MELVILLE, N.Y., Oct. 30, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nikon Instruments, Inc. is pleased to reveal the winners of the 40th annual Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition, awarding first prize to veteran competitor Rogelio Moreno of Panama for capturing a rarely seen image of a rotifer's open mouth interior and heart-shaped corona. A computer system programmer by occupation, Moreno is a self-taught microscopist whose photomicrograph serves to show just how close the beauty and wonder of the micro-world truly is - not just for scientists, but anyone willing to open their eyes and look for it.
Moreno is recognized along with over 80 other winners from around the world for excellence in photomicrography. Winners from Italy, the United States, Austria, Spain and Australia also ranked in the top ten, for exceptional images selected based on both artistic quality and masterful scientific technique.
"Since the competition began 40 years ago, the caliber in quality and range of subject matter of the images, is matched only by the scientists and photographers who submit them," said Eric Flem, Communications Manager, Nikon Instruments. "So much has changed in science and technology in the past forty years, opening the door for more and more scientists and artists alike to capture and share their stunning images with the world. A look at our gallery is like a time capsule of the advancements made in the last four decades and truly shows the legacy a Nikon Small World continues to build."
While the top images cover a variety of subject matter, each one exhibits the exemplary technique, scientific discipline and artistry for which Nikon Small World is known.
Rogelio Moreno is a first-time first-place winner of the Small World competition, though he has placed each time he has entered the contest starting three years ago. That success is a testament to his incredible skill, as he only began taking photomicrographs in 2009.
Judges awarded Moreno's shot of a rotifer caught open-mouthed and facing the camera – for its exemplary technique. Capturing the perfect moment when the rotifer opened its mouth for the camera required extreme patience from Moreno, who watched for hours waiting for his opportunity. With the rotifer in constant motion, he utilized the flash to freeze the movement as soon as the mouth opened – still leaving him with only a one- or two-second window to take the photo, and possibly only one shot to get it right. He also used differential interference contrast (DIC) to enhance the coloration in unstained, transparent samples, and to provide a more detailed image of the rotifer.
"When you see that movement, you fall in love. I thought - wow, that is amazing. I can't believe what I'm seeing. This is something very, very beautiful," said Moreno of his winning image. "I hope now it can inspire others as much as it has inspired me – to learn about science, to look closely and notice something truly amazing."
As the 2014 winner, Moreno joins the ranks of 36 other photomicrographers, artists and scientists from all over the world who have taken the top prize. This year's competition received over 1,200 entries from more than 79 countries around the world.
Now that the judges' top images for the 40th Nikon Small World Competition have been announced, it is the public's turn to select their favorites. Nikon is hosting an online popular vote to select the best first-place winner from the past four decades. To participate and vote for your favorite, visit www.nikonsmallworld.com/popvote.
Top Five Images:
1. Mr. Rogelio Moreno, Rotifer showing the mouth interior and heart shaped corona
2. Mr. Alessandro Da Mommio, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa, Rhombohedral cleavage in calcite crystal
3. Noah Fram-Schwartz, Jumping Spider Eyes
4. Ms. Karin Panser, Institute of Molecular Pathology I.M.P., Caterpillar proleg with circle of gripping hooks in red
5. Dr. Muthugapatti K. Kandasamy, Biomedical Microscopy Core, University of Georgia, Bovine pulmonary artery endothelial cells stained for actin (pink), mitochondria (green) and DNA (yellow)
The exceptional panel of judges who select the winning images has a tradition of including some of the most distinguished names working in the scientific community and science journalism today. For the 40th anniversary, the team selected with determining the 2014 Nikon Small World winning images includes:
- Dr. Paul Maddox, Assistant Professor and William Burwell Harrison Fellow, Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Principal Investigator, Mitotic Mechanisms and Chromosome Dynamics research unit, IRIC
- Laura Helmuth, Science Editor, Slate
- Dave Mosher, Online Director, Popular Science
- Michael W. Davidson, Director of the Optical and Magneto-Optical Imaging Center at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University
To commemorate the 40th Anniversary, Nikon hosted an exclusive event at The New York Academy of Sciences on Wednesday, October 29th. The 2014 winning images were first unveiled to those in attendance, including Moreno.
