{"id":543630,"date":"2026-06-19T14:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T14:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/543630\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T14:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T14:34:14","slug":"these-award-winning-science-photos-capture-the-beauty-and-weirdness-of-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/543630\/","title":{"rendered":"These Award-Winning Science Photos Capture the Beauty\u2014and Weirdness\u2014of Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the photo above, marine biologists Nauras Daraghmeh and Yusuf El-Khaled install an incubation chamber over a coral reef community deep underwater in the Red Sea. The chambers measure the amount of oxygen consumed and produced by corals and their symbiotic algae, allowing researchers to sneak a peek into how this valuable yet endangered ecosystem operates.<\/p>\n

But this photograph\u2014captured by freelance marine biologist Uli Kunz\u2014is also special in that it offers a rare snapshot into the people behind essential research. Accordingly, the image was one of five finalists in this year\u2019s Scientists at Work competition<\/a>, hosted by Nature.<\/p>\n

This year, scientists across the world submitted more than 220 entries, and a panel consisting of Nature\u2019s staff selected the winners, which can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Algal bloom \"NatureCredit: Haolun (Allen) Tian <\/p>\n

Seen from above, the toxic algal blooms in Dog Lake, Ontario, instill a certain calmness that underlies their menacing presence. Things are even worse if you\u2019re actually on the tiny boat, according to Haolun \u201cAllen\u201d Tian, a PhD student at Queen\u2019s University in Canada, who took this winning photograph. Nearer to the lake surface, there\u2019s a distinct \u201ctoxic, vile-smelling layer of rot,\u201d Tian told Nature News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Tian leads a project that investigates how the algae interact with other lake species. To do so, the team must collect and extract the algae of interest\u2014even if things get stinky.<\/p>\n

Microscopic mosquito \"NatureCredit: Shayanta Chowdhury <\/p>\n

Incidentally, the competition\u2019s winning photographs share a good chunk of aesthetics with art and cinema. But this finalist isn\u2019t a scientist watching a movie\u2014it\u2019s an entomologist at work, studying a yellow fever mosquito spiked with fluorescent dye and a mosquito-killing agent. The project\u2019s goal is to study how the drug nitisinone could curtail the activity of blood-feeding insects.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UV illumination created striking colors from both the tiny mosquito and the condensation that formed beneath the cold Petri dish,\u201d photographer Shayanta Chowdhury, a PhD student at the University of Notre Dame, explained to Nature News.<\/p>\n

Whale shark \"NatureCredit: Rob Harcourt <\/p>\n

In this mesmerizing photograph, marine biologist Michael Doane carefully collects a sample of microorganisms living on the skin of a whale shark. Peeking out of the corner is a silvertip shark, whose looming presence \u201cgot all our hearts racing\u2014except Mike, who was focused on microbes,\u201d Rob Hartcourt, who took the photograph, told Nature News.<\/p>\n

\u201cSwimming next to a 12-meter [39-foot] whale shark as it cruises through the blue, gulping away and seemingly non-plussed by our presence is both humbling and exhilarating,\u201d recalled Harcourt, a marine ecologist at Macquarie University in Australia. The moment reminded him of how everything was \u201cunfolding within a broader, interconnected marine community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Migrating ibis \"NatureCredit: Gunnar Hartmann <\/p>\n

Lastly, this photograph\u2014reminiscent of an iconic scene from E.T.\u2014was designated the overall winner of this year\u2019s competition. To be clear, it\u2019s not the humans following the northern bald ibises. The birds are following their human foster parents as they call out a \u201crhythmic, German tune to guide them on their way to their winter steadings\u201d over 50 days and 1,700 miles (2,800 kilometers), according to the Nature report.<\/p>\n

This photograph was taken by student Gunnar Hartmann in Ja\u00e9n, Spain. In the image, members of an Austrian conservation and research group\u2014riding in an ultralight aircraft\u2014fly alongside a flock of northern bald ibises, which the researchers hand-raised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the photo above, marine biologists Nauras Daraghmeh and Yusuf El-Khaled install an incubation chamber over a coral…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,29690,133,233223,4567],"class_list":["post-543630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nature-photography","tag-science","tag-scientific-method","tag-scientists"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116777273325562324","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543630","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=543630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}