Every year FEI holds a photo contest to find out what folks in the field are doing with their amazing microscopes, and to give scientists and researchers the chance to share their exploration of the sub-microscopic world. The winners of the 2012 FEI Image Contest are below. These are the best images from four categories: Around the House, The Natural World, The Human Body, and Other Relevant Science.
Check out the photos first and see if you can guess what you are seeing, then look at the caption to find out what you are really seeing! A whole new world is open to us thanks to FEI and other cutting-edge technology creators, as you will see in Mysteries of the Unseen World.
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Alien
Photograph courtesy Dr. David McCarthy (colored by Annie Cavanagh), School of Pharmacy, London, United Kingdom
Winner: The Natural World—September/October
In this image, the head of an embryonic zebrafish looms at us like an alien. The zebrafish is a model organism currently being used for studies into the genetic causes of neurodegeneration.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta SEM Family
Magnification: 500
Horizontal Field Width: 512
Vacuum: 112/e-3 Pa
Voltage: 5KV
Spot: 2
Working Distance: 15mm Detector: SE -
Unlocking the Secrets
Photograph courtesy Dr. Duncan Pirrie and Dr. Gavyn Rollinson, University of Exeter, Penryn, United Kingdom
Winner: Other Relevant Science—September/October
Brilliant color differentiates the zones of a slice of Cretaceous sedimentary rock from Snow Hill Island in Antarctica. The image allowed the scientists to map the texture of thin sections of these spectacular rocks and unlock the secrets of ancient methane seeps.
Image Details
Instrument used: QEMSCAN
Magnification: 45x
Horizontal Field Width: 300um
Vacuum: 2x10-06 Torr
Working Distance: 23mm
Detector: X-ray map via Bruker SDD -
Getting Closer
Photograph courtesy Karin Whitmore, TU Vienna/USTEM, Wien, Austria
Winner: Around the House — September/October
An aphid crawls across a bit of leaf like an intrepid explorer. Aphids are widespread around the globe and feed on trees, garden plants, crops, and, seemingly, anything.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta SEM Family
Magnification: 85x
Horizontal Field Width: 3.3mm
Vacuum: 4.02E-4bar
Voltage: 5kV
Spot: 2.0
Working Distance: 6.0
Detector: LFD -
Trouble Maker
Photograph courtesy Daniel Beniac, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, Canada
Winner: The Human Body — September/October
Hepatitis B virus pops from the screen thanks to a 3D overlay, the worrisome subject appearing like a deceptively cute obstacle course in a video game.
Image Details
Instrument used: Tecnai Family
Magnification: 80,000
Voltage: 200 kV
Detector: CCD -
Ready to Go
Photograph courtesy Riccardo Antonelli, Pisa University, Pisa, Italy
Winner: The Natural World — August/September
The pollen spores of a cutleaf geranium (Geranium dissectum) jut out, as if eager to fulfill their mission.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta SEM Family
Magnification: 500x
Horizontal Field Width: 298 μm
Vacuum: Low vacuum
Voltage: 12.50 kV
Spot: 4.0
Working Distance: 5.1 mm
Detector: LFD (Low vacuum) -
Good Morning
Photograph courtesy Maria Carbajo, Universidad dek Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain
Winner: Around the House—August/September
Ground coffee has an extremely porous structure, as this enlightening photo makes clear.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta 3D DualBeam Family
Magnification: 500x
Horizontal Field Width: 596 μm
Vacuum: 5.3e-4 Pa
Voltage: 2.0 kV
Spot: 5.0
Working Distance: 10.2 mm
Detector: SE -
Inside View
Photograph courtesy Matt Sharp, Southampton University Hospital Trust, Purbrook, United Kingdom
Winner: The Human Body — August/September
Detailed coloration displays an intricate pattern of podocytes in a mouse kidney.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta SEM Family
Magnification: 12,000x
Voltage: 10
Spot: 4
Working Distance: 5.36
Detector: SE -
This Bites
Photograph courtesy Francisco Rangel, MCTI / INT, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Winner: Other Relevant Science — August/September
