People celebrate the start of the New Year as fireworks illuminate Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, early Monday, January 1, 2024. (Photo by Bruna Prado/AP Photo)

Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)

Reuters photographer Bobby Yip took a series of portraits of people taking part in the “Occupy Central” protests in Hong Kong, and asked them why they had joined the demonstrations. China rules Hong Kong under a “one country, two systems” formula that accords the territory limited democracy. Tens of thousands of mostly student protesters are demanding Beijing give them full democracy, with the freedom to nominate election candidates. The unrest is the worst in Hong Kong since China resumed its rule over the former British colony in 1997. (Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters)

A girl attends a performance hosted by the Ministry of the Interior that includes police, border guards, and rescuers celebrating International Children's Day in Kyiv, Ukraine on June 1, 2021. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

A Taliban fighter poses for a picture holding a flower before offering Friday noon prayers in Kabul, Afghanistan on October 1, 2021. (Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP Photo)

A couple walks past a burning roadblock set up to protest against a recent kidnapping and shooting in the Petionville neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti on November 1, 2021. (Photo by Adrees Latif/Reuters)

Ethnic Wa performer dressed as United Wa State Army (UWSA) soldiers perform a traditional dance in Mongmao, Wa territory in northeast Myanmar October 1, 2016. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

Workers look at exotic models and p*rn actresses standing on the top of a bus waving to people to promote the “Expo Sеx and Eroticism” adult exhibition in Mexico City, Mexico March 1, 2017. (Photo by Carlos Jasso/Reuters)