We’ve all heard the saying that good things come in small packages, and using modern imaging technology, we can appreciate the splendor of the world at the microscopic level. On Wednesday, the winners of the Nikon’s Small World in Motion Photomicrography Competition were announced. The purpose of the contest is to find videos that best capture the beauty and complexity of life through the microscope. This year’s winning video shows a sequence of virtual slices of a 10-day-old quail embryo growing inside an egg. The video is made up of more than 1,000 images that display the anatomy of the 23-millimeter-long specimen in crystal-clear detail. The second-place video shows the beating heart of a two-day-old zebrafish embryo. You can see individual blood cells getting pumped through the heart, which is slightly larger than the width of a human hair. A video illuminating the details of a living cell’s mitochondria took third place. Now press play and see science play out right before your eyes. Quail Embryo
Zebrafish Heart
Living Cell Mitochondria
