From Scientific American:
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but it is also in the eye of a honeybee, the eggs of a lobster and the surface of petrified wood—as is evident from a selection of images entered in the 2008 Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition. In its fifth year, the competition honors superior images of living organisms or their components attained with the help of light microscopy. The judges chose 10 winners and awarded honorable mention to many others, evaluating entries based on the scientific value of the images, aesthetics and the difficulty of capturing the information displayed. This year, as in the past, competitors were free to bring out specific features through pseudo-coloring and other computer enhancements.
LOBSTER EGGS, two to three millimeters in diameter, sit in goo that keeps them together in water. Tora Bardal of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim enhanced the natural colors with dark-field illumination. The round, bluish regions are eyes. Jan Ove Evjemo of NTNU examined the eggs as part of an effort to optimize breeding techniques for a shrinking lobster population.
Slide Show: Images from 2008 Olympus Bioscapes Contest
More here.
