Life Under the Microscope: The Year's Best Biology Close-Ups

Life is pretty interesting, and at the microscopic scale, it can also be beautiful, strange, intriguing, frightening and gross. The winning photos and videos from this year’s Olympus BioScapes competition span the whole range. More Microscope Photography: The 2013 Olympus Bioscapes Winners The 2012 Olympus Bioscapes Winners Under the Microscope, Some Things Look Too Crazy […]
Image may contain Animal Fish Seafood Food Sea Life and Lobster
9th Prize:
Igor Siwanowicz, HHMI Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn,
VA
Subject: Green coneheaded planthopper (Acanalonia conica) nymph with
its gears
Technique: Confocal microscopy
Magnification: 200x
<a href="http://www.olympusbioscapes.com/">Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition®</a>

Life is pretty interesting, and at the microscopic scale, it can also be beautiful, strange, intriguing, frightening and gross. The winning photos and videos from this year's Olympus BioScapes competition span the whole range.

More Microscope Photography:
The 2013 Olympus Bioscapes Winners
The 2012 Olympus Bioscapes Winners
Under the Microscope, Some Things Look Too Crazy to Be RealFrom rat brains to butter daisies to weevils and barnacle appendages, these microscope photos will amaze. First prize this year went to a video of a developing fruit fly embryo (below). Made from 30-second snippets pieced together from the first 24 hours of a fly's life, this video is a fascinating view of cells multiplying and differentiating as the larva goes from a blob to a recognizable critter that starts to crawl away.

The second video below shows neural activity in a live zebrafish brain. The 100,000 or so neurons light up rapidly and individually, creating a light show that depicts the actual functioning of a vertebrate's brain. The rest of the winners are still images in the gallery above.

More Microscope Photography:
The 2013 Olympus Bioscapes Winners
The 2012 Olympus Bioscapes Winners
Under the Microscope, Some Things Look Too Crazy to Be RealAll photos and videos used with permission from Olympus BioScapes.