Featured Stories

This image of a solitary coral won third place in the 2010 BioScapes competition. It was taken by James Nicholson of the Coral Culture and Collaborative Research Facility in Charleston, S.C.

It's where researchers from across the globe compete to see who has the best scientific eye candy: the Olympus BioScapes contest, judged annually at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University.

This year, a record-breaking number of images were entered into the competition that showcases the intricate beauty of the microscopic world — a world normally hidden from our eyes. Now in its eighth year, the current competition has over 200 entries more than last year. In all, 1,855 images and 125 videos were entered by 942 contestants from 64 countries.

"Not only did we get a flood of entries, we also got a record number of fantastic images," said FSU biologist Michael Davidson, who oversees the lab's Optical Microscopy department and administers the BioScapes contest.

"The images that we're seeing this year are absolutely outstanding," agreed Doug Murphy, one of the contest's four judges and the director of facilities for light microscopy and histology at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Va.

The contest was created to showcase the world's finest microscopic images of life-science subjects — bugs, flowers, seeds, DNA and more. The pictures are made using any brand of light microscope, at any magnification and employing any illumination technique.

"We wanted to help bring attention to some of the amazing photographic work being done in labs and universities across the globe," said Laura Ferguson, a cell biologist and the research marketing manager for the Olympus Scientific Equipment Group.

The BioScapes contest and a similar competition sponsored by Nikon are the only two international venues that give researchers who take such photos a place to show off their skills and wow their peers.

"We are really right now in an explosion in imaging application in microscopy," said Murphy, who is also an adjunct cell-biology professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School. The images "are an important way to communicate to the public what we understand about biology and medicine, and to show the importance of the microscope and the electronic-imaging methods and the dyes and the tools that we use for labeling the cells," he said.

The judges look at three major criteria in evaluating the pictures.

"We look for the aesthetic quality — the eye-popping nature  and surprise and delight of the picture," Murphy said. "And we look at the scientific content of the picture: We look at any story that might be important for understanding a biological process. And then we also look for the techniques and the degree of sophistication and methodology that's been applied using a microscope to look at a problem."

In many of the best images, he added, all three elements come together.

The results of the BioScapes contest will be announced in November at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. In addition to bragging rights, the first-place winner receives his or her selection of $5,000, an Olympus microscope or camera equipment. For more information about the contest, and to see winning images from previous years, visit www.olympusbioscapes.com.

For additional information, contact Michael Davidson at (850) 644-0542 or mwdavidson@fsu.edu.

The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory develops and operates state-of-the-art, high-magnetic-field facilities that faculty and visiting scientists and engineers use for research. The laboratory is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the state of Florida. To learn more, visit www.magnet.fsu.edu.

Banner art: This image showing the frontal section of a spider's eyes won first place in the 2010 BioScapes competition. It was taken by Igor Siwanowicz of the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology in Munich.

By Kathleen Laufenberg
11 October 2011