2024 winners: Cool Science Image Contest

1A planarian flatworm, Schmidtea mediterranea, can regrow a brain (the horseshoe shape of blue cell nuclei) and ovaries (purple and green cells) from a tail fragment even after losing its head! The Newmark/Issigonis Lab studies the biochemical signals key to the development of "germline" cells - the ones that pass on genetic information to offspring.

Katherine Browder, graduate student, Integrative Biology
Melanie Issigonis, research investigator, Morgridge Institute for Research
Phil Newmark, investigator, Morgridge Institute for Research

Laser scanning confocal microscope

2Neurons in a mouse can migrate among the outer layers of the brain, called the cortex. Researchers in Erik Dent's lab label parts of the cells - greenish cell bodies and red axons (the branches the cells use to reach out to their neighbors) - to track the way shifting protein levels affect migration.

Erik Dent, professor, neuroscience
Kendra Taylor, graduate student, Neuroscience

Scanning confocal microscope

3This bouquet of "flowers" is a collage of sperm storage organs (shown in green and red) from female fruit flies. Pink and blue colors mark spermatheca; green and yellow circles are moving sperm cells. The visualization helps researchers characterize the effect of warm temperatures (typically negative) on the flies' ability to produce sperm.

Ana Caroline Gandara, assistsant scientist, Genetics

Confocal microscope

4Sheets of cells migrate away from the edge of four scales taken from fathead minnows. In a dish in the lab, the cells slough off and move away as they would across the wound of a live fish. By doping the dish with different chemicals, researchers can study the way environmental contaminants affect wound-healing in the wild.

Serena George, graduate student, Veterinary Medicine and Molecular and Environmental Toxicology

Light microscope

5Sealed in a heated crucible for weeks in the lab of chemistry professor Robert Hamers, a tiny forest of trees grew from a glittering forest floor of individual crystals of lithium cobalt oxide, a compound used as the positive electrode in lithium-ion batteries.

Robert Hamers, professor, Chemistry=

Smartphone

6Serendipity cleared a heart shape from these human lung cells, marked by light blue nuclei. These fibroblasts - connective cells that give tissues structure - are used by researchers to study the expression of genes involved in pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that leaves severe and irreversible scarring in the lungs.

Angie Tebon Oler, research specialist III, Department of Medicine

Confocal microscope

7Inside your mouth isn't the only place the magic of a cheese puff happens. The microstructures formed by proteins (lighter-colored regions) and fats (darker areas) in the interior of this cheddar puff give food science researchers clues to the development of the sensory properties of an irresistible snack.

Jason M. Pronschinske, graduate student, Food Science
Bil Schneider, Wilcox SEM Lab manager, Geology
Rani Govindasamy-Lucey, distinguished scientist, Center for Dairy Research
John J. Jaeggi, cheese industry and applications program coordinator, Center for Dairy Research
Rodrigo A. Ibáñez, scientist, Center for Dairy Research
Mark E. Johnson, distinguished scientist, Center for Dairy Research
John A. Lucey, professor, Food Science, and director, Center for Dairy Research

Scanning electron microscope

8Researchers in UW-Madison's Applied Math, Engineering and Physics Laboratory study complex interactions at the interfaces of different liquids by making marbling art, in which complex patterns in paint floated on a water bath are transferred onto paper. This scanned paper sheet - combining patterns known as "Spanish wave" and "antique" - was made in the lab in 2023 during a study of how the bath's viscosity affects the stability of the patterns in the floating paint.

Yue Sun, postdoctoral researcher, Mathematics

Flatbed scanner

9A wind of charged particles from the Sun crashed into the Earth's magnetic field - the strongest such storm in decades - and lit up the sky over Madison on May 10 and 11, 2024. Collisions between the particles and molecules of oxygen and nitrogen produced the characteristic colors of the aurora borealis, seen here in a panorama of four combined images taken in rural Columbia County.

Samuel L. Warfel, undergraduate student, Astronomy and Physics

Digital camera

10With a custom rig that moved his camera just 6 thousandths of a millimeter between photos, Prof. Joshua D. Warner took a stack of images that were combined to present the complex features of a crystal of wulfenite less than 2 millimeters wide in the otherwise impossibly sharp focus.

Joshua D. Warner, assistant professor, Radiology

Digital camera