22 stunning images that turn science into art

The 2017 Wellcome Image Award winners
Hawaiian bobtail squid
This baby Hawaiian bobtail squid is only 1.5 cm across. It has a bioluminescent light organ filled with glowing bacteria that it uses to camouflage itself from as it hunts. The squid controls how much light is released using an ink sac, visible here as a dot in the squid's mantle. Mark R Smith, Macroscopic Solutions

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Mouse Retina

For two decades, Wellcome Images has presented awards to the best scientific and medical images that enter its collection each year. This year’s collection is stunning, with portraits, illustrations, and microphotography vying with 3D models and scans for the title of overall winner. Individual awards for these winners and the grand prize winner will be announced on March 15.

These 22 images were selected by nine science communicator experts, but you can have a voice too. Vote for your favorite before August 31, and you’ll have a chance to win a print of one of these incredible images for yourself.

Breast Cancer and Twitter
Cat skin and hair
Developing spinal cord
Language in the brain
Intraocular lens ‘iris clip’
MicroRNA scaffold cancer therapy
Pigeon thermoregulation
A patient is treated by an eye doctor
Stickman – The Vicissitudes of Crohn’s (Resolution)
Rita Levi-Montalcini
3D model of a healthy mini-pig eye
Two young boys in rural Nicaragua
Synthetic DNA channel transporting cargo across membranes
The Placenta Rainbow
Unravelling DNA
‘Hidden Learning’, from the Chrysalis project
Zebrafish eye and neuromasts
Brain-on-a-chip
Blood vessels of the African grey parrot
Caricatural medieval medical practitioners
 

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