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Wellcome Image Awards 2011: Life as you've never seen it before

This article is more than 14 years old
Some of the winners of this year's Wellcome Image Awards, including a fish that never sees the light of day, blood clotting on a plaster and scales on the wing of an endangered moth
Thu 24 Feb 2011 10.01 EST
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Wellcome Image Awards: Suckers on joint of foreleg of a male div
Rows of suckers on the foreleg of a male great diving beetle – the largest freshwater beetle in the UK. Great diving beetles mate underwater and the male has evolved plate-like joints on his front legs that are covered in suckers, allowing him to hold onto the female. This polarised photomicrograph (created by Spike Walker) shows a portion of the joint, revealing part of one of the two larger suckers and five rows of small onesPhotograph: Spike Walker/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: Moth wing scales
The scales on the wing of the endangered Madagascan moon moth (Kevin MacKenzie, scanning electron micrograph). Scales are found on the wings of butterflies and moths in the order Lepidoptera (meaning ‘scaly-winged’), producing their distinctive colours. Scanning electron micrographs are created in black and white and coloured afterwards. Creator Kevin Mackenzie made the scales light green to reflect the natural colour of the mothPhotograph: Kevin MacKenzie/University of Aberdeen/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: B0007642 Honey Bee
Honeybee – Dave McCarthy and Annie Cavanagh (false-colour scanning electron micrograph). SEM samples are usually coated in a fine layer of gold and imaged under high vacuum. However, in order to preserve fine detail on the bee’s body, McCarthy imaged it uncoated and in air, giving the fluffy texture seen herePhotograph: Dave McCarthy and Annie Cavanagh/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: 2011 winners
Cavefish embryo (Steve Wilson). This confocal micrograph was taken around five days after fertilisation. The embryo has been stained green with an antibody that detects a specific protein to reveal different nerve types. It reveals a large number of taste buds around the fish’s mouth and along its body: an adaptation to life in the darkPhotograph: Monica Folgueira, Steve Wilson/UCL/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: Peridontal bacteria
Colonies of bacteria that cause dental plaque (Derren Ready). A sample of plaque was removed from the mouth of a patient with gum disease and grown on an agar plate, stained blue to reveal the colony morphology and lit from belowPhotograph: Derren Ready/Eastman Dental Institute/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: 3D model of the developing mouse kidney
Three-dimensional image of a developing mouse kidney (Bob Kao and Kieran Short). The kidney is from a 16-day-old mouse embryo. The green and red staining highlights two different proteins. The protein in green is expressed in unspecialised embryonic connective tissue that will differentiate to form the body of the kidney. The protein in red marks the complex network of the developing collecting duct system, including the renal pelvis, the large funnel-shaped region where excreted urine drains into the ureterPhotograph: Bob Kao and Kieran Short/Monash University/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: Adult mosquito (male)
Adult male Culex mosquito (Spike Walker). When a mosquito bites it injects anticoagulant saliva to maintain a free flow of blood. However, only female mosquitoes feed on blood: they need blood protein to make eggs (male mosquitoes feed exclusively on the nectar in plants). Female Culex mosquitoes spread major diseases such as West Nile virus and Japanese encephalitis. Anopheles mosquitoes, the cousins of Culex mosquitoes, spread malariaPhotograph: Spike Walker/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: Clotting blood on sticking plaster
Blood clotting on a sticking plaster (Scanning electron micrograph by Anne Weston). Red blood cells and fibres of the protein fibrin (beige) can be seen between the gauze fibres (grey). The blood on the plaster is Weston’s. She cut her finger on a razor blade and put a plaster over it, and then imaged the plaster. Fibrin is a protein formed from clotting factors in the blood. Its fibres trap blood cells and platelets to form a solid clot, preventing further bleeding but also protecting the open wound from infectionPhotograph: Anne Weston/LRI/CRUK/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: B0007750 Mouse retina
The retina from a one-month-old mouse (Freya Mowat). Fluorescent markers in this confocal micrograph reveal different classes of nerve cell. Green highlights glial cells, which act as supporting cells and produce myelin. The red cells are astrocytes, which provide nutrients to developing neurons and regulate neuronal activity. The blue reveals areas dense with cell nuclei. The image was created to examine stress in the retina as a result of oxygen deprivation, part of investigations into why premature babies develop retinal diseasePhotograph: Freya Mowat, UCL/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: Ruby tailed wasp
Ruby-tailed wasp (Spike Walker). To photograph the wasp, Walker first had to calm it down by putting it in his freezer for a few seconds, causing it to curl into this protective posturePhotograph: Spike Walker/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: Cell division and gene expression in plan
The stem of a thale cress (Arabidopsis) seedling showing cell division and gene expression (Fernan Federici and Dr Lionel Dupuy). This confocal micrograph uses fluorescent markers to reveal where particular proteins are being expressed. Arabidopsis was the first plant to have its entire genome sequencedPhotograph: Fernan Federici and Dr Lionel Dupuy/University of Cambridge/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: Crochet of hooks at the base of a caterpi
Photomicrograph of the base of a silkworm caterpillar’s proleg (Spike Walker). Prolegs are short, stubby structures that grow from the underside of the caterpillar’s abdomen. Each has a circle of hooks (yellow and orange), which enable the caterpillar to climb up vertical surfaces. Caterpillars can have up to five pairs of prolegs and three pairs of true, jointed legs that remain in the adult moth. The prolegs disappearPhotograph: Spike Walker/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: Ergot fungus infection in wheat
Wheat infected with ergot fungus (Anna Gordon and Fernan Federici). This confocal micrograph shows wheat stigma hairs (blue) infected with ergot fungus (light pink). During fertilisation, pollen grains stick to the hairs and send a tube into the plant’s ovule. Ergot infects flowering grasses and cereals by mimicking the growth of the pollen tube into the ovary. It is highly toxic. If infected plants are eaten ergot causes spasms, hallucinations, psychosis, itching and gangrenePhotograph: Anna Gordon and Fernan Federici/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: Human chromosome lifetime Map
A human chromosome during cell division, or mitosis (Dr David Lleres). This image was created using a technique that reveals the density of chromatin – the protein/DNA complex responsible for the tight packaging of DNA in the cell nucleus. Low chromatin density (blue) indicates a high level of gene expression and high density (red) a low levelPhotograph: Dr David Lleres/University of Dundee/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: Mouse blastocyst stage embryo
Three-dimensional reconstruction of a mouse embryo (Agnieszka Jedrusik and Dr Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz). After fertilisation, the mouse embryo starts to divide and cell numbers double until, three to four days later, a blastocyst is formed (the stage shown here). The innermost cells, in red, will go on to form the fetus, differentiating into all tissue types of the body, whereas the white cells will go on to form the supporting tissue, including the placenta. This image was produced by scanning the embryo with a confocal microscope to create multiple virtual sections, which were then reconstructed using 3D computer software Photograph: Agnieszka Jedrusik and Dr Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz/Cambridge Gurdon Institute/Wellcome Image Awards
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Wellcome Image Awards: Pyramidal neurons
A simulation of pyramidal neurons (Michael Häusser and Hermann Cuntz) created using software called the TREES toolbox, which generates neuronal structures like those in the brain. Pyramidal neurons are so called because they have a pyramid-shaped cell body. They are found in the forebrain (cortex and hippocampus) of mammals and are believed to be involved in cognitive functions Photograph: Michael Häusser and Dr Hermann Cuntz/UCL/Wellcome Image Awards
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