Wikipedia:Wiki Science Competition 2019 in the United States/Results

in the United States

The 2019 Wiki Science Competition in the United States announces its national finalists, all of which will advance to the international phase of the competition. The Wiki Science Competition is an international science photography competition first organized in Estonia, expanding in 2015 to all of Europe, and in 2017 to the rest of the world. The U.S. branch of the competition was organized by Wikimedia District of Columbia.

Participants uploaded their submissions during November and December 2019. The U.S. competition received 1,144 contributions across six categories. These included 359 general images, 333 images of wildlife, 76 images of people in science, 161 microscopy images, 59 non-photographic submissions, and 156 images as part of sets. The jury selected six winners in each category to represent the United States at the international level. Of the 28 awardees, only 5 had previous contributions to Wikimedia Commons. In addition, the panels selected eight submissions as "Jury's Choice" awards, each of which receives a $250 prize from Wikimedia District of Columbia.

Thanks to our volunteer judges for their efforts. The jury for the U.S. competition is John P. Sadowski of Wikimedia District of Columbia; Esther Jackson of the New York Botanical Garden; Ian Ramjohn of the Wiki Education Foundation; Laura Soito of the University of New Mexico; Jamie Flood of the National Agricultural Library; and Kevin Payravi of Wikimedia District of Columbia.

Jury's Choice winners

B mode in microwave sky by Uros Seljak. Milky Way dust emission as measured from the Planck satellite and converted into a polarization pattern of B-modes, a spiral type of polarization imprinted in the microwave sky.

I am a cosmologist and a professor of physics and astronomy at UC Berkeley. In my group we do research on cosmic microwave background and its polarization. Scientists believe that our universe started with a period of rapid expansion called inflation, during which tiny quantum seeds were imprinted into the fabric of space, leading in time to creation of galaxies, stars and planets, including our Earth. To prove this theory scientists are searching for B-modes, a mysterious spiral pattern from the early universe hidden in the cosmic microwave light. In 1997 I proposed to search for B-modes to prove this inflation theory. Since then many experiments have been searching for it.

This image shows a pattern of dust induced polarization from our own galaxy, as measured by Planck satellite (which was a joint ESA–NASA mission), where polarization is represented with the field lines. Polarization can be thought of as a headless vector, so it has a direction and an amplitude. This dust polarization that we see is not B-mode, but is a contamination that we have to get rid of to get to the real signal: a few years ago there was a major announcement that B-modes have been discovered, just to be later shown to be dust, which shows how difficult these measurements are. But we also placed a small amount of B-mode into one specific spot in the image to give the idea of what these B-modes look like. It is the spot with the spiral pattern.

The story about this image is however more colorful: I was looking to create a label for an amber white wine that I am making (for myself, not for sale) in Slovenia, where I am originally from (I am a U.S. citizen now). So this led to the idea to weave the story of my research into this wine label, and many attempts later led to this result. I have always been attracted to the concept of science inspired images that can look beautiful. I think this competition is a perfect example of this concept and I am glad that it exists.

Jupiter's south polar region by Michael S. Adler. A composite image made from individual images taken by the the Juno spacecraft, the first time the polar regions of Jupiter have been observed. The images shows a series of cyclones averaging 6000 miles in size.

I am an electrical engineer by training, having received a Ph.D. from MIT in 1971 in the area of solid state physics. I have always been interested in astronomy and as a child and had a 4" telescope. Over the years I also developed an interest in photography mainly with a focus on travels all around the world such as recently to Nepal twice, Scotland 3 times, Iceland 3 times, New Zealand 4 times, Spitzbergen, and South America and Antarctica. About 20 years ago I acquired a high quality 6" refractor and then after retirement from GE in 2000, I also equipped the telescope with an astronomical camera and other equipment for doing astro photography. Then in 2014 I built an observatory here in Jackson WY and added a 12.5" and a 20" telescope. My astronomy images can be seen at http://www.earthandskyimages.com .

The image of Jupiter’s south pole is a unique view that before the Juno satellite mission was never seen. The imaging is done in a program where NASA provides the raw images and leaves it up to amateur's to do the processing. Making this image was a challenge as the JunoCam camera captures only about a third of the polar region on an pass plus there is some motion blurring in the raw images. It was necessary to combine the images from three separate orbital passages, the 1st, 3rd, and 4th, (NASA calls them perijoves for close passages). The overlap from the images was quite small so it was difficult to match up the features requiring some hand adjustments in Photoshop. The blurring effects were reduced using a filter known as a Wiener filter in the PixInsight program and together with some Photoshop enhancements to improve clarity and color resulted in the final image.

Killer whales hunting a seal by Callan Carpenter. Four killer whales off the Graham Coast, Antarctica, swimming in close synchronization just below the surface of the water as they charge an ice floe, creating a strong bow wave with which they hope to wash the crabeater seal off the ice floe.

