Soldier boys at Fort Dix, N.J., learn something about guns during their working hours, as they show their girlfriends at a camp dance, December 13, 1940. In front row, playing with the coin amusement gun, from left: Pvt. Tom D'Amato of West Orange; Rose Sinkewicz, behind gun site, of Trenton; Julia Ivans of Trenton, and Pvt. Vernon Landers of Kearney. Back row: Pvts. William Sargent and William Corlies of Philadelphia. (Photo by AP Photo)

Flowers and an iPad showing a picture of Steve Jobs are placed at a makeshift memorial for Steve Jobs at the Apple headquarters on October 5, 2011 in Cupertino, California. Jobs, 56, passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer... (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Two women wearing bejewelled bras kiss during the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival in Sydney, Australia March 4, 2017. (Photo by Jason Reed/Reuters)

Students wearing masks as a precaution amid the spread of COVID-19 put away a Cuban flag so it does not get wet in the rain on their first day of school after months without face-to-face classes in Havana, Cuba, Monday, November 8, 2021. As Cuba approaches the announced date of Nov. 15 for the reopening of the entire country to the world, getting children back to school is one of its priorities. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)

In this November 3, 2019, photograph a child with Down syndrome jokingly gestures to the audience while presenting ponchos displaying drawings inspired by children, during a fashion show dubbed “heART Couture” in Bucharest, Romania.Children with Down syndrome staged a fashion show and performed along a ballet ensemble, two milestone events for the inclusion of people with disabilities in Romania's social life, 30 years after the fall of communism following a violent uprising at the end of 1989. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

University students wearing Guy Fawkes masks pose for a photoshoot of a graduation ceremony to support anti-government protests at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, in Hong Kong, China on October 30, 2019. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

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)