Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Fungia feeding!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fungia feeding. Fungia are large individual corals that
don't form colonies or reefs. Their large and very expandable
mouths allow them to eat large pieces of food compared to
most corals. The movie was captured with epifluorescence, using
the Fungia's own natural auto-fluorescence stimulated by UV,
blue and green excitation light. James Nicholson, Coral Culture &
Collaborative Research Facility, NOAA NOS NCCOS Center for
Coastal Environmental Health & Biomolecular Research, Fort
Johnson Marine Lab, Charleston, SC, USA. Honorable Mention,
2009 Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition®.

BioScapes Winner!!!!!!!!!!

Now in its sixth year, the Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition® is the world’s premier platform for honoring images and movies of human, plant and animal subjects as captured through light microscopes. Any life science subject is eligible, and entries are judged based on the science they depict, their aesthetics (beauty and impact of the image), and their technical merit. Top prize is $5,000 worth of Olympus equipment. This year, the competition received nearly 2000 entries that came from 62 countries. All images and the names of the Top Ten winners and Honorable Mentions may be viewed online at www.olympusbioscapes.com.

Many of this year’s winning images reflect the latest advances in neuroscience, cell biology, botany, zoology, and other sciences. Others reflect a never-ending fascination with the influence of science in everyday life, including surprising views of fossils, jellyfish, spiders, flowers, mosquitoes, and dinosaur bones.

Twenty-two of the 2009 winning and Honorable Mention images will be displayed in a winners’ tour that will travel to venues in San Diego, California, New York City; suburban Washington DC; Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities. Additional exhibits of BioScapes images will simultaneously be touring cities across the U.S. and Canada throughout 2009-10.

Olympus selects outstanding authorities in microscope imaging as judges for the competition, which is open to users of any brand of light microscope equipment. To maintain the competition’s integrity, the judges are not given information on what equipment was used to capture any of the images until after the judging. This year’s BioScapes panel of judges included four individuals renowned for their knowledge of microscope-based imaging. They are Thomas Deerinck, National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research, University of California, San Diego; Kenneth N. Fish, Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Douglas Murphy, Ph.D., Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Farm Research Campus, Virginia; and Julie Theriot, Ph.D., Stanford University School of Medicine, California.