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Photos: Science captured as beautiful works of art

Alfred Anwander, MPI-CBS

A map of pathways inside a person’s brain.

Senior reporter

Published March 9, 2016This article is more than 2 years old.

Science and art are much closer than most people think. Every year, the world’s biggest charity for biomedical research, the Wellcome Trust, awards those who can visually display science as art.

Here is a list of Quartz’s favorite images from the 2016 winners of the Wellcome Image Awards.

The inanimate meets the animate

Izzat Suffian, Kuo-Ching Mei, Houmam Kafa & Khuloud T. Al-Jamal

Nanographene oxide interacting with bacteria.

Butterfly beauty

Daniel Saftner, Macroscopic Solutions

A close-up of the head of a swallowtail butterfly.

The sunset moth

Mark R Smith, Macroscopic Solutions

A close-up look at scales on a Madagascan sunset moth.

Sorry for the cold hand

Matthew Clavey, Thermal Vision Research

This picture shows the temperature of two people’s hands. The hand on the left is from a healthy person and is much hotter than the hand on the right, which is from someone with Raynaud’s disease.

Stem cells in action

Paula Alexandre, UCL

This circle of pictures shows different stages of a stem cell splitting in two inside the brain of a zebrafish before it hatches.

Allergic reaction

Nicola Kelley, Cardiff and Vale University Hospital NHS Trust

This girl has blisters on her arm because she is allergic to the Henna dye. The blisters will heal but they may leave marks on her skin.

Cow’s heart

Michael Frank, Royal Veterinary College

A preserved heart from a cow. It is 27 cm from top to bottom and is about four times the size of a human heart.

You can see the other winning entries in the Wellcome Image Awards here.