I live with my wife (Carolyn) and two children (Cole and Grace) in Austin, Texas where I graduated from the University of Texas in 1985 with a degree in Electrical Engineering, and in 2002 with an MBA. I am currently the Vice President of Business Operations for Unity 3D, a provider of real-time 3D processing engines for games, simulations, VR/AR applications, and machine learning. Science and photography are both passions of mine, with a special interest in Astronomy. I sit on three advisory committees for the University of Texas including the Engineering Advisory Board for the Cockrell School of Engineering, the External Advisory Committee for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Board of Visitors for the McDonald Observatory and Department of Astronomy.

The picture of "Kevin" and the whales came about as the result of a promise my wife and I made to the kids to take them to all 7 continents before they left home for good. In December of 2017 we embarked for our final continent (Antarctica) aboard the National Geographic "Explorer". This is an ice-class expedition ship where we were joined by other guests as well as National Geographic photographers and scientists. While steaming toward the Antarctic Circle on Jan 3, 2018, our expedition lead spotted a group of orcas "spy hopping" in the Grandidier Channel off of Graham Land. Orcas do this in order to survey ice floes for basking Weddell seals – a favorite meal of theirs. However, this group had come upon a crabeater seal which they rarely hunt. The biologist speculate that the whales chose to hunt this seal more as a training exercise for the juvenile whale seen in both photographs.

The whales demonstrated amazing intelligence, hunting the seal cooperatively by using synchronized swimming formations to create bow waves with which to wash the seal off the ice floe. They changed tactics several times over the two hours we observed them, including physically breaking up the seal’s ice floes, forcing him to race to new ice platforms three or four times. Despite being washed overboard some 38 times, Kevin eventually survived the ordeal and fled the scene. While this cooperative behavior was known in the literature, it has only been photographed and videoed a very small number of times. A Google search for "Kevin vs the Orcas" will take you to several Youtube videos shot that day by the National Geographic videographer on board the Explorer. As for me, I took over 1000 photographs of the event from my position in the bow of the ship, earning a bit of a nasty sunburn in the process!

Lidar point cloud of San Francisco intersection by Daniel L. Lu. Orthographic projection of a registered point cloud captured using lidar mounted on a moving car at the intersection of Folsom and Dore Streets in San Francisco.

I have always been fascinated by different imaging methods, ranging from photography to line scan photography to lidar. To me, lidar seems to be quite literally the next dimension in imaging. It is always so cool to see structure emerge from a point cloud. As such I've been interested in lidar for years. In 2013 I started the Wikipedia article on Point Set Registration, a technique for fusing multiple point clouds (for example, from a lidar).

In 2014 to 2016, I did a Master's degree at Carnegie Mellon University on lidar-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) for an autonomous vehicle. Since 2016 I've been working at Ouster, a startup that manufactures lidar for autonomous vehicles and robots. This picture was created with the SLAM algorithm I've developed at Ouster. I noticed a dearth of lidar imagery on Wikipedia, especially from automotive lidar, and I saw the banner for the Wiki Science competition, so I decided to submit this image. I picked this frame because it showcases the capability of the lidar well, as the lidar intensity reveals details such as text on the walls and lane markings on the ground, and the point cloud itself is detailed enough to identify specific models of cars, such as a Fiat 500 and a Dodge Ram.

Baffled LIGO scientists by Nutsinee Kijbunchoo. Two researchers at LIGO Hanford's Pre-Stabilized Laser enclosure are baffled by the low amount of light coupling into the new fiber coupler they just installed.

I'm a physics PhD student based at the National Australian University, Canberra, Australia. I always thought black holes were cool but distorted space-time and gravitational waves got me hooked -- so I joined the LIGO Scientific Collaboration during my final year of undergraduate study in 2014. I was working as an operations specialist in the control room at LIGO Hanford, one of the two U.S. based gravitational-wave detectors, when the first gravitational wave was detected on September 14th, 2015. After spending less than a year in Australia my advisor sent me back to LIGO Hanford to help construct and commission the quantum squeezing system (aka "squeezer") prior to the third observing run and again during the third observing run break.

I would always carry a camera around for documentation purposes. One of my hobbies happens to be street photography so unconsciously I would point my camera at people in addition to documenting the science for my thesis. On a rare day when I didn't have to work at my own corner, I followed Georgia Mansell (MIT postdoc) and Jason Oberling (site detector engineer) into the Pre-Stabilized Laser (PSL) enclosure. It was my first time seeing the inside of one of the most guarded areas of LIGO. Inside the PSL is where the laser we use to detect gravitational waves generates. It is literally where it all begins. While I was watching Georgia and Jason work I snapped this photo as the two were baffled by the low amount of light coupling into the new fiber coupler they just installed. Just like every other equipment, LIGO too needs to be maintained constantly.

