I participated in the Wiki Science Competition 2025, “an international photo contest for the sciences. It is organised by Wikimedia, which is the movement behind Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia – a global collaboration authored by volunteers.”
To participate, I submitted 32 microscopic images I had captured over the years. I first uploaded the images on Wikimedia as part of the Wiki Science Competition in India (national round); this is the first time India had a national round.
All my contributions can be accessed here.
I am one of three national winners in the Microscopy Images from India category.
This image has been selected as one of 61 finalists in the Microscopy Images category in the international round. The full list of finalists for this category can be found here.
The image is a photomicrograph of the lower epidermis of Aloe vera, viewed under brightfield illumination at 600X magnification. In an attempt to find alternative stains which are less toxic than conventional ones, a stain was prepared by first making a curcumin tincture from turmeric powder, and mixing it with an iodine tincture. The cytoplasms are stained yellow, the nuclei are stained brighter yellow, and the cell wall and guard cells are brown/ochre. The image was taken using an Olympus OIC student compound monocular microscope; the model was designed in the 1950s.