An American white pelican takes flight on the island of Petatan in the municipality of Cojumatlan de Regules, Michoacan state, Mexico on February 23, 2024. The island becomes home to the pelicans during the winter, when they travel from the north of the United States and the south of Canada to the warmer waters of Lake Chapala in Mexico. The birds are a tourist attraction and people gather on the island's boardwalk to feed them and watch them fly. (Photo by Enrique Castro/AFP 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)

Cuts of beef are displayed at Marina Meats on January 31, 2012 in San Francisco, California. Severe drought is a contributing factor in the declining cattle count, which has sent wholesale beef prices up 6.4 percent in the past 12 months. The price for a pound of beef (0.454 kg) peaked in price at $1.98 a pound on November 23, the highest price since 2004. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Michael Fröhlich's Jowett Javelin rotting car in his forest sculpture park in Neandertal Germany, September 11, 2016. An eccentric artist has collected fifty vintage cars and left them to rot in a forest – and now they're worth over $1 million.

A girl plays on a pile of discarded flowers outside a market, the day after the Diwali celebrations in Mumbai, India October 31, 2016. (Photo by Shailesh Andrade/Reuters)

Boeing 747-400 of KLM in approach for the “Princess Juliana” airport, Netherlands Antilles Sint Maarten on July 2, 2002. (Photo by LUPOO/Ullstein Bild via Getty Images)

Student protestors, including one girl with a camera, struggle with soldiers from the Chinese Army, the PLA. Tiananmen Square, 1989. (Photo by Jeff Widener/Associated Press)