Veytics Intelligence
2026-09-30 · CO

Tiny image sparks big backlash in Nikon photo contest

The winning entry of a prestigious scientific photography competition is being re-evaluated following criticism from other scientists that it was made with AI. Nikon's annual Small World In Motion contest accepts photos and video taken using powerful microscopes, and has run annually for the last 15 years. The winner was a short video submitted by Dr Ning Xu, a researcher at Tsinghua University in China, which claims to be footage of tiny, hair-like structures called cilia moving inside the airways of a child with a rare disease. Xu did not respond to the BBC's request for comment, but has posted online denying he broke the competition rules.

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