gigabytes' worth of pictures, Grimm figured he had a good entry for the Olympus contest. And he was right.

    As the first-prize winner, Grimm is receiving $5,000 worth of Olympus camera and microscope equipment, plus an expense-paid trip to San Francisco to bask in his glory. Arlene Wechezak's picture of red algae earned her the $2,500 second prize, and Igor Siwanowicz won the $1,500 third prize.

    Slideshow: Living large on a small scale

    Click through the top images from the 2012 Olympus BioScapes International Digital Imaging Competition, which features microscopic images of life science subjects

    Launch slideshow

    Siwanowicz's ultra-close-up view of a fern wasn't the only picture recognized by the judges: He also scored three honorable mentions for his beautiful portraits of a feathery amphipod appendage, a moth's curled-up proboscis and an oak lace bug.

    Siwanowicz, a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm research campus in Virginia, uses a laser-scanning confocal microscope and a palette of pigments to bring out the details in his small-scale subjects. "To our eyes, the specimens appear very different from the final image," Siwanowicz told me in an email. "Usually they are colorless, sometimes showing red hue, depending on the intensity of staining. The samples of invertebrate exoskeletons stained with Congo Red dye are very often bright red."

    He assigns different colors to the different wavelengths given off when his subjects are illuminated. "Assignment of the color in the captured image to any given channel is purely arbitrary; however, I do assign blue to the channel recording light of the shortest wavelength, green and red in similar fashion, in the 'natural' order," he said. "Combining the three channels into one produces the whole palette of colors. That is the closest to real representation of colors achievable with this microscopic technique — in effect, it is like the microscope had trichromatic 'vision,' just as we do."

    Click through the slideshow to see what Siwanowicz is talking about — and grab your red-blue glasses to see the 3-D effect in this bonus picture of the oak lace bug. If you're in need of some red-blue specs, stay tuned: We'll be running a 3-D glasses giveaway on the Cosmic Log Facebook page later today.

    Igor Siwanowicz

    This 3-D photomicrograph provides a frontal view of the oak lace bug, a common pest found in oak trees. Wear red-blue glasses to see the 3-D effect.

    More small wonders:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Creepy critters and cool close-ups: Nikon's micro-photo contest has it all

    Slideshow: Nikon Small World 2012

    Geir Drange

    Get an up-close view of an ant carrying its baby, plus other top-20 winners in the 2012 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition.

    Launch slideshow

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    Small wonders can be icky as well as clicky, as this year's top images in the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition demonstrate. First-ever picture of the blood-brain barrier forming in a live animal? Got it. Ultra-close-ups of a desert rose and a baby garlic flower? Got 'em. Creepy pictures of bat embryos and eight-eyed spiders? Got those, too.

    Ninety-nine winners were chosen out of hundreds of photographers from around the world who participated in the Small World contest, which has been presented by Nikon since 1975 to recognize excellence in photomicrography. We're featuring the top 20 images in our slideshow.

    Top honors go to Jennifer Peters and Michael Taylor of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., who captured what's thought to be an unprecedented picture of the blood-brain barrier in a live zebrafish embryo.

    The barrier is a structure of cells that let nutrients and other necessities move between blood vessels and the central nervous system, while keeping bacteria and other baddies out of the brain's territory.

    "We used fluorescent proteins to look at brain endothelial cells and watched the blood-brain barrier develop in real time," Peters and Taylor said, in a statement explaining the genesis of their winning image. "We took a three-dimensional snapshot under a confocal microscope. Then we stacked the images and compressed them into one — pseudo-coloring them in rainbow to illustrate depth."

    The result is a matrix that appears to shine in the darkness like the craziest neon sculpture you've ever seen. Other winning pictures present views of a ladybug's leg, a fruit fly's gut or a bone cancer cell in similarly glowing colors.

    And then there are the curiously creepy pictures: a series of three bat embryos, showing how the critters' flesh-colored wings grow longer during gestation ... an ant gripping one of its larvae in its jaws ... newborn lynx spiderlings that turn their eight eyes toward the microscope's lens.

