Sharon Beals is a San Francisco based photographer who has photographed nest and eggs specimens collected over the last two centuries at The California Academy of Sciences, The Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, and The Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology. While few nests are collected today, these nests and eggs are used for research, providing important information about their builder’s habitats, DNA, diseases and other survival issues.

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)

Members of Japan's idol group “Virtual Currency Girls” wearing cryptocurrency-themed masks perform in their debut stage in Tokyo, Japan, January 12, 2018. Japanese female idols have teamed up to form the ‘Virtual Currency Girls’ group to promote the knowledge of cryptocurrencies through entertainment. Each of its 8 members represents a cryptocurrency: bitcoin cash, bitcoin, ether, neo, nem, ripple, mona, and cardano. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

“The pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis or Hexaprotodon liberiensis) is a large mammal native to the forests and swamps of western Africa (the specific name liberiensis means “of Liberia”, as this is where the vast majority live). The pygmy hippo is reclusive and nocturnal. It is one of only two extant species in the Hippopotamidae family, the other being its much larger cousin the common hippopotamus”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Monifa, a one month old baby Pygmy Hippopotamus takes a morning bath at Taronga Zoo on November 7, 2008 in Sydney, Australia. Monifa is the first Pygmy Hippopotamus to be born at Taronga Zoo in the past twenty three years. (Photo by Sergio Dionisio/Getty Images)

Twenty five life-size donkeys have been given pride of place in St Paul's Cathedral as part of an interfaith exhibition. They've been painted by Egyptian and Western artists, to show solidarity for the people of Egypt. Photo: Artist painted donkey statues are displayed in the “Caravan” exhibition on August 30, 2013 in London, England. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid)

The three peaks of Lavaredo, or the “Tre Cime di Lavaredo” in Italian, are three distinctive battlement-like peaks, in the Sexten Dolomites of northeastern Italy. They are probably one of the best-known mountain groups in the Alps, and one of the most photographed in Italy. The three peaks are named, from east to west, "little peak" (Cima Piccola), "big peak" (Cima Grande) and "western peak" (Cima Ovest). The Cima Grande has an elevation of 2,999 metres (9,839 ft). It stands between the Cima Piccola, at 2,857 metres (9,373 ft), and the Cima Ovest, at 2,973 metres (9,754 ft).

An exhausted and frustated migrant holds his head after he missed to get a place on a train heading to the Serbian border at the train station in Gevgelija, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, August 13, 2015. From the beginning of the year to mid-June 2015, nearly 160,000 migrants landed in the southern European countries, mainly Greece and Italy, on their way to wealthier countries in Western and Northern Europe, according to estimates by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). (Photo by Georgi Licovski/EPA)

A woman participates in an insect-eating competition at a scenic spot in Lijiang, Yunnan province, China June 25, 2017. Insects have been a part of Yunnan cuisine for centuries, long before their potential as sustainable sources of protein caught the eye of the Western world. Bee larvae, grasshoppers and cicadas are just some items found on menus in the region. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)