Icicles are seen on a handrail along the coast at Donggang business district in Dalian, Liaoning province, China on December 27, 2018. (Photo by Reuters/China Stringer Network)

Italy's Arianna Valcepina falls during the women's 500 m qualifying race at the ISU Short Track Speed Skating World Cup in Gdansk, Poland, 16 February 2024. (Photo by Adam Warzawa/EPA)

Allison Crane walks out of her flooded neighborhood after Hurricane Beryl passed in Galveston, Texas, U.S. July 8, 2024. (Photo by Rich Matthews/Reuters)

A surfer takes some air off a wave while surfing after sunset in Cardiff, California, U.S., January 7, 2020. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

A woman walks up a stairway painted in the rainbow colors in Bucharest, Romania, Saturday, July 11, 2020. Romania reported 698 new COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours, the highest level since the pandemic reached the country in February. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/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)

In this June 20, 2015 photo, Niberta Galvez uses the bottom half of his shirt to collect coca leaves in Samugari, Peru. Coca farmers were among the locals who, in 1984, formed citizen militias to help the military beat back Shining Path rebels, reducing them to a small group of fewer than 500 who now are deeply involved in drug trafficking. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

Two sheep fight in a competition in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, China on August 1, 2017. (Photo by Reuters/China Stringer Network)