Oct

Awards for the beauty - 2009 Nikon Small World Award and Welcome Image Award announced

A synthetic drug coated with co-polymers. Scanning electron micrograph.

These finger-like structures in the small intestine of a mouse have been cropped at the tips and stained with fluorescent dyes to distinguish between different components of the cells. The cell nuclei are blue, while the red stain shows actin, a protein that covers the surface of each villus. Multiphoton fluorescent micrograph.

This image highlights the basket of nerve fibres at the end of a hair follicle. Sensory nerves allow us to detect stimuli such as movement, pressure and pain. Light micrograph.

This seed is from a bird of paradise plant ('Strelitzia reginae'). Native to South Africa, the plant has a distinctive orange and blue flower, resembling an exotic bird, from which it takes its name. Scanning electron micrograph.

This image shows capillaries, or small blood vessels, which act as the connective network between arteries and veins. They are often found as large networks supplying organs with oxygen and other nutrients, and removing carbon dioxide. Light micrograph.

This image of the liver shows blood vessels called sinusoids as long pink channels, brown tissue that is important in the production of bile, and the channels - shown as thin green grooves - that carry the bile towards the small intestine to help digestion. Scanning electron micrograph.

3D image of a developing embryonic mouse head at age 14.5 days. High-resolution episopic microscopy 3D reconstruction.

This image shows sperm and an egg (or ovum) at the moment of conception by in vitro fertilisation (IVF). The egg is surrounded by protective cumulus cells around the outside surface, coloured yellow. The sperm need to penetrate the membrane surrounding the egg, called the zona pellucida, if successful fertilisation is to occur. Light micrograph.

A single cell grown from a culture of lung epithelial cancer cells. The purple spheres are 'blebs': irregular bulges where the cell's internal scaffolding - its cytoskeleton - becomes unlinked from the surface membrane. Scanning electron micrograph.

These circular structures are regions of compact bone from a human femur. Compact bone forms a hard outer shell around the spongy bone that makes up the marrow space in the centre. Light micrograph.

Plankton, small organisms that drift in the oceans, seas and fresh water. Many types of plankton, such as these, are microscopic, but some, such as jellyfish, are very large. Light micrograph.

This image shows two red blood cells. The one in the front has been affected by sickle-cell anaemia, and displays the characteristic sickle shape (a flattened 'C' shape) common to the disease. Scanning electron micrograph.

Damaged skin cells from a hand (Anne Weston's own) scalded by boiling soup. The original image was black and white; the pink colour has been added later. Scanning electron micrograph.