Multimedia Gallery
"X-ray micro-radiography and microscopy of seeds"
"X-ray Micro-radiography and Microscopy of Seeds," by Viktor Sykora, Charles University, and Jan Zemlicka, Frantisek Krejci and Jan Jakubek, Czech Technical University.
Furred, fringed and barbed, these fruits with tiny seeds are each no bigger than 3 millimeters across. To image the seeds' fine detail, the team used high-resolution, high-contrast X-rays (left), along with traditional microscopy (right). Although high-resolution X-rays are commonly used to visualize the internal structures of small objects without destroying them, according to the authors it has never before been applied to the visualization of seeds.
This image won honorable mention in the photography category of the 2012 Visualization Challenge, now called the Vizzies, a long-running, annual competition co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Popular Science magazine. [The competition was formerly named the International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge (SciVis) and was previously co-sponsored with AAAS' journal Science.] The competition aims to recognize some of the most beautiful visualizations from the worlds of science and engineering and awards prizes in five categories: photography, video, illustration, posters & graphics and interactives.
To learn more about the competition and view all the winning entries, past and present, see the NSF Special Report The VIZZIES: Visualization Challenge. (Date of Image: January 2012)
Credit: Viktor Sykora, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Czech Republic; Jan Zemlicka, Frantisek Krejci and Jan Jakubek, Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
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