Looking down a microscope always reminds us how much we can’t
see with the naked eye. The winners of the 2011 International
Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge provide a
tantalizing glimpse into the micro- and nanoscopic world. This
image of a thin slice of a mouse’s eye, above, was dyed so that
different tissues show up as different colors. Muscles are pale
yellow, for example, and the sclera is green. No, this isn’t a
cliff—it’s far too tiny. Each layer of titanium carbide—an
exceptionally hard material used in energy storage devices,
solar cells, and the like—in the stack pictured here is only 5
atoms thin. These honeycombed stalks are carbon nanotubules
illustrated by graphic artist Joel Brehm. Carbon nanotubules
have unique thermal and electric properties that give them
potential roles in everything from detecting cancer to powering
hydrogen cars. You might know these better as the little white
hairs on young cucumbers. But under 800x magnification, these
tiny outgrowths, called trichomes, lo