2023 Science Image Challenge

Winner - Main Category
2023 Winning Image - Rose in the flask

Rose in the flask
Some roses grow from flowerbeds, and others appear in chemistry labs. This rose-like hue and pattern formed at the bottom of a flask as dichloromethane solvent evaporated from an aromatic compound sample. The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons show useful electronic properties and also imparts color.

Xiaolin Liu, Moore Lab, Department of Chemistry

   

Finalists - Main Category

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Untitled - The image represented a 3D muscle ring made by C2C12 skeletal muscle. The cells were stained with fluorescent dye to label mature myotubes which showing in green color. This image is acquired with the lightsheet microscope in IGB. Kai-Yu Huang, Kong lab, Dept of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering.
Do Peptides Dream of Electric Sheep? An atomistic model of a molecular break junction: an oligopeptide is caught between two gold electrodes, forming a single-molecule circuit. Using a combined experimentalcomputational approach, we show that secondary structure plays an important role in determining electron transport in peptides. Image rendered using VMD and Blender. Moeen Meigooni, Tajkhorshid Lab, Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology, Dept of Biochemistry, Dept of Chemistry, Beckman Institute
Driving a muscle - What might resemble spiders or fireworks are, in fact, exquisite crystals of formazan. Astonishingly, these patterns are crafted not by 3D printing but by living cells. The reducing nature of mitochondrial enzymes yields insoluble Formazan crystals from 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol- 2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide, thereby used to assess the cellular toxicity of chemicals. Suritra Bandyopadhyay, Chan Lab, Dept of Chemistry
Golden Necklace - The “golden necklace” pattern was formed because of trapped air and water pockets during frontal ring-opening metathesis polymerization, an energy-efficient technique for fabricating high-quality thermosets and composites used in engineering applications. Wangsuk Oh, Xiao Su lab, Dept of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
Ugly duckling poly-donuts - Polymer electrolyte complexes can form particles with diverse shapes like bread dough. The electron microscopy image shows an uncommon donut-shaped (or toroidal) particle surrounded by spherical nanoparticles formed when drying the polymer electrolyte mixtures. Wangsuk Oh, Xiao Su lab, Dept of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

   

Winner - Cover Art Category
2023 Cover Winner - Raman imaging

Using Raman imaging, for the first time, we report phase-specific particle size distributions and shape characteristics for each phase in a set of 10 commercially available cements. By integrating these physical characteristics with chemical abundance, we establish a new parameter (CSQ) that can predict the 72 h cumulative heat of hydration (R2 = 0.86). This finding underscores the significance of phase-specific particle size distributions in predicting the performance of cementitious systems.

Yating Feng & Krishna C. Polavaram, Garg Lab, Departments of Civil & Environmental Engineering & Department of Chemistry