Before you read this, pause and look at your hand. Imagine that you could see ten, one hundred, a thousand times higher resolution. What would your hand look like? What world the world look like?
Photomicrography, the science of imaging through microscopes, is a window into an exotic world.
To illustrate the beautiful new perspectives made possible by advanced imaging technology, I’ve compiled some exquisite images from Nikon Small World. Can you identify them? You’re doing well if you get even one correct. Answers are at the bottom of this post.
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Answers:
1. Cricket tongue by Christian Gautier
2. Head of a tapeworm by Vigar Zaman
3. Shrimp eye by John Douglass
4. Red ink mixed with acid, heated by Carlos Jimenez Perez
5. Feather of a dove by Leonard Cannone
6. Fruit fly eye by Guichuan Huo
7. Marine diatom by Wim Van Egmond
9. Crystallized mix of resorcinal, methylene blue and sulphur by John Hart
10. Fossilized shells by Wim van Egmond
11. Soap bubbles by Viktor Syorka
12. Wrinkled photoresist by Pedro Barrios-Perez (what is a photoresist?)
13. Actin bundles by Dennis Breitsprecher
14. Cup fern, longitudinal rhizome section by Stephen Lowry
15. Water crystal by Raul Gonzalez
16. Bird of paradise (plant) seed by Viktor Syorka
17. Butterfly egg on pink powderpuff bud by David Millard
18. Microchip by Alfred Paseika
20. Mushroom gills by Charles Krebs
A few more awesome images that may surprise you:
Pollen grains by Shirley Owens
Small intestine of mouse by Paul Appleton
All images sourced from Nikon’s Small World.