When we read about scientific discoveries on the news or hear science talks at conferences often times the human factor is neglected. LIGO isn't just a giant machine that listens to black hole and neutron star collisions. It takes decades and generations of scientists to get to where it is today. Routine maintenance is also required to keep the detector(s) operational. By sharing this photo with a wider audience via the competition I hope to bring human back into science. Science is cool, I know, but after all it's the quirky human scientists that make the science happen and inspire generations to come.

MRI self portrait by Tomas Diaz. The subject's MRI images incorporated into a picture of his head, showing the relationship between its internal and external features.

I created this image immediately after I took an MRI of my head. I used the MRI images of my own head incorporated them into a picture of my head by slicing the image and coloring the MRI in red. I wanted to create a self portrait that not only showed my head but also what's really inside of it.

Earthworm head by Hannah G. Watson, Andrew T. Ashchi, Glen S. Marrs, and Cecil J. Saunders. Scanning electron micrograph of a newly hatched European nightcrawler (Eisenia hortensis). Clearly depicted in this photo are the earthworm's first 5 segments, mouth, prostomium, and the setea.

We are a group of researchers in the Wake Forest Department of Biology interested in the chemical senses of Earthworms. Earthworms have a profound effect on the soil they live in and while many scientists have observed that they can respond to chemicals in the soil, little is known regarding the cellular mechanisms that enable their nervous system to detect chemical signals.

Hannah Watson and Andrew Ashchi are two undergraduate researchers that Glen Marrs and I have been training in electron microscopy so that they can characterize the development of the cells that make up the earthworm's chemosensory organs. This was one of Hannah's and Andrew's first photos of the head of a newly hatch earthworm; they had presented it at lab meeting shortly before I saw an announcement about the Wiki Science photo competition and it was so striking I thought it would make a good entry.

See the light by Jeremy J. Axelrod. While typically light is used to image matter, here the opposite is accomplished: by passing an electron beam perpendicularly through an ultra-intense laser beam we are able to image the crests and troughs of electromagnetic wave that constitutes the laser beam.

This image was a by-product of a multi-year research project in the Mueller group at the University of California, Berkeley. The goal of the project is to use extremely high intensity laser light to increase the image contrast in transmission electron microscopy. The image, taken during our first test run, is actually the result of an intentional misalignment of the electron microscope. When I showed the image to a colleague, they said it reminded them of Gerhard Richter's painting "Strontium". That comment inspired me to submit the image to the Wiki Science Competition.

All finalists

All 25 U.S. finalists are displayed below. The full results gallery contains more information about the winning photographs, including the complete winning image sets.

Baffled LIGO scientists by Nutsinee Kijbunchoo
Earthworm head by Hannah G. Watson, Andrew T. Ashchi, Glen S. Marrs, and Cecil J. Saunders
Killer whales hunting a seal by Callan Carpenter
Lidar point cloud of San Francisco intersection by Daniel L. Lu
MRI self portrait by Tomas Diaz
Polarization microscopy of black ink by Erin Rod
Measuring glacial sediment by Sam Altenberger
See the light by Jeremy J. Axelrod
Killer whales hunting a seal by Callan Carpenter
B mode in microwave sky by Uros Seljak
Jupiter's south polar region by Michael S. Adler
Electron microscopy of plants by Marissa Dessellier
Water sampling in Kiritimati by Stephan Hlohowskyj
3D projection of a Patiria miniata bipinnaria by Natalie Carrigan
Highland cow in Edinburgh by Ashley Lee
Atomistic models of quantum dots by Nbrawand
Gibbous moon by Michael S. Adler
P. miniata journey to metamorphosis by Natalie Carrigan
Micropipette focus by Maggieliv
Acorn fibers by Marissa Dessellier
Immature phidippus by Ryan Kaldari
Entropy of the cosmic microwave background by Imagtek
Elephant's trunk nebula by Ram Samudrala
MRISAR robotics R&D team by Victoria Lee Croasdell
Exploring wildfire ecology by Sam Altenberger
Fly's mouth and tongue by C1bill
Final toss before gulping by Aaditya C. Deodhar
RNA Polymerase by Maria Voigt / PDB-101
NGC 7822 nebula by Michael S. Adler
Fluorescence microsopy of cells by Erin Rod
Synthetic biology on a Costa Rican beach by MattWildCat
Fossil shark tooth by Rylan Bachman
Little bird looking in the mirror by 木偶人1962
Fluorescent coral movie by Erin Rod
Blood moon eclipse by Astrofalls
MicroCT scan of a mouse skull by Tiffany Chern