An interesting new imaging technique in use by fertility experts at the CARE fertility clinic in the United Kingdom may be the key to increasing the likelihood of a successful a IVF therapy. The process involves snapping thousands of images of embryos in development in order to help doctors better select which embryos to implant successfully.
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Gigapixel images are usually used to capture tiny details in expansive scenes, but scientists in the Netherlands recently created one that shows microscopic details in a tiny subject. Using a technique called virtual nanoscopy (a new relative of microscopy?), the researchers created a massive 281-gigapixel image of a 1.5-millimeter-long zebrafish embryo.
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Anna Franz, a researcher at the the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford, has won Nikon’s first annual Small World in Motion competition with an amazing video that shows the beating heart and blood vessels of a 72-hour-old chick embryo. Franz cut a window into an egg to expose the embryo, and then carefully injected ink into the yolk sac artery in order to visualize the beating heart and the vasculature of the embryo.

(via Nikon Small World via Feature Shoot)