2021 KINSC Scientific Imaging Contest Winners Announced
The KINSC Scientific Imaging Contest is an annual contest for student-submitted images from experiments or simulations that are scientifically intriguing as well as aesthetically pleasing.
Judging is based on both the quality of the image and the explanation of the underlying science. First, second, and third place winners will have their images displayed on the walls of the KINSC.
First Prize: Ernest Keefer-Jacques '21
CHSY is a protein that makes a glycosaminoglycan or GAG, which is a sugar-protein involved in bone and tissue formation in humans and wing formation in flies. I used CRISPR to knock out CHSY in the expression region of engrailed, a wing development protein. What we found is that when CHSY is knocked out in this region, a whole host of deficits form on the wing such as deletion of tissue and abnormal vein placement.
Second Prize: Charlotte Park BMC '22
Earth terms in pulsar timing residuals simulated using Libstempo (each color represents a particular pulsar). Pulsar timing residuals are the difference between the predicted and actual times of arrival of radio signals emitted by pulsars. By monitoring the timing residuals to microsecond precision, Pulsar Timing Arrays can detect nanohertz gravitational waves. When written mathematically, the timing residuals contain two terms: the pulsar term and the Earth term. The image demonstrates that the Earth term can be either in-phase or out of phase across different pulsars depending on the pulsar sky locations and the properties of the gravitational-wave source.
Third Prize: Nicholas Roland '21
This is a zebrafish larva seven days post fertilization. It was imaged while alive but immobilized in agarose, a jello-like substance which is permeable enough for the larva to breathe. This technique is used to image brain activity in living zebrafish larvae. You can see the eyes, and the ears just beneath them. The dark ovals in the ears are otoliths: small stones in the inner ear which allow organisms, including humans, to orient themselves based on the pull of gravity.
Honorable mention: Turner Johnson '22
The spectral emission lines of a Helium-Neon gas sample, shown in the upper left as a vertical light orange bar. Passing the light through a diffraction grating produces a series of lines at different wavelengths whose characteristic spacing and strength are unique to different elements. This image was taken using novelty pair of paper diffraction grating glasses, and all 4 series of spectral lines shown are spectrographs of the same HeNe sample at the top of the image. The red LED display reads voltage and current passing through the HeNe sample. Taken during the Laser Physics Lab of Physics 301 ("Intro Quantum Lab").
