This image shows the upper and lower surfaces of a dark and a light green tobacco leaf. Fluorescent light given off by chlorophyll in cross-sections of the leaves was captured and recolored to produce the shapes seen here. Research has shown that in dark green leaves, the upper surface absorbs more light than it can use while the leaf tissue below is deprived of light. This research is testing the hypothesis that reducing chlorophyll content will result in a more efficient use of light, meaning more productive crop plants.

In order to measure gene expression, researchers once needed relatively large samples of tissue. Devices such as this cell capture chip made by Fluidigm now make it possible to measure gene expression in single cells. Microchannels on the chip, like the ones seen here, orchestrate the precise fluid flows needed to bring together the cells and the chemicals used to process them.

This image shows a close-up of the Fluidigm cell capture chip seen in “Power of one.” Reflected throughout the image are tiny circles, duplications of a single cell passing through one of the microchannels on the chip.

The colorful figure in this image is the larval form of a disease-causing parasitic flatworm called a schistosome. Another view of this stage of the schistosome lifecycle makes up part of the medley in the Art of Science Banner Image, “Know your enemy.” Shown in blue are glands that release chemicals that allow the worm to penetrate human skin. In red are the parasite’s muscles.

This research investigates how, where, and why certain chemicals called ‘safeners’ increase rates of herbicide detoxification in cereal crops such as grain sorghum, and how plants respond at the molecular level to safener treatment. This image illustrates a cross section of cells from a safener-treated sorghum seedling. The researchers found that safener triggers a massive expression of glutathione S-transferase (GST) proteins, which rapidly break down herbicides, mainly in the outermost cell layers.

Athletic activities are hard on tendons, the connective tissue that connects muscle to bone, in people and animals alike. Tendons are made of a protein called collagen. To better understand tendon injuries, researchers injected a horse tendon with a chemical that degrades collagen. They then used images like this one, which shows the structure of the collagen fibers within the tendon, to discover how the structure is affected by damage.

The image demonstrates that a spiral polypeptide developed by the Cheng research group, a synthetic protein, efficiently delivers DNA segments into cancer cells. This new material can potentially be used in clinical gene therapy to improve the efficiency of gene delivery, as well as to lower toxicity in healthy tissues. These are important prerequisites for the polypeptide’s future use in cancer treatment.

Aluminum toxicity currently affects over 40% of the land used for crops worldwide. This image shows root tips of sorghum plants treated with aluminum. Researchers use lasers to dissect out specific types of cells and tissues in treated plants in order to study the plant’s response to toxicity. In this image are several views of the dissected tissue.

Syntaxin, a protein that plays a key role in chemical release in many types of cells, is found in the cell membrane of sperm. The head of each sperm contains an acrosome vesicle, a structure containing chemicals that help the sperm penetrate the egg. Syntaxin helps promote release of these chemicals. The research portrayed here found that syntaxin is distributed in a punctate pattern in the sperm head. Study of acrosome vesicle release will help in improving techniques used for artificial reproduction and reducing male-factor infertility.

Image provided by Aaron Johnson, Aaron Johnson Lab

Research funded by the University of Illinois

This repeated image shows a neuromuscular junction, the interface between a neuron and a muscle cell, located on a muscle from the larynx of a rat. With age, these laryngeal muscles become slower and weaken. By examining the laryngeal muscles in aging rats, researchers are able to investigate the effects of increased and decreased voice use on laryngeal neuromuscular mechanisms. This will help reveal if and how voice and swallowing functions can be preserved in older adults through behavioral interventions.

Image provided by Maminirina Randrianandrasana, May Berenbaum Lab

Research funded by the Lindbergh Foundation and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement 
Special thanks to Catherine Lee Wallace at the Microscopy Suite in the Imaging Technology Group at the Beckman Institute

The strands running across this image are silk fibers secreted by a Madagascar wild silkworm. The structures of the fibers, observed at a microlevel scale invisible to the naked eyes, forms a mesh with crossover points. Silk is used in many enterprises, including production of cosmetics and biomedicine. Studying the properties of this particular silk is important; silk production offers an alternative income to the local people living in the border of the largest remaining forests in Madagascar, and an incentive for conserving local biodiversity.

Researchers doing behavioral experiments with honey bees sometimes use paint or enamel to give individual bees distinguishing marks. The elaborate social structure and impressive learning and navigation abilities of bees make them an ideal model for behavioral and neurobiological research. Since the sequencing of the honey bee genome, published in 2006, bees have been used increasingly for research into the molecular basis for social interaction and other complex behaviors.

