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    "parsed_content": "Credit...Video by Igor Adameyko, Gerd G\u00fcnther, Wim Van Egmond, Benedikt PleyerMicroscopic Videos That Show the Invisible Wonders Around UsThe winners of this year\u2019s Nikon Small World in Motion competition showcase the wiggly, feathery, undulating beauty of invisible life.Credit...Video by Igor Adameyko, Gerd G\u00fcnther, Wim Van Egmond, Benedikt PleyerSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTShare full articleBy Stella Raine ChuSept. 16, 2026Inside us, below us, all around us, life abounds \u2014 but it\u2019s often invisible to us. Only through the use of increasingly advanced microscopes can it be brought to our eyes in all its shimmery, glowing glory.But capturing these minuscule moments requires the precision of a scientist and the patience of a photographer. \u201cI see myself as a ranger in the African bush,\u201d said Benedikt Pleyer, the third-place winner of a video contest that celebrates the dizzying beauty of the microscopic, the Nikon Small World in Motion competition. \u201cYou go out and see where the lions are, except they\u2019re tiny and right in front of you.\u201dThe Small World competition first began in 1975, when it accepted only photography. In 2011, a new and separate contest was created for moving images. This year\u2019s judging panel included award-winning scientists, designers and directors of scientific institutions.The winners, announced on Wednesday, reveal the most beautiful details that we can\u2019t usually see \u2014 and how much we have to learn about the world around us.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTFirst Place: Teeny Beating \u201cHairs\u201dVideoAbnormal beating of airway cilia from a child with a disease called primary ciliary dyskinesia. Cilia are about 1\/100th the width of a human hair.CreditCredit...Dr. Ning XuIn airways like the lungs, throat and nostrils, cilia are tiny, hairlike structures that beat in coordinated waves to sweep away mucus. In a healthy person, cilia beat regularly and rapidly, but disease can change those rhythms. In his first-place video, Ning Xu, an optical engineer at the National University of Singapore, showed the cilia of a child with primary ciliary dyskinesia, a respiratory disorder that causes cilia to become weak, uncoordinated and unable to do their job. This failure can result in lifelong respiratory infections like bronchitis and pneumonia. \u201cIt\u2019s not just cool optics,\u201d Dr. Xu said. He is hoping that his work can help doctors better understand the disease, which affects an estimated one in 7,500 people worldwide.Second Place: A Nosy RoundwormVideoA roundworm (nematode) and a single-celled Dileptus explore their microscopic world. A bundle of green and orange algae also hang out in view.CreditCredit...Nguyen Nam NhatNguyen Nam Nhat was trying to film a single-celled freshwater predator called Dileptus when he noticed a contaminant in his sample: a pesky roundworm. \u201cAt first, I paid little attention to it,\u201d said Mr. Nam Nhat, who studies the reproductive behaviors of microbes in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Not long after, though, he watched as the parasitic worm grabbed the Dileptus, which then had to sacrifice part of its taillike extremity to escape the roundworm\u2019s clutches.After examining similar cases, Mr. Nam Nhat found that, for roundworms, immobilizing competing organisms seems to be a typical defensive mechanism. It was entirely a chance observation made during filming, but for Mr. Nam Nhat, it highlighted the \u201cunexpected interactions that can occur between microorganisms.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThird Place: Smallest Jelly AquariumVideoJellyfish larvae, often called \u201csea lice\u201d despite not being related to lice at all, are no larger than a grain of pepper. Here, a single larva is suspended in a water droplet.CreditCredit...Benedikt PleyerBringing the microscopic alive for our honking human eyes is no easy feat. \u201cWhen you shoot small creatures, people don\u2019t have the feeling of scale in any conceivable way,\u201d said Mr. Pleyer, a freelance microbe researcher based in Kyoto, Japan. Determined to find a workaround, he decided to use water droplets to better capture the dimensions of what he was seeing.It took him years to figure out how: by pipetting microbes (in this case, jellyfish larvae, which are no larger than a grain of pepper) into a droplet suspended by a string. The Cassiopeia jellyfish shown here are armed with toxin-filled harpoons, fired when stressed. \u201cIt\u2019s the smallest aquarium in the world,\u201d Mr. Pleyer said.Honorable Mentions: Dazzling Fungi, a Rainbow Sea Slug, Spiraling Algae and a Pulsing Heart CellVideoA Penicillium species from which antibiotics emerge. Penicillium means \u201clittle brush\u201d in Latin.CreditCredit...Wim van EgmondWhen observed with the naked eye, most fungi \u201clook like unpleasant gray or brown fluff,\u201d said Wim van Egmond, who began making time-lapse videos more than 12 years ago while working at the Micropia Museum in Amsterdam. Maybe you know fungi best as mushrooms, or that they help humans by producing antibiotics. In this time-lapse, you can see a Penicillium species forming a thick carpetlike network called a mycelium, from which emerge bright red droplets full of antibiotics and other substances. \u201cWhen you get to know them better,\u201d Mr. van Egmond said of the fungi in these close-up views, \u201cyou will hopefully get more appreciation for these modest beings.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTVideoThe butterfly sea slug looks like it belongs at a dance party, but it is typically found in the tropical waters of the Western Pacific Ocean.CreditCredit...Igor AdameykoCyerce kikutarobabai, better known as the butterfly sea slug, is a colorful creature covered in winglike structures that help it breathe and swim \u2014 and give the appearance of butterfly wings. Igor Adameyko of the Center for Brain Research at the Medical University of Vienna said that observing the 4-millimeter-long sea slug allowed him to appreciate that the structures were not simply decorative. \u201cIt was one of those moments,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen scientific observation and visual beauty became inseparable.\u201dVideoFreshwater algae are photosynthetic, giving them their green color.CreditCredit...Gerd G\u00fcntherThese freshwater algae, Volvox aureus, are found all over the place, most commonly in ponds, lakes and rivers. In the sample collected and captured by Gerd G\u00fcnther, a photomicrographer based in D\u00fcsseldorf, Germany, the colonies contain something called zygospores, which represent the algae\u2019s sexual resting stage. Zygospores act as a biological time capsule to preserve the algae\u2019s genetic code when conditions deteriorate, such as amid a steep drop in temperature.VideoA single heart muscle cell, as the tiny machines responsible for keeping it beating form.CreditCredit...Dr. Dylan T. Burnette & Ms. Emma KooryDylan T. Burnette has spent years trying to understand how heart muscle cells build their sarcomeres, the \u201ctiny contractile machines\u201d responsible for every heartbeat. A graduate student in his lab at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Emma Koory, recently tracked sarcomeres forming in a single heart cell over the course of 40 hours. \u201cEach heart muscle cell has to build and continually maintain those machines,\u201d Dr. Burnette said. \u201cThis movie gives us a rare opportunity to actually watch some of that process happen.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "published_at": "2026-09-16T20:02:20+00:00",
    "author_name": "Stella Raine Chu",
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    "ai_simplified_title": "Nikon Small World Competition Showcases Microscopic Life Videos",
    "ai_excerpt": "The winners of the Nikon Small World in Motion competition reveal the hidden beauty of microscopic life through advanced video techniques. Scientists and photographers capture minuscule moments, from beating cilia to predatory roundworms, offering new insights into the world around us.",
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