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Under the Microscope
EVIDENT IMAGE OF THE YEAR COMPETITION: LAURENT FORMERY (STARFISH); JEFFY SURIANTO/GETTY IMAGES (RED STARFISH)
WINNING PHOTO: This photo, which was awarded first place in a contest of close-up photography, shows the nervous system of a juvenile sea star.
Objects, from moth wings to pollen grains, look totally different when magnified under a microscope. Scientists rely on this imaging tool when researching things that are too tiny to see with the naked eye. And each year, the Global Image of the Year Scientific Light Microscopy Award recognizes the most stunning close-up pictures taken by scientists.
JAVIER RUPEREZ (WING); MARK BRANDON/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (MOTH)
COLORFUL CLOSE-UP: This image captures the scales on the wing of a Madagascan sunset moth.
In 2023, 640 images from 38 countries were entered into the competition. The winning photo showed a young sea star’s nervous system—the network of nerves that carry messages throughout an organism’s body. The tiny marine creature measured just 1 centimeter (0.4 inches) across!
Laurent Formery, a biologist at Stanford University in California, took the photo with a confocal microscope, which uses a lens to focus light from a laser. The instrument allowed him to capture zoomed-in cross sections of the animal’s body. When combined, the scans created a colorful kaleidoscope effect. “It’s just so beautiful what you can do with the microscope,” says Formery.
IGOR SIWANOWICZ (POLLEN); VALTER JACINTO/GETTY IMAGES (FLOWER)
MICROSCOPIC MARVEL: This image shows a pollen grain of a morning glory flower.