A beautiful image of a rat fetus with glowing red eyes and iridescent tissue has been named the winner of a prestigious award for scientific photographs.
Scientist Werner Zuschratter captured the embryo on its 21st day of development using a microscope that shoots images through a tiny hole to highlight contrasts and increase clarity.
Along with Zuschratter’s winning masterpiece, judges selected a photo showing intricate details of pigment cells in snake skin and a collage of more than 40 colorful butterfly wings as regional matches.
The competition, presented by the Life Sciences Division of Olympus, is the everyday worldview of the year Life Science Light Microscopy, which focuses on living organisms as seen in any type of microscope.
A rat fetus with red, demonic eyes and glowing tissue has been named the winner of the everyday worldview of the year Life Science Light Microscopy. Scientist Werner Zuschratter captured the embryo on its 21st development day using a microscope that shoots images through a small hole to highlight contrasts and increase clarity
The global competition received nearly 700 submissions from 61 different provinces.
As Satoshi Nakamura, Vice President of Scientific Solutions Global Marketing at Olympus, points out: ‘Not only did we see a record number of submissions, but the quality and creativity of the images was outstanding. It’s amazing to see how the unexpected art captures people with a microscope. ‘
Zuschratter of Germany was chosen as the global winner for his striking image of a whole rat embryo captured with a confocal microscope.
He told LiveScience that the embryo is only 1.2 centimeters long and has been treated in a chemical to make the skin and muscles transparent.
Justin Zoll won the US Regional Award for his beautiful, polarized light microscopy panorama of glutamine and beta alanine crystals. This microscope uses a contrast enhancing technique that improves the quality of the image
The EMEA division has gained an incredible confocal image of collagen fibers (second harmonic generation) and dermal pigment cells (autofluorescence) in African house snake embryonic skin of Grigorii Timin, Switzerland. Timin used the same microscope as Zuschratter to capture the glittering fibers and deep blue cells
In the photo, the tissue and skeleton of the fetus appear to glow in deep red, blue and green sets, done through the use of fluorescent dyes and natural fluorescence in body tissues.
Zuschratter explained that he scanned the embryo multiple times with a laser and then combined the images. It took more than 25 hours to complete.
The competition selected three regional winners who presented images that were just as captivating as the rat fetus.
Justin Zoll won the US Regional Award for his beautiful, polarized light microscopy panorama of glutamine and beta alanine crystals
This microscope uses a contrast-enhancing technique that improves the quality of the image.
In the Asia-Pacific region, scales collected from more than 40 species of butterflies were individually photographed and thoughtfully combined into the winning image from XinPei Zhang, China. Each butterfly shows intricate details, color and contrast, and is all intricately placed to create the enchanting image
Cultured neurons are a good model to test enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) for many neurological disorders. In this experiment, Efimova looked at the uptake of engineered enzyme into the cortical neuron of rats
The EMEA division has gained an incredible confocal image of collagen fibers (second harmonic generation) and dermal pigment cells (autofluorescence) in African house snake embryonic skin of Grigorii Timin, Switzerland.
Timin used the same microscope as Zuschratter to capture the glittering fibers and deep blue cells.
In the Asia-Pacific region, scales collected from more than 40 species of butterflies were individually photographed and thoughtfully combined into the winning image from XinPei Zhang, China.
Each butterfly shows intricate details, color and contrast, and is all intricately placed to create the enchanting image.
Lee Wagstaff, Vice President, Life Science Sales and Marketing, Olympus Corporation of the Americas told IFLScience: ‘Our aim of the competition is to further demonstrate and further demonstrate the artistic and scientific value of images taken, to encourage people in every corner. of the world to look at scientific images in a new way, to appreciate and share their beauty. ‘