The Top 12 Entries for the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology Image Contest 2022

Lab-grown spinal cords and glowing fish larvae are among the incredible images from the researchers at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at Queensland University, as they celebrate national science week with an annual competition to find the best pictures taken under the microscope.

Hippocampal neurons play a critical role in memory formation. Here, the neurons have been highlighted with monomeric and polymerized actin and green fluorescence protein. Photograph: Belal Shohayeb

More: AIBN, Flickr h/t: guardian

No, you’re not in the Matrix, just looking at the magnificent, fluorescent world of microfluidics. Photograph: Raissa Teixeira

An array of rough silica nanoparticles, arranged and captured at the UQ Centre for Microscopy andMicroanalysis. Photograph: Dan Cheng

This spinal cord organoid, an artificially grown mass of cells or tissue, is one month old. Early synapse formation between motor neurons is just becoming visible. Photograph: Sean Morrison

Microchocolate made from enzymes under a scanning electron microscope. Photograph: Yilun Weng

This critter is an intestinal organoid and has been captured by confocal microscopy, a practice that involves highly focused laser light. If you squint, you can kind of see a motorcycle. Photograph: Jie Tang

This flower-like titanium dioxide, made from tiny rod-like particles, wouldn’t be out of place in the botanic gardens. Photograph: Yusuf Valentino Kaneti

Close up of a sugar bowl? Or a collection of iron oxide particles coated with silver? Hint: don’t eat it. Photograph: Javeria Bashir

Under the microscope, we can get a front-row seat to the various stages of embryo development. These slides have been digitally augmented and arranged by computers. Photograph: Larry Cai

It could be an eyeball, it could be a flower. It’s actually the upper surface of a cucumber leaf as it appears under a scanning electron microscope. Photograph: Shangxu Jiang

Larva-stage zebrafish essentially turn off their visual system when they’re inactive at night. In this image researchers have fluorescently labelled the subject, giving it a striking contrast against the gloom. Photograph: Syed Aoun Ali

This image resembles a terraced field, which is a famous farming landscape in China. Here, we see it in nanoscale. Photograph: Jiakang You