The world’s smallest art prize

From New Scientist:

Crossing a microscope with a camera gives you a micrograph, a tiny photograph that allows artists and scientists to show the beauty inaccessible to the naked eye. Every year the Small World competition run by optics giant Nikon celebrates this hidden world. This year the winners range from an anglerfish ovary to the sex organs of plants via a rusted old coin.

Winner

00300f48417

Heiti Paves of the Tallinn Institute of Technology, Estonia, won the competition with this image of a thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) anther magnified at 20x.

The thale cress is an important species used in the study of plant genome traits.

It made history in 2000 when it became the first plant to have its entire genetic code sequenced and now stands as a model species for understanding the molecular biology of many plant traits.

More here.