An egg of the Aedes aegypti mosquito (sometimes called the "yellow fever mosquito") hovers like a spaceship on a black background. Originating in Africa, Aedes aegypti is now found in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world. The mosquito is a vector for transmitting several tropical diseases such as dengue fever.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta 3D DualBeam Family
Magnification: 600x
Horizontal Field Width: 497 μm
Vacuum: 120 Pa
Voltage: 20 kV
Spot: 3.0
Working Distance: 9.9
Detector: Mix: BSE + SE -
Crawl
Photograph courtesy Maria Carbajo, Universidad dek Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain
Winner: The Natural World — July/August
Near a hair root barging through like a tree trunk, a tiny cluster of pollen grains clings to the graceful, swirling texture of a spider's skin.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta 3D DualBeam Family
Magnification: 12000x
Horizontal Field Width: 24.9
Vacuum: 2.7e-3 Pa
Voltage: 10
Spot: 5
Working Distance: 10
Detector: ETD -
Candy Pieces
Photograph courtesy Oliver Meckes, Eye of Science, Reutlingen, Germany
Winner: The Human Body — July/August
The inside of a human intestine contains hundreds of different kinds of bacteria. Here, they are highlighted like pieces of brightly colored candy.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta SEM Family
Magnification: 7500x
Vacuum: high
Spot: 3
Working Distance: 10mm
Detector: SE+BSE -
Critter
Photograph courtesy Riccardo Antonelli, Pisa University, Pisa, Italy
Winner: Other Relevant Science — July/August
An aphid examines a poplar leaf, its surroundings made to look like a dreamy landscape of blue sky and never-ending green, perfect for this species' voracious appetite.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta SEM Family
Magnification: 150x
Horizontal Field Width: 995 μm
Vacuum: 0.975 Torr
Voltage: 12.50 kV
Spot: 4.0
Working Distance: 10.4 mm
Detector: LFD (Low vacuum) -
Pop
Photograph courtesy Ottawa Nicole, Eye of Science, Reutlingen, Germany
Winner: Around the House — July/August
Infinitesimal grains of starch are scattered like pebbles inside the cells of a cracked kernal of corn.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta SEM Family
Magnification: 400x
Vacuum: high
Voltage: 7kv
Spot: 3
Working Distance: 10mm
Detector: SE+BSE+BSE -
The Power Within
Photograph courtesy Gerald Poirier, Princeton, New Jersey, US
Winner: Around the House — June/July
Tungsten filament coils, like the one shown here, have been used in incandescent light bulbs since the early 1900s. Tungsten is a metal with an extremely high melting point and generous electrical and mechanical properties, and it can readily be formed into filament coils.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta 3D DualBeam Family
Magnification: 59x
Vacuum: -5 torr
Voltage: 15 keV
Spot: 3
Working Distance: 10.8
Detector: SE -
Friend
Photograph courtesy Michal Rawski, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland
Winner: The Natural World — June/July
In addition to providing a soft carpet for barefoot summer walks, moss, pictured here, helps limit the amount of methane gas released into Earth's atmosphere by providing a home for the methane-consuming bacteria that live inside it.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta 3D DualBeam Family
Magnification: 500x -
War
Photograph courtesy Daniel Monteyne, Gilles Vanwalleghem, Etienne Pays, David Pérez-Morga and CMMI at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Winner: The Human Body — June/July
In this dramatic encounter inside a human liver, an immune cell (green) battles an invading parasite, trypanosomes. Each side bears an impressive arsenal of chemical weapons—the outcome of the war will determine whether the host develops sleeping sickness.
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta 3D DualBeam Family
Magnification: 8658.29x
Horizontal Field Width: 3062.5 μm
Voltage: 20 keV
Spot: 3.00
Working Distance: 6.85
Detector: Etd SE -
Invisible Worlds
Photograph courtesy Luca Boarino, INRiM, Torino, Italy
Winner: Other Relevant Science — June/July
Silver clusters deposited by thermal evaporation onto self-assembled polystyrene nano-spheres gild the sheres, transforming them into a dappled universe of invisible worlds.
Image Details
Instrument used: Inspect Family
Magnification: 5000x
Horizontal Field Width: 2 µm
Vacuum: .2 mbar
Voltage: 2 kV
Spot: 3
Working Distance: 10.2
Detector: SE
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