Up close and personal with blood vessels, cells, and microorganisms
Photos of Detroit's Decay and Rebirth
Hilarious Pedestrian Penalty Cards
Beauty Queens from Around the World
If you associate camera manufacturer Nikon with those silly ads that feature Ashton Kutcher, you may somewhat relieved to know that they also do some good in the world. As well as making some pretty swanky SLRs, the company manufactures scientific microscopes, and it runs an annual competition for photography at a microscopic scale. This year's results are in, and the company has published a selection of the winners on its site -- and they're as spectacular as ever. The photos -- which we spotted at Ars Technica -- are all kinds of amazing, encompassing everything from algae and fossils to a fly's eye and the curiously perverse beauty of a cancer cell.
Developing blood vessels in the brain.
These are baby Lynx spiders.
This is a cancer cell, believe it or not -- specifically, it's a cell of a bone tumor called an osteosarcoma.
A dissected fly's eye.
A desmid, which is a type of green algae.