It’s a small world after all

Throughout the course of their work, scientists take not only informative technical images, but beautifully artistic pictures that can speak a thousand words – Laboratory News takes a look at some of the winning and commended images from the Nikon Small World Competition

The brief is simple – images must be original, informative, technical and have a visual impact – and the judges of the 2010 Nikon Small World Competition were not disappointed.

Now in its 36th year, the competition – which started as a means to recognize and applaud the efforts of those involved with photography through the light microscope – received a record-breaking 2,200 entries. The photomicrographs carried both scientific and artistic qualities and the judges consider a good photomicrograph to be an image whose structure, colour, composition and content is an object of beauty, open to several levels of comprehension and appreciation.

This year’s winning image was of a mosquito heart magnified 100 times and using fluorescence technology. It was taken during the course of Jonas King’s research on how mosquitoes carry and transmit pathogens.

“Mosquitoes remain one of the greatest scourges of mankind and this image of the mosquito heart helps us understand how they transport nutrients, hormones and even pathogens such as malaria throughout their bodies,” said King, “I’m happy such an important and aesthetically pleasing image was selected as the winner.”

“It is a privilege to honour some of the world’s foremost researchers and photomicrographers for their amazing work with Nikon Small World,” said Eric Flem, communications manager at Nikon Instruments, “We are thrilled that we continue to receive images that awe and surprise us every year – ranging from everyday household items to microscopic specimens used for science’s most pressing research. This competition truly demonstrates the fun of science as well as the importance of the many microscopic techniques and processes in use today.”