We’ve all seen totally gorgeous microscopy photos before — but there’s still something startling about seeing an arresting picture of a beautiful lattice, only to realize it’s a set of mutated cells. Or an insect slowly murdering another insect. Or a horrible parasite, feeding off its host. Part of the thrill of microscopic photos is seeing the loveliness in nature’s many killers and things we might consider abominations.
So it’s especially exciting to look upon some of the winners and runners up in this year’s Olympus BioScapes contest. Above is Drosophila ovaries and uterus, photographed by Gunnar Newquist at the University of Nevada. Check out more of our favorites in this gallery, and see the rest at the link. [Olympus BioScapes via Bellevue Reporter]
First Prize: Rotifer Floscularia ringens feeding. Its rapidly beating cilia (hair-like structures) bring water containing food to the rotifer
Technique: Differential interference contrast microscopy
Photographer: Charles Krebs
James H. Nicholson
NOAA/NOS/NCCOS
Fort Johnson Marine Resources Center
Charleston, South Carolina, USA
Specimen: Live coral Goniastrea sp., known as green brain coral. One full polyp in the center is shown with four surrounding polyps.
Walled corallites are purple.
Technique: Phase contrast illumination
Jan Schmoranzer
Freie University Berlin, Institute for Chemistry and Biochemistry
Berlin, Germany
Specimen: Neuronal culture
Technique: Fluorescence, 6 images stitched at 40x magnification
Dr. Andreas Schmidt-Rhaesa
Zoological Museum, University Hamburg
University of Hamburg, Germany
Specimen: Hymenolepis microstoma, a tapeworm parasite, showing anterior end. Phalloidin staining shows the suckers, pharynx and part of the body-wall musculature.
Technique: Confocal microscopy
Dr. Janet Rollins
College of Mount Saint Vincent
Bronx, New York, USA
Specimen: Drosophila sperm
Technique: Confocal microscopy
Lauren Piedmont
Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Specimen: Pine Stem
Technique: Fluorescence
Nathan Pallace
Fountain Hills, Arizona, USA
Specimen: Fluorescent image of Tilia tree
James H. Nicholson
NOAA/NOS/NCCOS, Fort Johnson Marine Resources Center
Charleston, South Carolina, USA
Specimen: Underwater image of live coral Montastraea annularis. Note polyp tissue (green) around the mouth and base of the tentacles and zooxanthellae (red fluorescence from chlorophyll) in the tissue between polyps. Tentacles also are visible.
Dr. Denise Montell
Johns Hopkins University, Department of Biological Chemistry Center for Cell Dynamics
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Specimen: Drosophila ovary
Technique: Confocal microscopy
Dr. Jan Michels
Institute of Zoology
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Kiel, Germany
Specimen: Pretarsus of the third leg of a female drone fly (Eristalis tenax), ventral view
Technique: Confocal, autofluorescence, 20x
Madelyn May
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York, USA
Specimen: Rat cerebral cortex with astrocytes’ (yellow) endfeet wrapping around blood vessels (red). Cell nuclei are cyan.
Technique: Confocal microscopy, spectral imaging with 50 Z-slices
Dr. Dalibor Matýsek
Mining University – Technical University of Ostrava
Ostrava, Czech Republic
Specimen: Sporangium of the slime mold Physarum leucophaeum
Technique: Fluorescence
Dr. Dalibor Matýsek
Mining University – Technical University of Ostrava
Ostrava, Czech Republic
Specimen: Young sporangia of slime mold Arcyria stipata
Technique: Fluorescence
Peter Kinchington
Mooroolbark, Australia
Specimen: European wasp head
Technique: Brightfield, 200 stacked images
Charles Krebs
Issaquah, Washington, USA
Specimen: Mosquito wing. The iridescent colors, a natural phenomenon resulting from the wing structure itself,
are similar to the colors seen in oil films or soap bubbles.
Technique: Darkfield illumination
Dr. Alexis J. Lomakin
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Specimen: Xenopus melanophore, showing microtubules, microtubule plus-ends and nucleus
Technique: Fluorescence, 60x
Dr. Rita Fior
Institute of Molecular Medicine
Lisbon, Portugal
Specimen: Eyes and optic tectum of five-day-old zebrafish larva that has a mutation causing retinal axons to project into the olfactory lobe
Technique: Confocal, 125-slice Z stack, 20x magnification
Dr. Fernan Federici
Department of Plant Sciences
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Specimen: Corn tissue
Technique: Confocal, 40x objective
Geir Drange
Asker, Norway
Specimen: Two damsel bugs (Nabis sp.) seemingly feeding on an aphid. Background is dried leaf of Norway maple (Acer platanoides). Technique: Focus stack of 120 images
John Dolan
Station Zoologique B.P. 28
Villefranche-sur-Mer, France
Specimen: Marine plankton Petalotricha ampulla with cilia extended
Technique: Differential interference contrast microscopy
Dr. Sandra Dieni
Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology
Albert-Ludwigs University
Freiburg, Germany
Specimen: Immature mouse hippocampus, a region of the brain involved in learning and memory.
Technique: Fluorescent
Mike Crutchley
Pembrokeshire, Wales, United Kingdom
Specimen: Hydroid collected from kelp sample
Technique: Epi-illumination, image stack
Dr. Douglas Clark
San Francisco, California, USA
Specimen: Eupholus weevil, dried thorax scales, stack of 80 images
Technique: Darkfield, 10x magnification
Dr. Frank Abernathy
Jamestown, Ohio, USA
Specimen: Serum arrested Mouse L-1210 cells engaged in spontaneous apoptosis (programmed cell death)
after nutrient depletion and acid hydrolysis
Technique: Phase contrast microscopy, 400x, image scanned and enlarged
Dr. Robert Berdan
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Specimen: Trout alevin (alevin is the second of four stages in the life cycle of a trout, when eggs hatch and the tiny fish begin to emerge)
Technique: Stereomicroscopy, 10x
