The Wellcome Trust, a medical research charity, has just announced the winners of its 2008 imaging contest. Above is my favorite, a picture of a microscopic blood vessel that has ruptured. You can see single red blood cells slowly leaking out. This was taken by Anne Weston, with a
scanning electron micrograph. She says the rupture "is due to a mutation in the ephrin-B2 gene that causes the blood vessels to be more fragile than normal leading to an increased rate of haemorrhaging . . . This kind of leaky blood vessel is frequently found in tumours and in certain other human diseases. " Below, we've got a couple more of the winners.
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