Top images from the 2014 Nikon Small World Competition will be exhibited in a full-color calendar and through a national museum tour. For additional information, please visit www.nikonsmallworld.com, or follow the conversation on Facebook and Twitter @NikonSmallWorld.
THE OFFICIAL 2014 NIKON SMALL WORLD WINNERS
The following are the Top 20 and Honorable Mentions for Nikon Small World 2014. The full gallery of winning images, along with Images of Distinction can be viewed at www.nikonsmallworld.com.
| 1st Place |
| Mr. Rogelio Moreno |
| Panama, Panama |
| Rotifer showing the mouth interior and heart shaped corona |
| Differential Interference Contrast |
| 40X |
| 2nd Place |
| Mr. Alessandro Da Mommio |
| Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa |
| Pisa, Italy |
| Rhombohedral cleavage in calcite crystal |
| Crossed Polars |
| 10X |
| 3rd Place |
| Noah Fram-Schwartz |
| Greenwich, Connecticut, USA |
| Jumping Spider Eyes |
| Reflected Light |
| 20X |
| 4th Place |
| Ms. Karin Panser |
| Institute of Molecular Pathology I.M.P. |
| Vienna, Austria |
| Caterpillar proleg with circle of gripping hooks in red |
| Confocal, Autofluorescence |
| 20X |
| 5th Place |
| Dr. Muthugapatti K. Kandasamy |
| Biomedical Microscopy Core, University of Georgia |
| Athens, Georgia, USA |
| Bovine pulmonary artery endothelial cells stained for actin (pink), mitochondria (green) and DNA (yellow) |
| Super Resolution Microscopy |
| 6th Place |
| Dr. Douglas Brumley |
| Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA |
| Active fluid flow around P. damicornis (coral polyp) |
| Fluorescence, Autofluorescence |
| 4X |
| 7th Place |
| Mr. Dennis Hinks |
| Cleveland, Ohio, USA |
| Circuitry in DVD reader |
| Cross-polarized microscopy |
| 100X |
| 8th Place |
| Dr. Igor Robert Siwanowicz |
| Janelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) |
| Ashburn, Virginia, USA |
| Appendages of a common brine shrimp |
| Confocal |
| 100X |
| 9th Place |
| Ms. Meritxell Vendrell |
| Servei de Microscòpia, Universitat Autònoma |
| Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain |
| Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) ovary fixed and stained to show lectins (red) and nuclei (blue) |
| Confocal laser scanning microscopy |
| 63X |
| 10th Place |
| Dr. Paul Joseph Rigby |
| CMCA, The University of Western Australia |
| Crawley, Western Australia, Australia |
| Daisy petal with fungal infection and pollen grains, whole mount, unstained |
| Confocal autofluorescence |
| 10X |
| 11th Place |
| Mr. Stefano Barone |
| Cremona, Italy |
| House cricket's tongue (Acheta domesticus) |
| Rheinberg illumination (Dark field with interference filter) |
| 25X |
| 12th Place |
| Mr. Douglas Moore |
| University Relations and Communications, University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point |
| Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA |
| Montana Dryhead agate, unpolished |
| Fiber Optic Illumination |
| 50X |
| 13th Place |
| Mr. Charles Krebs |
| Charles Krebs Photography |
| Issaquah, Washington, USA |
| Conochilus unicornis (rotifer), actively feeding. This rotifer species forms a free floating spherical colony |
| Differential Interference Contrast |
| 417X |
| 14th Place |
| Dr. Ali Erturk |
| Munich, Germany |
| Mouse brain vasculature |
| Light Sheet Fluorescence Microscopy |
| 2X |
| 15th Place |
| Mr. Charles Krebs |
| Charles Krebs Photography |
| Issaquah, Washington, USA |
| Chrysochroa buqueti (jewel beetle) carapace, near eye |
| Diffused, Reflected Illumination |
| 45X |
| 16th Place |
| Dr. Nils Lindstrom |
| Developmental Biology, The Roslin Institute |
| Edinburgh, Scotland, UK |
| Three transgenic kidneys cultured together, showing colliding branching collecting duct systems |
| Confocal |
| 20X |
| 17th Place |
| Mr. Rogelio Moreno |
| Panama, Panama |
| Pleurotaenium ovatum (microalgae) |
