Share
Tweet
Pin-ItThin film of volatile oil floating on a water surface. Evaporation occurs in isolated pools a few microns deep. Flow instabilities at the edges bring oil into the centers of the pools, forming droplets. Coalescence leads to bigger drops that have more volume per unit of surface area, and slower evaporation. Interference colors dramatize the motions. The complex microscopic fluid dynamics are relevant to the longevity of fuel spills.
2014 Small World In Motion Competition
3rd Place
Oil film floating on water
Dr. John Hart
- Affiliation
- University of Colorado Boulder
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Magnification
- 12.5x
2nd Place
Time-lapse of caffeine crystallization
Dr. Douglas Clark
- Affiliation
- Paedia Corporation
San Francisco, California, USA
- Technique
- Polarized Light
Time-lapse of crystals forming in a single drop of a saturated solution of caffeine in water (actual time of 20 minutes compressed into 40 seconds).
Honorable Mention
Vimentin cytoskeletal dynamics in a cell undergoing mitosis
Dr. Nancy Costigliola-Tarsky
- Affiliation
- Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Technique
- Confocal
- Magnification
- 40x
Top 20
Honorable Mentions
Judges
Paul Maddox
Assistant Professor and William Burwell Harrison Fellow University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Biology
Paul S. Maddox, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor and William Burwell Harrison Fellow, Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. Dr. Maddox completed his Ph.D. under the mentorship of renowned cell biology microscopist E. D. Salmon at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His current research interests include using light microscopy to understand chromosome and microtubule dynamics. Dr. Maddox’s experimental philosophy mandates using the light microscope to “see” results in the most quantitative manner possible. Dr. Maddox has over 19 years of experience with light microscopy and has been an instructor in light microscopy courses around the world including Europe, South America, and at the Marine Biological Labs in Woods Hole, USA. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers in his career.