    In some cases, the photomicrographs were created in the course of a research project — but in other cases, the pictures are primarily meant to convey the wonder of small worlds. For example, photographer Charles Krebs was led to create his 17th-place image when he was stung by nettles. "After the numbness in my fingertips subsided, I carefully collected some, and took a look at the underside of a leaf," he wrote on Photomacrography.net. His 100x image shows a nettle's stinging hair, or trichome, filled with venom.

    Eric Flem, communications manager for Nikon Instruments, said it was a privilege to showcase some of the world's best photomicrography. "We are proud that this competition is able to demonstrate the true power of scientific imaging and its relevance to the scientific communities as well as the general public," he said in today's news release. A total of $6,000 worth of Nikon products and equipment will go to the three top prize winnres.

    Click through the top-20 slideshow, then check out the Nikon Small World website for scores of additional images of distinction. You can see the contest's top images offline as well, in the form of Nikon's full-color calendar and a touring museum exhibition. And you'll find a huge stockpile of small wonders in the slideshows listed below:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor, and was on the judging panel for the 2011 Nikon Small World Competition. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Microscopic marvels star in movies

    Photographers entering Nikon's Photomicrography Competition captured stunning time-lapse images of organisms at work. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News




    What could be more marvelous than seeing microscopic wonders at super-close range? How about watching those wonders at work, through the magic of time-lapse photography? That's the kind of wow factor that Nikon Instruments was going for with their first-ever Small World in Motion Photomicrography Competition — and it looks as if the winning entries have hit the mark.

    Top honors go to Anna Franz, a researcher at the University of Oxford's Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, for her video showing how ink makes its way through the blood vessels of a chick embryo.

    Anna Franz / Oriel College / Oxford

    Dark ink outlines the blood system of a chick embryo in this frame from a video created by Anna Franz of Oriel College and the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford. Franz carefully injected the ink into an artery within the egg and used a stereo microscope to track its flow through the vessels. The resulting video won top honors in Nikon's first Small World in Motion Photomicrography Competition. Click on the image to play the movie.

    To create the time-lapse video, Franz cut a window into a chicken egg to expose the 72-hour-old embryo, and then carefully injected ink into its artery under a stereo microscope to visualize the blood system. Believe it or not, this was the first time Franz used this technique. She not only got it right; she also captured the blood's blossoming on video.

    "This movie not only demonstrates the power of the heart and the complexity of vasculature of the chick embryo, but also reflects the beauty of nature's design," Franz said in today's announcement about the award-winners.

    Second place goes to Dominik Paquet's glittering time-lapse view of mitochondria moving through sensory neurons in the tail of a zebrafish larva. Mitochondria are the energy-producing powerhouses of the cell, and play a vital role in sparking neural activity. This movie was created in the course of Paquet's research into the molecular and cellular pathologies associated with dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

    Paquet and his team at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease in Munich were studying how problems with the transport of cellular components can affect nerve cells. Paquet says this video may represent the first-ever example of live imaging of mitochondrial transport in the nerve cells of an intact, unmodified vertebrate.

    Dominik Paquet / German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases / Rockefeller U.

    Medical researcher Dominik Paquet captured a time-lapse movie showing the movement of mitochondria through sensory neurons in the tail of a zebrafish larva. The movie won second place in Nikon's Small World in Motion contest. Click on the image to play the movie.

    A microscopic crustacean known as a Daphnia or water flea plays with a Volvox, a spherical type of green algae, in a frame from a video that won third place in Nikon's Small World in Motion Photomicrography Competition. Click on the image to play the video.

    The third-place winner is totally for fun. German vaccine researcher Ralf Wagner nabbed a Daphnia water flea from his garden pond and put it on his microscope slide for study. In Wagner's charming video, the water flea can be seen batting around a spherical Volvox green-algae colony as if it were a beach ball. Wagner acknowledges that the video doesn't document a scientific breakthrough; it just shows a microscopic creature interacting with its environment. It also shows off Wagner's flair for microscopy. A still image showing a similar scene was recognized as an image of distinction in the 2011 Nikon Small World contest. Wagner hopes that such pictures will remind viewers how much fun science can be, and perhaps inspire some of them to take up its study.

