In 2023, 640 images from 38 countries were entered into the competition. The winning photo showed a young sea star’s nervous system—the network of nerves that carry messages throughout an organism’s body. The tiny marine creature measured just 1 centimeter (0.4 inches) across!
Laurent Formery, a biologist at Stanford University in California, took the photo with a confocal microscope, which uses a lens to focus light from a laser. The instrument allowed him to capture zoomed-in cross sections of the animal’s body. When combined, the scans created a colorful kaleidoscope effect. “It’s just so beautiful what you can do with the microscope,” says Formery.