{"id":538493,"date":"2026-06-16T19:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T19:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/538493\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T19:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T19:04:14","slug":"5-powerful-photos-show-scientists-at-work-in-the-sea-sky-and-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/538493\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Powerful Photos Show Scientists at Work in the Sea, Sky, and Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Split<\/p>\n

Nature\u2018s 2026 Scientist At Work photography competition<\/a> features five of the best photos that scientists captured around the world, showcasing the important work scientists do and the incredible places they go. <\/p>\n

Student Gunnar Hartmann is the overall winner of this year\u2019s Scientist At Work photo competition. Hartmann is the photographer for Waldrappteam, an Austrian conservation and research group that is working on the reintroduction of ibises, known in the area as Waldrapp, in Europe. <\/p>\n

Ibises were once plentiful in the region, living in the northern foothills of the Alps. However, increased poaching and changing climate conditions forced the birds out about 400 years ago. <\/p>\n

As Nature explains<\/a>, Hartmann joined the group in 2024 as a science undergraduate student at the University of Koblenz in Germany. Every year, the Waldrappteam travels 2,800 kilometers over 50 days from southeast Germany to southwest Spain, leading a flock of hand-raised ibises to their new home. <\/p>\n

\"APhoto credit: Gunnar Hartmann | Nature Scientist At Work Photo Competition 2026 <\/p>\n

These ibises, raised and bonded to their human foster parents, follow along as the scientists travel in an ultralight aircraft, photogenic with its vibrant yellow parachute. The project was founded in 2004, and it has attracted many fans and followers over the years, as communities gather to watch the aircraft-assisted migration along its route. <\/p>\n

Hartmann bested over 220 other submissions to win the grand prize, which includes a \u00a3500 cash prize and a feature in Nature. <\/p>\n

Alongside Hartmann, four other photographers were named winners, each receiving the same cash prize and Nature feature. <\/p>\n

Photographer and freelance marine biologist Uli Kunz captured a powerful portrait of scientists Nauras Daraghmeh and Yusuf El-Khaled installing an incubation chamber over a precious coral-reef underwater ecosystem. <\/p>\n

\"TwoPhoto credit: Uli Kunz | Nature Scientist At Work Photo Competition 2026 <\/p>\n

The project is nicknamed the \u201ccoral probiotics village,\u201d and it\u2019s based at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. The project investigates different types of coral and measures how they are affected by changing water temperatures caused by climate change. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn this photo, I wanted not only to capture the research divers in the midst of their often hectic work, but also to show a moment of quiet contemplation,\u201d explains the photographer, Kunz. <\/p>\n

Another underwater photo won this year\u2019s competition. Marine ecologist Robert Harcourt from Australia\u2019s Macquarie University captured an incredible shot of marine biologist Michael Doane collecting a sample from the skin of a whale shark (Rhincodon typus. While Doane carefully and safely collects the sample from the whale shark, a silvertip shark (< em> Carcharhinus albimarginatus) curiously sees what\u2019s happening in the background. <\/p>\n

\"APhoto credit: Rob Harcourt | Nature Scientist At Work Photo Competition 2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cSwimming next to a 12-meter whale shark as it cruises through the blue, gulping away and seemingly non-plussed by our presence is both humbling and exhilarating,\u201d Harcourt says. \u201cThe silvertip shark sneaking up on Mike got all our hearts racing \u2014 except Mike, who was focused on microbes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haolun (Allen) Tian\u2019s excellent aerial photo shows vibrant green algal blooms on Dog Lake in Ontario, Canada, as scientists collected samples from a contrasting pink boat. <\/p>\n

As Tian, project lead and PhD student at Queen\u2019s University in Kingston, Canada, explains, two common algal species, Microcystis aeruginosa and Dolichospermum flos-aquae, create a \u201ctoxic, viole smelling layer of rot\u201d on the surface of Dog Lake each summer. This thick green bloom, while it looks beautiful from above, is horrible at the surface. It kills fish and clogs local water supplies. <\/p>\n

\"APhoto credit: Haolun (Allen) Tian | Nature Scientist At Work Photo Competition 2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the fall, they actually rot and die,\u201d Tian says. \u201cBasically, there\u2019s very few species that can eat them, so they don\u2019t enter the food web.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tian and the rest of the team, including Kelly Estrada Piedrahita and Shirley French, study algal DNA to understand better how they interact with and affect other lake species. <\/p>\n

Rounding out the winning photos in this year\u2019s Scientists at Work photo competition is Shayanta Chowdhury\u2019s photo of entomologist Lee Haines studying a yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) under ultraviolet light. It\u2019s a very colorful portrait that captures both the scientist and her subject in a single frame. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe UV illumination created striking colors from both the tiny mosquito and the condensation that formed beneath the cold Petri dish,\u201d says the photographer, who is a chemistry student at Notre Dame in Indiana. <\/p>\n

\"APhoto credit: Shayanta Chowdhury | Nature Scientist At Work Photo Competition 2026 <\/p>\n

Haines is part of a team that studies how the drug nitisinone can kill blood-feeding insects. <\/p>\n

Chowdhury uses lasers and spectrometers in his own studies, but adds that he doesn\u2019t directly work with biological samples. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am always fascinated by their beauty under the microscope,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Nature\u2018s annual Scientist At Work photo competition is a beautiful reminder that the important scientific work happening at universities and research institutes every single day, all over the world, can be visually stunning, too. Photos like these are a powerful way for scientists to connect with everyone and share what they are doing in an accessible, approachable way. <\/p>\n

Image credits:<\/strong> Nature, Springer Nature. All photographers are credited in the image captions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nature\u2018s 2026 Scientist At Work photography competition features five of the best photos that scientists captured around the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,428,3616,7512,366,18,117,19,17,3618,24831,7515,25228,133,231322],"class_list":["post-538493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-competition","tag-conservation","tag-contest","tag-design","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nature","tag-photocompetition","tag-photocontest","tag-portraits","tag-science","tag-scientistsatwork"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116761347441152431","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}