“Microscope images forge an extraordinary bond between science and art, said Hidenao Tsuchiya, Olympus America's Vice President and General Manager for the Scientific Equipment Group. We founded this competition to focus on the fascinating stories coming out of today's life science research laboratories. The thousands of images that people have shared with the competition over the years reflect some of the most exciting work going on in research today – work that can help shed light on the living universe and ultimately save lives. We look at BioScapes and these beautiful images as sources of education and inspiration to us and the world”. – OlympusBioScapes

Photo: Pretarsus of the third leg of a female drone fly (Eristalis tenax), ventral view, by Dr. Jan Michels, Institute of Zoology, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany. (Photo by Olympus BioScapes)

The Christmas tree is lit at Rockefeller Center in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., November 30, 2022. (Photo by Jeenah Moon/Reuters)

A group of caimans sit on the banks of the almost dried up Bento Gomes River in the Pantanal wetlands near Pocone, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, Wednesday, November 15, 2023. Amid the high heat, wildfires are burning widely in the Pantanal biome, the world's biggest tropical wetlands. (Photo by Andre Penner/AP Photo)

AJ Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil during the Groundhog Day Festivities, at Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, U.S., February 2, 2023. (Photo by Alan Freed/Reuters)

Muslims gather to perform an Eid al-Fitr prayer, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan at Washington Square Park on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/AP Photo)

A girl lights a candle as she marks the anniversary of 2015 Nepal earthquake, at Boudhanath stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal April 25, 2017. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

Couples take part in a competition during a mass wedding of 64 doctoral student couples at Harbin Institute of Technology, a university in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, China, June 4, 2017. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A driver on the Horseshoe Pass in North Wales wiping the snow from the windscreen of his car during a heavy snow storm, 18th January 1937. (Photo by Norman Smith)