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2008 Science Visualisation Challenge: Amazing Images Show Science Like You Should
Posted by Kit Eaton at 9:00 PM on September 26, 2008
The 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualisation Challenge has just concluded with some pretty astonishing imagery in the winning slots. This picture, dubbed "Glass Forest," is a scanning electron micrograph of diatoms (weird unicellular algae) clinging to a marine worm, and won the photography category: to my eyes it looks half like a palm tree and half like a Star Trek effect. The illustration category winner is even more amazing.
It's by Linda Nye from the Exploratorium Visualisation Laboratory, and demonstrates the human bloodstream at a level that zooms from blood-vessel level all the way to oxygen atoms binding to hemoglobin, and everything in between.
I find science pretty amazing full stop: but this kind of competition really goes the extra mile to communicate how intricate the world/universe around us is. Check out the link to the National Science Foundation (who ran the challenge) to see more of the entries...you'll probably be amazed too. [NSF via New Scientist]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
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OMG! Ponies!
Posted 9:36 PM 26/9/08
Linda Nye the Science Guy?
OMG! Ponies!
scarbrtj
Posted 9:54 PM 26/9/08
Linda Nye... she blinded me with science. Science! And failed me in biology. :(
scarbrtj
danatoth
Posted 11:23 PM 26/9/08
@CYST!: I made biology pee in the primordial soup.
danatoth
CYST!
Posted 11:08 PM 26/9/08
@scarbrtj: biology fails me.
CYST!
FinalValgas
Posted 2:42 AM 27/9/08
Dude the first picture looks like green stuff growing on a turd. awesome
FinalValgas
klew
Posted 4:02 AM 27/9/08
Diatoms aren't that weird, just think of them as microscopic snowflakes (but plant-versions).
klew
bnsqueak
Posted 4:30 AM 27/9/08
@FinalValgas: who ARE you?
bnsqueak
Rogbog4299
Posted 5:38 AM 27/9/08
Engineering Visualization Challenge. It looks like the real thing to me! What will they think of next?
Rogbog4299
Zkdog
Posted 6:48 AM 27/9/08
@Zkdog: The two movies at the end are cool too.
Zkdog
Zkdog
Posted 6:47 AM 27/9/08
Here is the link directly through to the slide show. You have to go through a few pages to get to it so thought I would make it easier.
Check out the electron micrograph of a squids suckers.....it's like OMG THEIR AFTER ME!!!!
Zkdog
bpapa9013
Posted 7:44 AM 27/9/08
@OMG! Ponies!: Gal?
bpapa9013
jbhitter24
Posted 12:00 PM 27/9/08
i would have submitted to this thing had i known. i have some sick SEM (scanning electron microscope) pictures.
jbhitter24