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Pin-ItVolvox (or Protists) are colonies of cells that form in bodies of water high in nitrate, such as puddles, ditches and shallow ponds. Shown here, these “micro-cities” straddle the line between animal and plant, moving through the water as a single organism feeding. This movie was taken using the darkfield microscopy lighting technique and clearly shows Mr. Brizzi’s mastery of keeping these active creatures in focus during his study.
2020 Small World in Motion Competition
Honorable Mention
Colonies of green algae (Volvox)
Massimo Brizzi
- Affiliation
- www.massimobrizzi.it
Empoli, Firenze, Italy
- Technique
- Darkfield
- Magnification
- 10X - 20X (Objective Lens Magnification)
Honorable Mention
Colonies of rotifers with eggs
Massimo Brizzi
- Affiliation
- www.massimobrizzi.it
Empoli, Firenze, Italy
- Technique
- Darkfield
- Magnification
- 10X - 20X (Objective Lens Magnification)
This movie captures the almost dancelike movements of colonies of rotifers with their eggs. Mr. Brizzi actively studies and documents microorganisms that reside in highly polluted waters. This particular colony of rotifers is a rare variant of freshwater dwellers and taken using the darkfield microscopy technique. One of the biggest challenges to capturing this image is getting the colony transferred to a glass microscope slide without harming the organism.
Honorable Mention
The first 22 hours of zebrafish development (blood vessels shown in green)
Daniel Castranova Dr. Brant M. Weinstein
- Affiliation
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
NICHD
Bethesda, Maryland, USA
- Technique
- Confocal
- Magnification
- 4X (Objective Lens Magnification)
Daniel Castranova is a research technician at the NIH in Bethesda MD, and the Nikon Small World first place winner in the still imaging competition (Daniel is having a VERY good year). Mr. Castranova's winning Small World in Motion movie captures the first 22 hours of the development of a developing transgenic zebrafish embryo. This movie combined transmitted light and confocal imaging to beautifully illustrate the blood vessels developing from a single cell. He says that “keeping a fertilized egg alive, happy and oriented properly throughout early development requires both luck and skill” (we think the luck part bears a strong correlation to the skill part).
Top 20
Honorable Mentions
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.
