Photo gallery The 2022 winners: Cool Science Image Contest

1 These stylistically different takes on chest X-rays were created by generative adversarial networks, computing networks designed to “learn” like the human brain learns. While these particular works of art are more beautiful than useful in radiology, GANs are used in medical imaging to enhance, classify and reconstruct information and understand the differences between X-rays of a COVID case (top), pneumonia (bottom) and healthy lungs (center).

Dalton Griner, graduate student, Medical Physics; Xin Tie, graduate student, Medical Physics
chest x-rays and PyTorch deep learning framework

2 This image of brain cells from the cerebellum of a mouse was made possible by the addition of a gene that fuses a fluorescent red molecule to a protein called vimentin, which forms filaments in cell walls and is particularly present during cell development, wound healing and the spread of cancer. The red “tag” allows researchers to tell the blue nuclei from the red vimentin filaments in studies of the mice.

Karolina Lungova, research intern, Neuroscience; Darcie Moore, professor, Neuroscience
confocal microscope

3 Viewed through the eyepiece of a microscope, aluminum wires one-third the diameter of a human hair connect superconducting devices to a microchip. During experiments, the microchip is cooled to -460 degrees Fahrenheit (just one-hundredth of a degree above absolute zero) to explore the laws of quantum physics and test nanotechnology for quantum computing.

Benjamin Harpt, graduate student, Physics
digital camera

4 Stem cells derived from skin cells of a rhesus macaque monkey appear like multi-colored pearls atop spindly mouse cells that provide the stem cells with crucial support as they grow. These stem cells — which have the potential to become any type of cell in the body, but carry a genetic mutation linked to frontotemporal dementia —will be coaxed to form brain cells and used to study the development of the disease.

Julia Gambardella, graduate student, Cellular & Molecular Pathology and Wisconsin National Primate Research Center; John Maufort, scientist, Morgridge Institute for Research and Wisconsin National Primate Research Center; Marina Emborg, professor, Medical Physics and Wisconsin National Primate Research Center
Digital-inverted microscope

5 Follow this mathematical thread: The perfect regularity and symmetry of the traditional “Storm at Sea” patchwork has been disrupted in this quilt by shifting, in tandem, neighboring corners of the four-sided shapes in white and navy blue, placing the pairs of offset corners at a random position along the edge of the square or rectangle in which the quadrilaterals are inscribed. The 41 light blue quadrilaterals connect the midpoints of the edges of the white asymmetric quadrilaterals, and each is a visual illustration of Varignon’s Theorem, which proves that its shape must be a parallelogram.

Amy Wendt, professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
machine pieced and quilted cotton fabric

6 The strong, vertical line of the vagus nerve — appearing red with other nerves — carries motor and sensory information through the green muscle in a rat’s neck. Using a polarizing filter, researchers analyze the way peripheral nerves and their fatty layer of insulation reflect light. The technique may one day be used to help surgeons work around delicate nerves by distinguishing them from other tissue.

Rex Chin-Hao Chen, graduate student, Biomedical Engineering; Bruce Knudsen, researcher, Biomedical Engineering; Matthew LaLuzerne, undergraduate student, Mechanical Engineering; James Trevathan scientist, Biomedical Engineering; Kip Ludwig, professor, Biomedical Engineering
Polarization Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography

7 Tissue from a damaged muscle in the leg of a mouse includes healthy, uninjured cells appearing empty and outlined in red. Researchers studying the way aging and disease disrupt muscle growth and regeneration are interested in the difference between those healthy cells and the green-and-blue muscle stem cells, called satellite cells, which are missing a protein necessary for the healing process.

Jamie Hibbert, postdoctoral fellow, Comparative Biosciences
Keyence microscope

8 Some zooplankton — tiny swimming organisms that play an outsized role in the food webs of lakes — migrate daily up and down in the water column to find food and avoid predators. This painting, created by the artist during her residence at a UW–Madison limnological research station, depicts the migration of zooplankton species found in Escanaba Lake in Vilas County, Wisconsin.

Christina Weatherford, science communications intern, Trout Lake Station
acrylic paint

9 This community of the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common cause of dangerous hospital-acquired infections, bands together into a biofilm to facilitate communication, stick to surfaces like medical devices and defend against antibiotics. Researchers study the P. aeruginosa genes relevant to biofilm formation in hopes of finding ways to disrupt them and kill the bacteria.

William Heelan, graduate student, Pharmacy; Ryan Ward, graduate student, Genetics; Amy Banta, research scientist, Pharmacy; Jason Peters professor, Pharmacy
digital microscope

10 While it is difficult to see the stars of the Milky Way anywhere near the lights of a city, the galactic display in this assemblage of images taken above the Qingdao, China, area (population 7 million) is visible thanks to the blanket of fog dampening Qingdao’s light pollution.

Yingshun Sun, graduate student, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
digital camera

11 A polarizer makes arabitol shine as light passes through the sugar alcohol, illuminating its crystalline structure like a pane of stained glass or the sections of a butterfly wing. The crystal structures of drugs have profound influence on the way pharmaceuticals work in the body. Observing crystal formation in arabitol and similar substances helps researchers ensure safe and effective pharmaceuticals (and sharp LCD screens and perfectly tempered chocolate).

Amy Neusaenger, graduate student, Pharmacy
polarized light microscope Amy Neusaenger

12 Dairy cows graze as the sun rises over a spring pasture in Ireland. Conor Holohan visited UW–Madison from University College Dublin to research ways to improve the nutrition and production of grass-fed cows on dairy farms in the U.S. Midwest.

Conor Holohan, visiting researcher, Animal & Dairy Sciences
digital camera