Our tiny world in photos: The top 15 images from the 2024 photomicroscopy competition

Posted by Admin October 17, 2024 World

An image of cancer cells in mouse’s brain has been awarded first prize in an international photography competition that challenges people to think small — microscopically small.

Called the Nikon Small World competition, the contest has been celebrating the beauty in the teeny-tiny for nearly 50 years and is renowned for showcasing spectacular imagery captured with the help of a microscope.

This year’s competition attracted more than 2,100 entries from 80 countries.

The entries were judged on their originality, informational content, technical proficiency, and visual impact.

This year’s winner, which you can see at the top of this article, depicts differentiated mouse brain tumour cells.

The image was created by Dr Bruno Cisterna and Eric Vitriol from Augusta University, which took many attempts and countless hours to capture.

Dr Cisterna says the image reveals how disruptions in the cell’s cytoskeleton — the “highways” known as microtubules — can lead to diseases like Alzheimer’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

“One of the main problems with neurodegenerative diseases is that we don’t fully understand what causes them,” Dr Cisterna said.

“Differentiated cells could be used to study how mutations or toxic proteins that cause Alzheimer’s or ALS alter neuronal morphology.”

Here’s a look at the other top-ranked images.