Wikipedia:Wiki Science Competition 2019 in the United States/Full results

This gallery contains the national finalists of the 2019 Wiki Science Competition in the United States. The jury selected 36 finalists across six categories from 1,144 submissions. These images represented the United States at the international level. For more information see the main results page.

People in science

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  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.
  National Jury's Choice Award
  International Winner
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  Measuring glacial sediment by Sam Altenberger. An undergraduate researcher at Pacific Lutheran University analyzes glacial stream depth and sediment content. (tie)
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  Water sampling in Kiritimati by Stephan Hlohowskyj. A climate scientist takes water sample from one of Kiritimati Island's many hypersaline lakes. (tie)
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  Micropipette focus by Maggieliv. A biomedical science teacher puts simulated DNA into the gel for electrophoresis.
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  Exploring wildfire ecology by Sam Altenberger. A student examines a burnt tree near Domke Lake in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest.
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  Synthetic biology on a Costa Rican beach by MattWildCat. A researcher collects water samples in Costa Rica to test portable diagnostics for water quality utilizing synthetic biology-based principles.

Microscopy

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  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.
  National Jury's Choice Award
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  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.
  National Jury's Choice Award
  International QSORT Prize
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  3D projection of a Patiria miniata bipinnaria by Natalie Carrigan. A bat star bipinnaria at fourth day of development photographed using confocal microscopy, with histones labeled in blue and actin filaments in orange.
  International Runner-Up
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  Acorn fibers by Marissa Dessellier. The fibers lining the inside of an acorn shell imaged using a scanning electron microscope at 330x BEC.
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  Fly's mouth and tongue by C1bill. The tongue of a common house fly flaring out, imaged using a phase contrast light condenser attached to the microscope.
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  Fossil shark tooth by Rylan Bachman. A fossil shark tooth from the genus Squalicorax found in Hill Annex Mine State Park in Calumet, Minnesota, imaged at 182X magnification using stitching and extended depth of field.

Wildlife

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  Killer whales hunting a seal by Callan Carpenter. Four killer whales 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.
  National Jury's Choice Award
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  Killer whales hunting a seal by Callan Carpenter. One moment during a two-hour encounter off the Graham Coast, Antarctica, between four cooperatively hunting orcas and a crabeater seal, which survived the ordeal despite over three dozen attempts by the orcas to wash him off of various ice floes.
  National Jury's Choice Award
  International Runner-Up
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  Highland cow in Edinburgh by Ashley Lee. A highland cow roaming a hill in Edinburgh, Scotland.
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  Immature phidippus by Ryan Kaldari. An immature Phidippus jumping spider in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
  International Runner-Up
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  Final toss before gulping by Aaditya C. Deodhar. At a lake in Bangalore, India, a Darter bird goes underwater, pierces a fish with its dart like beak, and comes out of water to make the final gulp. (tie)
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  Little bird looking in the mirror by 木偶人1962. A white wagtail (Motacilla alba) views its reflection in a car mirror. (tie)

Non-photographic media

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  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.
  National Jury's Choice Award
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  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.
  National Jury's Choice Award
  International Winner
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  Atomistic models of quantum dots by Nbrawand. Atomistic models of quantum dots were constructed through density functional theory calculations to study their theoretical efficiency for photovoltaic applications, and later used to render this image.
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  Entropy of the cosmic microwave background by Imagtek. This image was created by independently computing the entropy of each image plane within the ESA Planck satellite's cosmic microwave background map.
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  RNA Polymerase by Maria Voigt / PDB-101. RNA polymerase is a complex enzyme at the heart of transcription, whereby the enzyme unwinds the DNA double helix and uses one strand (darker orange) as a template to create the single-stranded messenger RNA (green).
  International Runner-Up
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  Fluorescent coral movie by Erin Rod.

General

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  MRI self portrait by Tomas Diaz. The subject's MRI images incorporated into a picture of his head, to create a self portrait that not only showed the head but also what's really inside of it.
  National Jury's Choice Award
  International Runner-Up
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  Jupiter's south polar region by Michael S. Adler. A composite image showing a series of cyclones averaging 6000 miles in size. This is the first time the polar regions of Jupiter have been observed and is made possible by the unique polar orbits of the Juno spacecraft.
  National Jury's Choice Award
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  Gibbous moon by Michael S. Adler. The image was taken in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and is a mosaic of four pictures each of which is comprised of 250 stacked pictures.
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  Elephant's trunk nebula by Ram Samudrala. Elephant's trunk nebula in 2018 from the photographer's backyard.
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  NGC 7822 nebula by Michael S. Adler. NGC 7822 lies in the constellation Cepheus and is in a region of a large cloud of gas and dust 3000 light years distant. The image includes data from narrowband filters, mapping emission from atomic oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur into blue, green, and red hues. To make this image there were a total of 180 images taken over a period of 62 hours with two telescopes.
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  Blood moon eclipse by Astrofalls. This is a long exposure image of the January 2019 lunar eclipse taken from Picacho Peak in southern Arizona. The combined light of all sunrises and sunsets casts the moon in a red color, with a flair of haze present from high clouds.

Image sets

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Polarization microscopy of black ink by Erin Rod.

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Electron microscopy of plants by Marissa Dessellier. Scanning electron microscope images of acorns, grass, and a flower.

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P. miniata journey to metamorphosis by Natalie Carrigan. The growth of Patiria miniata from fertilization to the late brachiolaria stage of development, taken using differential interference contrast microscopy at 20x, 10x, and 5x magnification.

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MRISAR robotics R&D team by Victoria Lee Croasdell. Activities of MRISAR, a family-owned robotics business in North Dakota. Everything from MRISAR is designed and prototyped by two generations of 4 family members.

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Fluorescence microsopy of cells by Erin Rod. Images of bovine pulmonary artery endothelial cells and mouse kidney section, as well as E. coli expressing the small Ultra-Red Fluorescent Protein.

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  MicroCT scan of a mouse skull by Tiffany Chern. The head from an adult mouse was scanned through microCT at a resolution of 11 μm. Top and side view images of the reconstructed dataset are at the center. Anterior to posterior serial pseudo-colored coronal images are oriented clockwise beginning from the top-left corner.