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 student falls asleep as she holds a book containing a portrait of China's late chairman Mao Zedong during a lesson at the Democracy Elementary and Middle School in Sitong town, Henan province December 3, 2013. In a remote part of central China, the day starts at the Democracy Elementary and Middle School with a pre-dawn jog, some revolutionary songs and then an activity long since forgotten at other schools: reciting quotations from Mao Zedong's famed “Little Red Book”. While the ruling Communist Party that Mao led continues to hold him in esteem as the leader of the Communist Revolution, his radical policies and teachings have been largely shelved since his death in 1976 in favour of a pro-market approach that has turned China from a backwater into the world's second biggest economy. The 120th anniversary of Mao's birth is on December 26, 2013. (Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters)

A woman sits with a Great Dane during the first day of the Crufts dog show in Birmingham, central England March 6, 2014. (Photo by Darren Staples/Reuters)

A man eats in front of his Basset Hounds during the first day of the Crufts Dog Show in Birmingham, Britain March 9, 2017. (Photo by Darren Staples/Reuters)

A volunteer in the Kurdish Community Protection Forces guards wheat fields from fire or looting around the town of Tarbesbeyeh, also known as al-Qahtaniyah in Arabic, in northeastern Syria's Hasakeh Governorate near the Turkish border on May 30, 2024. (Photo by Delil Souleiman/AFP Photo)

Chinese actress Fan Bingbing poses on the champagne-colored red carpet during the Oscars arrivals at the 95th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 12, 2023. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)