Stunning Microscope Videos Highlight Self-Pollination, Algae and Tumor Cells in the Nikon Small World in Motion Contest
The annual video competition focuses on the tiny wonders of the natural world
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Nikon has revealed the winners of the 15th annual Nikon Small World in Motion Video Competition. The contest recognizes the most dynamic microscopic movies or digital time-lapse photography each year. This time, the champions highlight the tiny wonders of the natural world by spotlighting a self-pollinating flower, swimming algae, mouse brain tumor cells, a tardigrade and a baby sea urchin.
The “winners showcase the extraordinary choreography of life unfolding at a scale beyond ordinary sight,” Eric Flem, senior manager of communications at Nikon Instruments, says in a statement. The winning videos “reflect the competition’s enduring purpose to inspire wonder, fuel discovery and showcase the artistry inherent in scientific exploration.”
Jay McClellan, a retired engineer from Michigan and a previous honoree in the video competition, took first place this year. His award-winning video features a thymeleaf speedwell flower opening and self-pollinating. One of its stamens (a flower’s male reproductive organ) touches the pistil (a flower’s female reproductive organ), transferring some pollen.
“This isn’t some exotic plant you’d need to travel the world to find. It’s a common ‘weed’ that might be growing right under your feet,” McClellan says in the statement. “I love the idea that anyone could discover beauty like this if they just looked closely.”
The “looking closely” aspect is not as simple as he makes it sound, however. The videographer developed custom hardware and software for the endeavor and even programmed a special motion-control system to keep the necessary flower parts within the frame.
The second-place winner is Benedikt Pleyer from Bavaria, Germany. His winning work features Volvox algae swimming in a water drop in the hole in the middle of a Japanese 50 yen coin, as shown above. Volvox is a genus of freshwater green algae that exists all over the world.
Augusta University neuroscientist Eric Vitriol in Georgia came in third with a video of mouse brain tumor cells. The clip features the protein actin and mitochondria, the energy-producing part of cells.
In fourth place is Penny Fenton from Ipswich in England. Her work focuses on a tardigrade (also known as a water bear) crawling around a Volvox algae colony. Tardigrades are microscopic, water-dwelling animals famously resistant to extreme conditions, including both freezing and searing temperatures, drought, radiation and outer space.
Last but certainly not least, Alvaro Migotto, a zoologist from Brazil’s University of São Paulo, came in fifth with his video of a newborn sea urchin. Specifically, the footage features the tiny creature moving over a bed of red algae.
I found it “simply by chance,” Migotto tells Live Science’s Elise Poore in an email. “While I was examining various materials—such as algae, pebbles and seashells washed ashore—under the stereomicroscope in search of other organisms, I unexpectedly came across this tiny sea urchin calmly walking on a piece of red calcareous algae.”
According to Migotto, the urchin belongs to Arbacia lixula, a black sea urchin species found in the Mediterranean and near the Brazilian coast.
“The scene struck me as perfect,” he adds to Live Science, “not only was the animal moving naturally over a substrate it typically inhabits in the wild, but the combination of these two elements also created excellent contrast and pleasing colors.”
The Nikon Small World in Motion Video Competition also highlighted 19 honorable mentions. This year, there were 325 entries from 34 countries. The contest stands as a yearly reminder that things don’t need to be huge to be wondrous.
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