Visions of Discovery Image Competition

Pics of the Prize Award Evening and Exhibition

visionsofdiscovery — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:52:34 +0000

Despite the very wet night thankfully plenty of people braved it to come to the opening event. Professor Mike Ferguson, the Dean of Research for the College of Life Sciences presented the cheques and/or certificates after a brief intro to the competition by me. The drinks flowed freely and by all accounts a good time was had by all.

Many thanks to Andrew Melvin of the College of Life Sciences for the pics.

Big screen close up

visionsofdiscovery — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:29:22 +0000

Big screen close up, originally uploaded by Envisage Photo.

Another photographer’s capture of Big Angus.
Sharing Science DVD courtesy of Welcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression, College of Life Science.
To see the videos in the warm comfort of your own home go here.

Pixelaaaaaaation

visionsofdiscovery — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:16:55 +0000

winter light night, originally uploaded by paul flickriness.

Julian looking all bitty. What a pity.

VoD @ winter light night

visionsofdiscovery — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:12:33 +0000

winter light night, originally uploaded by paul flickriness.

the crowds

Freezing cold night, throngs of people. Did they show interest in the strange screen at the end the road? Some did, some were bemused. Is there a place for science on show at this type of event? I would say yes, but perhaps a better screen would be required and more interactivity. We gave out heaps of pencils, pens, furry little lapel bugs (you know – the ones that you find everywhere advertising everything from kitchen sinks to funeral parlour services). Then again on a cold night in November who actually wants to be interacting with a bunch of scientists when they could be guzzling mulled wine and eating oversized wurst. Maybe WE missed the point and should have offered SOUP n SCIENCE. Genius. You heard it hear first folks.

btw Thanks to all the die hards who came down to help.

Finally the day approaches…12th November!

visionsofdiscovery — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:43:47 +0000

So sorry for all the eager people out there wanting to hear what is happening – no we haven’t trousered the sponsor money and gone off on a nice cruise around the med, tempting though that is.

The delay has been for a number of logistical reasons and a disjoined communication channel. Either way the University is now fully committed to getting this exhibition off the ground and they have been really helpful.

Design Services are doing a sterling job of pulling this off with only 2 weeks notice (yes we have had only two weeks notice aswell ). Huge thanks to Tara Wainwright and Gordon Keir in Design Services – it’s going to be a really great professional production. Thanks also to Leanne Wallace in Events for making this all happen.

Plus it is in the lovely Dalhousie Building and will be open to the Public.

The exhibition will run to January 2010. So if you can’t make the wine and nibbles launch event at 5.30-7:00 on the 12th then please drop down some other time and feel free to comment on this blog about the images.

Closed for Business

visionsofdiscovery — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:52:44 +0000

Yay, Finally phase one is over. With much cajoling and poster posting we have 30 entries for the competition. Overall thoughts on the images – pretty amazing. Thanks to all that entered….much appreciated.

Phase 2 = the fairly onerous task of making the DVD for the judges to view. Oh well.

Phase 3 = organising the exhibition(s) and ward ceremony.

Phase 4 …?

Time is running out folks

visionsofdiscovery — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:29:47 +0000

Come on, the competition is very much up for grabs as the number of entries is only a few at the moment. Get those images burnt to CD, form filled out and popped in the internal post.

Don’t leave it to the last minute…please….you know what internal mail is like..

No time like the present – and it is Friday afternoon – who wants to set the experiment up?

Nature on Microscopy

visionsofdiscovery — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:53:03 +0000

A whole issue of Nature this week with some free articles on microscopy – advances, futures etc.

Check out the articles here.

Malty Goodness

visionsofdiscovery — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:48:43 +0000

In a generous post-launch gesture Thistle Scientific Ltd. has donated a bottle of 12 year old Glenlivet single malt as fifth prize. Cheers Angus Gleig!

Image Competitions

visionsofdiscovery — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:08:02 +0000

There are some amazing science-related images out there on the internet. The most famous and some might say, prestigious, microscopy-oriented competition is the Nikon Small World Competition which has been going since 1974. The subject matter is not limited to biological material – the only stipulation that the image is generated using some form of microscopy (low or high end). The images that get shortlisted every year are simply stunning.
Our very own Paul Appleton (Division of Cell and Developmental Biology) won first prize in 2006 with a beautiful and technically brilliant 2-photon image of mouse colon.

A vintage year for Dundee entrants since Alan Prescott (Division of Cell Biology and Immunology) and Paul both got an image selected in the “honorable mention” section.

The 2008 prize went to Michael Stringer’s Image of diatoms – a beautifully understated set of sweeps of colour that made me question whether I was looking at an image from nature or an artist’s brush strokes.
There were also two of Paul’s images selected as “Images of Distinction”.

In the dim and distant past (2002 and 2005) I even had a couple of image in the top 20 and an “image of distinction” 2007.

2005 16th place

ID 2007

Another excellent competition is the Olympus BioScapes Competition.
Dundee has had honourable mentions in 2008 (Aaron Quyn) and 2004/2005 (me).

aaron quyn HM 2008

PD Andrews HM 2004

PD Andrews HM 2005

Both these competitions are pretty straight-up-and-down cell/organism based image competitions with emphasis on the technical achievement combined with aesthetic appeal.

Other competitions are broader in their scope. An example is the Visions of Science and Technology Competition, which seems not to be running anymore (last reference on the website is 2007). In this competition grand themes such as Concepts, Art, Close Up, Action and People. Many of the images are proper photographs of a very journalistic nature or classical wildlife photography. In that way it was an interesting competition. I wonder what happened to it though. Lack of Funding?

A major competition co-run by Science and the NSF is the International Science and Engineering Visualisation Challenge

The categories are:

Check out the previous winners – seriously hardcore visualisation folks!