This is the surrealistic landscape within a blood clot, the leading cause of heart attacks and strokes. The extreme close-up, produced by Fraser Macrae from the University of Leeds, UK, using a scanning electron microscope, won the judges' prize in the annual British Heart Foundation photography competition.
The grey background represents the clot itself. The coloured blobs, added later to the original black-and-white image, highlight details within the structure. Red blood cells appear in red, platelets in turquoise, and different types of white blood cells in purple, blue, green and yellow.
Although this photo won a prize for its beauty, zooming in on blood clots can help us understand why people with heart disease have unusual clot structures that make them harder to break down.
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.
No comments:
Post a Comment