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It's a small world after all - winners of the microphotography competition

Mouse brain tumour cellsImage source, Dr. Bruno Cisterna, Dr. Eric Vitriol/Nikon Small World
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The Nikon Small World Competition shows us a world we cannot see with our eyes, but that is visible under a light microscope.

The winner of the 2024 competition is this image showing mouse brain tumour cells.

Image source, Dr. Marcel Clemens/Nikon Small World
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This second place entry shows an electrical arc between a pin and a wire.

It's been taken using a long exposure technique - this involves leaving the part of the camera called the shutter (the bit that lets light in) open to take in more of the scene for a longer time.

Image source, Pawe艂 B艂achowicz/Nikon Small World
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The scientist taking this photo may have felt like they were being watched!

Here we can see the eyes of a green crab spider. This image was taken in Poland and used 20 times magnification to get an ultra close-up of these incredible eyes.

Image source, Marek Mi艣/Nikon Small World
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Jumping to the next entry now, and this picture shows two water fleas.

The flea on the left has embryos growing inside, so there are more little fleas waiting to leap around, and the other on the right has eggs that will become fleas in the future.

Image source, Henri Koskinen/Nikon Small World
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This slippery organism is slime mould! It likes to go on the hunt for bacteria to eat and oozes its way around. It has an important job of cleaning up the areas of woodland it is found in.

There are around 1000 different species of slime moulds and some of these are very colourful.

Image source, Thomas Barlow, Connor Gibbons/Nikon Small World
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The competition is open to anyone with an interest in microscopy and photography and is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

This tenta-cool photo shows a cluster of octopus eggs. In the wild these eggs will hatch into tiny adult versions that move around the seafloor.