Microscopic photos spotlight the art of science

While they are often identified as poles, a spectrum or even a line of demarcation from one kind of investigation into another, science and art can and occasionally do cohabitate, as in the case of UGA research scientist Stefan Eberhard, who utilizes scientific instrumentation for creative purposes:

Besides being a longtime research professional at the University of Georgia’s Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, Eberhard is also an accomplished photographer, and many of his most striking images are shots he’s taken using one of the electron-beam microscopes that sits in a small room in the CCRC building on Riverbend Road.

The microscope lets him see what the surfaces of cells look like, the whiskers on a seemingly grinning ant, a mite on the surface of a leaf, or how a fungus invades the stomata, the small apertures that allow gases to move in and out of plant leaves.

One of Eberhard’s favorite photographs is a single grain of tiny morning glory pollen, floating in a blue void like some peculiar piked planet; another is a single grain of cracked sand, looking almost like an opening into an ice cave.

One of his images recently won a Wellcome Trust Image Award, an elite international competition that annually seeks out the best in scientific photography. His winning image is a close-up of a thale cress flower, showing its stigma surrounded by the flower’s antlers. Two of the antlers have begun to open, showing the small pollen grains which will soon shake free.

Great work and a nice local feature on efforts outside the frame of normal duties where, sometimes, the most interesting work can happen. That is one of the benefits of bringing creative people into the research endeavor. More on the Wellcome trust Image award here.

Image: image of an Arabidopsis thaliana flower, commonly known as thale cress, by Stefan Eberhard.