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Check out the incredible infinitesimal world of the Olympus Image of the Year Award

Last year Olympus launched the first-ever Olympus Image of the Year Award – a global photography competition for scientific images which recognises their simultaneous artistic value.

The winners of the 2019 competition have just been announced and the mindblowing images offer a rare insight into the ethereal world of the all-present microcosmos. Check them out below.

Olympus Image of the Year Award

The winners of the inaugural Olympus Image of the Year Award have been unveiled and they offer a breathtaking peek into the world of the microcosmos.

The competition has one overall winner and three regional winners – from the Americas; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Asia-Pacific respectively. The 2019 overall winner was a photograph of a mouse’s hippocampus (the part of the brain involved with memories) from Ainara Pintor, a graduate researcher in Spain.

Some of the other entries include the autofluorescence of a mouse embryo, the inside of a tardigrade (a micro-animal known as a moss-piglet), and a magnified prase opal, which bears an uncanny resemblance to an ocean coastline.

Check out the winners and some honourable mentions below.

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The overall winner, taken by Ainara Pintor (Spain):

Olympus Image of the Year Award
The stunning fluorescence image shows the immunostaining of Thy1-EGFP mouse brain slice with two fluorophores. In green, the excitatory hippocampal neurons, which express Green Fluorescent Protein under Thy1 promoter. In red, Fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) protein revealed with Alexa Fluor 594 antibody. In blue, cell nuclei labelled with DAPI. Captured with a super resolution confocal microscope system.

The regional winner for the Americas, taken by Tagide deCarvalho (U.S.A.):

Olympus Image of the Year Award 2019
The beautiful fluorescence image shows the inside of a tardigrade with colorful details.

The regional winner for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, taken by Alan Prescott (U.K.):

As titled “The Mouse’s Whiskers” by Alan, this fascinating shape was captured from a frozen section of a mouse using multiple fluorescent labels.

The regional winner for the Asia-Pacific, taken by Howard Vindin (Australia):

This remarkable image shows the autofluorescence of a mouse embryo with 950 tiles stitched together.

Honourable mention: Ming-Der Lin (Taiwan):

This is the ovary of a gall-inducing wasp anselmella miltoni girault showing their eggs captured with a confocal microscope.

Honourable mention: Nat Prunet (U.S.A.):

Inflorescence of arabidopsis thaliana with young, developing flower buds expressing a fluorescent reporters.

Honourable mention: Justin Zoll (U.S.A.):

Olympus Image of the Year Award
A preparation of amino acids L glutamine and beta alanine crystalized out of an ethanol solution and photographed at 50X using polarizing filters.

Honourable mention: Nathan Renfro (U.S.A.):

Olympus Image of the Year Award
This image shows the green gem material, prase opal, which when magnified through a microscope remarkable resembles an aerial view of a coastline.

 

To check out more entries, head over to the Olympus Image of the Year Award website.