First Place, 2014

Copepods live throughout the oceans, are smaller than a grain of rice and can dart away from predators at 500 body lengths per second. To create this image of a marine copepod, Brad Gemmell and his colleague Michael Shribak used a new method of polarized light microscopy which allows the identification of tissue properties in live specimens without the need for pseudocoloring or digital computation. Brightness corresponds to material transparency and color corresponds to orientation of the tissue.

Credit:
Brad J. Gemmell, Ph.D.
Marine Science Institute