2025 Nikon Small World in Motion Competition Winners

These worlds are so small and alien to our own, they could never imagine us. Is there an even higher world we can’t even imagine?

It's a huge shame that they don't have these available for download as 4k videos with low compression. I really, really want to watch that tardigrade on my vertical screen.

> To capture the video, McClellan had to anticipate movements and program a custom motion-control system to keep the reproductive structures perfectly in frame. He also employed advanced focus-stacking techniques to maintain crystal clarity across focal planes, a challenge that led him to develop his own hardware and software for microscopic video.

Damn that’s cool. I’d love to see more about that.

"In vitro growth of chick sensory neurons, shown in gold using a dye marking their internal structure (18 hour time lapse)"

40X (Objective Lens Magnification)

How is this possible? Wouldn't neurons be at much tinier scale than 40x?

From https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2025-small-world-i...

Be sure to click the 'honorable mentions' link, lots more good stuff in there.

All of these are amazing, but seeing individual red blood cells flow through capillaries really makes me think what a miracle is that our bodies work at all: https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2025-small-world-i...

Happen to have worked with the 1st place winner Jay McAllen before, a super smart guy who likes to build everything from scratch

The sea urchin (#5) is my favorite, I think. The tardigrade is incredible too.

Both made me awe at the marvel of biological machinery. Such complicated and sophisticated behavior is occurring all around us, even in the tiniest of organisms.

Beautiful.

All of these are incredible. Watch them all. Ogle at our world these wonderful people have brought to light.