    Nikon Instruments has been sponsoring the annual Small World contest for still photomicrography for 37 years — and Eric Flem, the company's communications manager, said the video contest was a natural outgrowth of the tradition. "We receive spectacular images for the Nikon Small World Competition, and it is with great excitement that we expand the competition to accommodate moving images and time-lapse photography," he said.

    More than 200 contest entries were received for judging by Kurt Thorn, director of the Nikon Imaging Center at the University of California at San Francisco; and Michael Davidson, director of the Optical and Magneto-Optical Imaging Center at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University. In addition to the top three videos, the judges recognized 11 other entries with honorable mentions.

    For the full playlist, click on over to the Nikon Small World website. You can also check in with Nikon Small World's Facebook page and its Twitter account, @NikonSmallWorld.

    More small wonders:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor, and was on the judging panel for the 2011 Nikon Small World Competition. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Little bug leads to big prize

    Igor Siwanowicz via Nikon Small World

    A green lacewing larva gets its close-up in this photo by Igor Siwanowicz, first-place winner in the 2011 Nikon Small World contest. Click on the image to see this year's top 20 pictures.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    It's a good thing that Igor Siwanowicz didn't smash the bug that bit him. A photomicrograph of that pesky lacewing larva has won first place in this year's edition of the prestigious Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition.

    Siwanowicz, a biochemist and photographer who lives in Madison, Wis., said the story of his prize-winning picture began when the bug started "fiercely digging its mandibles" into his skin. Instead of swatting the bug away, he pulled out the test tube that he always carries in his pocket for occasions like this, slipped the insect inside and fired up the microscope.

    As described in a Nikon news release, Siwanowicz had only one chance to capture the image he had in mind, due to the specific requirements for the bug's dissection. He carefully fixed and dyed the sample, then set up his confocal microscope for 20x magnification. The resulting picture reveals the lacewing's 1.3-millimeter-long head, and those fierce mandibles, in startling detail.

    Siwanowicz, who completed his doctoral studies in protein crystallography but now works in invertebrate photography for research, sees his work not just as a technical aspect of a science project, but as a true artform.

    "My art causes a dissonance for its viewer — a conflict between the culturally imprinted perception of an insect as something repulsive and ugly, with a newly acquired admiration of the beauty of its form," he told Nikon. "My hope is that in some way, my photomicrographs prompt people to realize the presence of culturaly programming, question it, and eventually throw it off as an illusion. I am so pleased to be recognized by Nikon Small World for this philosophy, but also for the technical expertise it required to capture this photo."

    Dissonance between the macro and micro worlds is a theme in this year's crop of top Small World photos, which I had a hand in selecting as a member of the judging panel. A blade of grass turns into a forest of color. The surface of a microchip glows like a gaudy neon sign. A tiny sprig of liverwort becomes a chain of scaly alien hands. Cracked solar-cell film takes on the beauty of a black-and-white abstract painting.

    To get the bigger picture, check out our slideshow of the contest's top 20 images, then go on to the Small World website to see the honorable mentions, this year's "Images of Distinction" and still more distinctive images from past competitions. You'll also enjoy Siwanowicz's voluminous gallery on DeviantART.

    This year's 37th annual Small World contest drew hundreds of entries from almost 70 countries around the world. Siwanowicz receives $3,000 worth of Nikon gear for his first-place photograph — with gift certificates of lesser amounts, ranging from $2,000 to $100, going to the others on the top-20 list. Eric Flem, communications manager for Nikon Instruments, said it was "our privilege to honor the talented researchers and photomicrographers who submit their amazing work."

    "As evidenced by Dr. Siwanowicz ... marrying technique and aesthetics is no easy feat," he said. "We are proud that this competition is able to showcase this beautiful imagery and demonstrate some of the many facets of science."

    More glimpses of microscopic worlds:

    Top images from the 2011 Nikon Small World competition will be exhibited in a full-color calendar and through a national museum tour. For additional information, visit the Small World website or follow the conversation on Facebook and Twitter @NikonSmallWorld. 

    My colleagues on the judging panel for this year's contest included USA Today science columnist Dan Vergano; Simon Watkins, founder and director of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Biological Imaging, as well as a professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School; and Richard Day, physiology professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

    Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also add me to your Google+ circle, and check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.