Message #192753

[Orheim]

Seventh Place: Glowing Nerves

Like a fallen birch tree, glowing nerve fibers branch out along the tail of a three-day-old zebrafish. The image, which won seventh place in the 2009 BioScapes contest, uses the so-called brainbow technique, in which cells randomly select fluorescent proteins.

(Related: "'Brainbows' Illuminate the Mind's Wiring.")

The resulting palette of colors--seen in this image captured by Harvard University biologist Albert Pan--allows scientists to distinguish neighboring cells of the nervous system.
— Photograph courtesy Albert Pan, Olympus BioScapes