Ning Xu of Tsinghua University has won Nikon's Small World in Motion video contest for capturing tiny cilia beating in the airways of a child with a rare respiratory disorder. The disease is defined by movement, requiring live observation of cilia, which are too small and fast for conventional microscopy. Most advanced techniques use intense light or fluorescent dyes, which harm living samples.

As an optical engineer, Xu developed a method using diffractive super-resolution microscopy with multiple light waves and a digital micromirror to shape light, minimizing exposure while capturing high-resolution motion. "To understand this disease, you need to observe around 10 seconds of motion," he said, emphasizing that video reveals the beauty and importance of cilia function. The competition transforms microscopy into a shared language. Nguyen Nam Nhat of Vietnam placed second with a roundworm and single-celled organism video; Benedikt Pleyer of Bavaria, Germany, placed third with jellyfish larvae in water droplets; Andrew Moore of Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the US placed fourth with synchronized cell division; and Patrick Hickey of Hypha Research Ltd. in Edinburgh, Scotland, placed fifth with mitochondrial and chloroplast dynamics in Turtle Vine leaf cells.