Only recently have ancient carbonate deposits that formed within hot springs (called ‘travertine’) been discovered to house globally significant volumes of subsurface oil. The successful exploration and production of these hydrocarbon reservoirs depends directly on the ability to understand and predict pore networks and permeability. Images like this, of thin travertine sections, suggest that cells line micropore walls and that the pores evolved as the result of the interplay between microbiological, physical and chemical processes.

All eukaryotic cells contain highly evolved structures called mitochondria, which coordinate energy production and distribution based on the availability of calories, oxygen and the demands for cellular maintenance. In this image, a genetically encoded fluorescent protein was used to detect mitochondria. Bioenergetic reprogramming occurs in many cancer cells; genetically encoded sensors have revolutionized the study of this type of phenomenon, since they offer a convenient tool to measure bioenergetic changes in live cells.

The best-known role of RNA is that of a messenger within the cell, carrying instructions for how to build proteins. However, RNA plays many other important roles, some of which are still being discovered. The bright spots that form the basis for this image were produced by labeling a long non-coding RNA (a recently described class of RNA) with a fluorescent dye. Imaging long non-coding RNAs will shed light on possible correlations between their organization in the nucleus and their potential function in coordinating gene expression.

The gray texture seen here was created from the image of a single pollen grain of Themeda avenacea, oat kangaroo grass. High-power microscopy revealed surface texture features of the grass pollen too small to be seen with conventional methods; these features can be used to distinguish the species. Scientists can identify the presence of different plants from their pollen grains due to the innate morphological differences in their shape and surface texture. This practice allows scientists to reconstruct knowledge of past vegetation from modern and fossil pollen records.

These star-shaped patterns are composed of viruses that infect Sulfolobus islandicus, a species of archaea that lives in volcanic springs. The study of viruses that infect organisms of the third domain of life, the Archaea, has revealed novel and unusual filamentous and spindle-shaped viruses. The study of these viruses and how they interact with their archaeal hosts can provide insights into how early life on earth evolved.

Image provided by Becky Slattery, Don Ort Lab

Research funded by the United States Department of Agriculture

This image shows the upper and lower surfaces of a dark and a light green tobacco leaf. Fluorescent light given off by chlorophyll in cross-sections of the leaves was captured and recolored to produce the shapes seen here. Research has shown that in dark green leaves, the upper surface absorbs more light than it can use while the leaf tissue below is deprived of light. This research is testing the hypothesis that reducing chlorophyll content will result in a more efficient use of light, meaning more productive crop plants.

This image, of a germinating grain of maize pollen, was captured by a team of middle school girls participating in the Institute for Genomic Biology Pollen Power! summer camp. The camp provides an opportunity for girls to study plant responses to climate change in the distant past and the coming century. Campers watched maize pollen germinate in real-time, and learned to use Core Facilities equipment to capture and display images like this one.

The research upon which this image is based measures health status using spatio-temporal motion by mobile devices, to draw conclusions about population health. With these data, healthy subjects and patients with chronic disease can be clearly distinguished. There are currently no reliable methods to monitor health status in everyday life; this analysis software transforms cheap phones into medical devices for viable healthcare.

This series of plots represents the change in structure over time of an enzyme interacting with its substrate. Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical processes by interacting with the reactants. Researchers involved in drug design need information about reaction mechanisms, and how enzymes support them. Examining the changing structure of the enzyme-reactant interaction over the course of the reaction reveals important information about these mechanisms.

Humans have been hosting parasitic flatworms called schistosomes for more than 5,000 years. Today these parasites continue to cause disease. This image shows several stages of the schistosome life cycle, superimposed: the egg production organs of a female (blue and purple), a larva (green and brown), and the bodies (green) and heads (blue) of adults. Understanding the life cycle could help researchers find better ways to prevent the disease the parasites cause.

This video shows the complex and diverse ecosystem that is created by corals. Study species Montastraea faveolata was surveyed on the Caribbean island of Curaçao and appears as the abundant coral in this video. Coral reef ecosystems are critically important reservoirs of biodiversity in various marine environments, yet they are also one of the most threatened marine ecosystems on the planet. The goal of this research is to create a quantitative and qualitative baseline for what is a “healthy” coral. This baseline is vitally important as a comparative standard for determining how environmental factors affect coral health.
See the video at http://youtu.be/tbgDmRp8Riw