| Polarized Light, Lambda Plate |
| 40X |
| 18th Place |
| Mr. Jens H. Petersen |
| MycoKey |
| Ebeltoft, Denmark |
| Anagallis arvensis (scarlet pimpernel) |
| Macroscopy |
| 80X |
| 19th Place |
| Dr. Sabrina Kaul |
| University of Vienna |
| Vienna, Austria |
| Larval stage of the acorn worm Balanoglossus misakiensis, dorsal view, showing cell borders, muscles and apical eye spots |
| Confocal |
| 10X |
| 20th Place |
| Dr. Dylan T. Burnette |
| Vanderbilt University School of Medicine |
| Nashville, Tennessee, USA |
| A crawling bone cancer (osteosarcoma) cell showing actin filament bundles in the lamella |
| Structured Illumination Microscopy |
| 8000X |
| HONORABLE MENTIONS |
| Mr. Honorio Cócera-La Parra |
| University of Valencia |
| Valencia, Spain |
| Conichalcite pseudomorph after azurite |
| Transmitted Light |
| 6X |
| Dr. Marco Dal Maschio |
| Max Planck Institute Neurobiology |
| Munich, Germany |
| Sagittal brain slice showing cell nuclei (cyan) and Purkinije cells (red) expressing EGFP |
| Confocal |
| 40X |
| Mr. Evan Darling |
| Rochester Institute of Technology |
| Rochester, New York, USA |
| Rat embryo fluorescently labeled with Rhodamine |
| Epi-fluorescence |
| 10X |
| Mr. Geir Drange |
| Asker, Norway |
| Leptothorax acervorum (ant) carrying its larva |
| Reflected Light, Focus Stacking |
| 5X |
| Mr. Frank Fox |
| Konz, Germany |
| Living Micrasterias in contrast Interphako |
| 100X |
| Noah Fram-Schwartz |
| Greenwich, Connecticut, USA |
| Ant Eye |
| Reflected Light |
| 20X |
| Dr. Martin Fritsch |
| Department of Integrative Zoology, University of Vienna |
| Vienna, Austria |
| Lynceus brachyurus (clam shrimp), whole mount larva |
| Confocal |
| 250X |
| Dr. William James Hatton |
| University of New South Wales, School of Medicine |
| Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| Mouse cardiac ventricular myocytes (isolated heart muscle cells) |
| Confocal |
| 400X |
| Ms. Hsiao-Ling Lu |
| University of Miami |
| Coral Gables, Florida, USA |
| Pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum) stage 17 embryo showing actin filaments (red), tubulin (green), nucleus (blue), and germ cells (white) |
| Confocal |
| 40X |
| Mr. Fabrice Parais |
| DREAL de Basse-Normandie |
| Caen, France |
| Air pearl in the middle of larva Stratiomyidae respiratory fringe (Diptera aquatic larva). |
| Stereomicroscopy |
| 30X |
| Mrs. Magdalena Turzanska |
| Institute of Experimental Biology, University of Wroclaw |
| Wroclaw, Poland |
| Nowellia curvifolia (leafy liverwort) gametophyte, berberine stained |
| Epi-autofluorescence with Z-stack Reconstruction |
| 125X |
About Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition
The Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition is open to anyone with an interest in photography. Participants may submit their images in traditional 35mm format, or upload digital images directly at www.nikonsmallworld.com. For additional information, contact Nikon Small World, Nikon Instruments Inc., 1300 Walt Whitman Road, Melville, NY 11747, USA or phone (631) 547-8569. Entry forms for Nikon's 2014 Small World Competition may also be downloaded from www.nikonsmallworld.com.
About Nikon Instruments Inc.
Nikon Instruments, Inc. is a world leader in the development and manufacture of optical and digital imaging technology for biomedical applications. Now in its 96th year, Nikon provides complete optical systems that offer optimal versatility, performance and productivity. Cutting-edge instruments include microscopes, precision measuring equipment, digital imaging products and software. Nikon Instruments is the microscopy and instrumentation arm of Nikon Inc., the world leader in digital imaging, precision optics and photo imaging technology. For more information, visit www.nikoninstruments.com. Product-related inquiries may be directed to Nikon Instruments at 800-52-NIKON.