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Pin-ItDr. Jan Michels works in the field of functional morphology and biomechanics focusing on the study of morphology, material composition and properties of arthropod exoskeleton structures. He is also an accomplished imaging authority with recognition in top honors at Nikon Small World 11 times since 2007. His latest installment, that of a silica wall of a marine diatom (taken with confocal) shows stunning three dimensional detail seldom, if ever, seen of this type of organism. It looks a lot like a shower drain!
2020 Photomicrography Competition
19th Place
Silica cell wall of the marine diatom Arachnoidiscus sp.
Dr. Jan Michels
- Affiliation
- Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Department of Functional Morphology and Biomechanics
Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
- Technique
- Confocal
- Magnification
- 50X (Objective Lens Magnification)
18th Place
Atlas moth wing
Chris Perani
- Location
- San Rafael, California, USA
- Technique
- Image Stacking
- Magnification
- 10x (Objective Lens Magnification)
The wing of the Atlas moth, from one of the largest moths in the world (a wingspan of over nine inches), is the model for this stunning image captured by Chris Perani. Chris is a full time college student studying graphic design with a keen interest in photomicrography. This image used a combination of panorama and image stacking of approximately 4,000 images to achieve the level of detail shown. Chris is undoubtedly one of Nikon Small World’s younger winners, at just 21 years of age.
20th Place
Skeleton preparation of a short-tailed fruit bat embryo (Carollia perspicillata)
Dr. Dorit Hockman Dr. Vanessa Chong-Morrison
- Affiliation
- University of Cape Town
Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
- Technique
- Brightfield
- Magnification
- 1X (Objective Lens Magnification)
This image taken by Dorit Hockman of a skeleton of a short tailed fruit bat embryo beautifully illustrates the details of the elongated hand bones that form the scaffold of the bat wing. This x-ray-like image took months to prepare, with the sample preparation being done by Dr. Vanessa Chong-Morrison at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The sample took months of waiting for the specimen to be clear enough to reveal the bones, upon which the task of capturing this image began. It was a composite of images taken at high magnification and stitched together to the final image on display.
Top 20
Honorable Mentions
Images of Distinction
Judges
Dr. Dylan Burnette
Assistant Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology Vanderbilt University
Burnette has been using high resolution microscopy to study cells for over 20 years. His laboratory at Vanderbilt University focuses on how cells grow and divide. He is interested in how these processes contribute to the function of heart muscle. He trained as a graduate student with Dr. Paul Forscher at Yale University and as a post-doctoral fellow with Dr. Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Burnette has placed in the Nikon Small World competition eleven times.
Samantha Clark
Photo Editor National Geographic
Clark works on stories about science and the environment. She previously worked on NPR’s photo team and at Pier 24 Photography. Before working in visuals, she was a reporter and radio producer based in the Bay Area of San Francisco.
Sean Greene
Graphics and Data Journalist The Los Angeles Times
Greene covers science, the environment and medicine. He started working for The Los Angeles Times in 2014 and specializes in combining the powers of visual storytelling and the internet to tell meaningful and memorable stories. He’s reported on native oysters, bugs and frog tongues, and helped develop projects such as an interactive map of the Milky Way, a tracker of coronavirus cases in California and a data analysis of the dialogue in the Star Wars movies.
Dr. Christophe Leterrier
Group Leader Institute of Neurophysiopathology at CNRS and Aix-Marseille University
An engineer by training, Dr. Leterrier turned to cell biology and neurobiology for his Ph.D. He studies how neurons are organized at the cellular level and how they differentiate, then build and maintain their incredibly complex arborization. Since 2017, he has led the NeuroCyto lab in Marseille where he applies advanced microscopy techniques to directly observe molecular assemblies at the nanoscale inside neurons.
Ariel Waldman
Chair of the External Council NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts Program
Waldman led an expedition to Antarctica to film microscopic life under the ice. She is the co-author of a National Academy of Sciences report on the future of human spaceflight and the author of the book What’s It Like in Space?: Stories from Astronauts Who’ve Been There. Waldman is the global director of Science Hack Day, a National Geographic Explorer, a member of the San Francisco Microscopical Society, and received an honoree from the Obama White House as a Champion of Change in citizen science.
