Award-winning science images... Proof in Images 2021

The public chose “The Scream” by Stephan Borensztajn and Caroline Thaler. This surprising structure is the random result of the incremental growth of a colony of bryozoans of the species Cellaria fistulosa, which are sub-millimetric reef builders. Each organism lives in a sort of calcium carbonate box with openings, with the main one enabling the animal to filter sea water and feed. These small organisms, which live in colonies at all latitudes, play a major role in climate regulation by storing CO₂ dissolved in sea water in their mineral skeleton. Researchers are trying to better understand bryozoans’ resistance to environmental stresses in a context of ocean acidification.

The Grand Jury's Prize was awarded to Bertrand Rebière and Bruno Alonso for their “A Zeolite's Dream on a Summer Night”, a rather pleasing arrangement of zeolite crystals on carbon tape examined with a scanning electronic microscope (SEM) which produces 3D images. Zeolites, which are like tiny, hard, dense sponges, are extremely porous and have unique properties: a single gramme of zeolite consists of billions of pores and cavities close to a nanometre in size, with an internal surface area of up to... 900 m²! The goal is to explore and characterise the internal structure of these crystals at nanometre-scale to better understand and assess their physico-chemical properties. Zeolites are able to absorb and filter chemical compounds, and are also used in the manufacture of more efficient and green catalysts.

The Jury’s “Coup de Coeur Prize” was awarded to two images that tied:

• one called “A Cellular van Gogh” by Louise Griveau and Émilie Christin. When muscle precursor cells fuse, they are able to form these hazy structures, reminiscent of the painter, Van Gogh's Starry Night. After staining, the image was produced by confocal laser scanning microscopy. These cells are cultivated on a highly nutritious matrix – Matrigel – that is used as a medium to study their behaviour to develop innovative biomaterials. These biomaterials will act as dressings that can fill the cavity left by deep tissue wounds. The goal is to find new therapeutic solutions for the management of chronic or complex wounds, such as diabetic or bullet wounds, and to improve myopathy-related symptoms.
• one called the “School of Sentinels” by Jean-François Humbert that shows a class in a school in the village of Aghien-Télégraphe, near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire. A teacher is talking to his pupils, the future local sentinels, about protecting the natural resources close to them, as the village is situated on the edge of a freshwater lagoon which more than 10,000 inhabitants depend on. To minimise their health impact, the lagoon is closely monitored as part of a participatory monitoring project where the involvement of local people is a key factor.

Discover the 20 winners in pictures.