{"id":876848,"date":"2026-10-09T23:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T23:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/876848\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T23:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T23:38:08","slug":"ai-disqualification-yields-new-nikon-small-world-in-motion-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/876848\/","title":{"rendered":"AI disqualification yields new Nikon Small World in Motion winner"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>Last month <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2026\/09\/meet-the-winner-of-nikons-small-world-in-motion-video-contest\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">we covered<\/a> the winner of Nikon\u2019s Small World in Motion video: Ning Xu of Tsinghua University in China, whose video captured tiny cilia beating in the airways of a child with a rare respiratory disorder. But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/update-october-9-an-update-from-nikon-small-ugcPost-7506310017814401024-QfgZ\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">allegations surfaced<\/a> about Xu\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/ck4gjn1yzprno\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">use of AI<\/a> while making the video. Nikon launched an investigation and concluded that Xu\u2019s entry did not comply with competition rules. The new winner is Nguyen Nam Nhat of Vietnam with a video of a tiny roundworm and a single-celled organism (above).<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"3\">According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/ck4gjn1yzprno\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BBC report,<\/a> some researchers expressed concern that Xu\u2019s video had structural abnormalities and that cell features appeared and disappeared in a way one would not see in actual cellular biology. Others spotted what looked like AI watermarks embedded within the source files. Xu said he used AI \u201cto distinguish and visualize features in the reconstructed grayscale images\u201d; however, he denied that AI was used \u201cto generate the experimental movie, the cilia, or their motion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 2011, the Nikon Small World in Motion competition is a spinoff of the company\u2019s Small World Photomicrography Competition, which has been around since 1974. Both are meant \u201cto showcase the beauty and complexity of things seen through the light microscope\u201d\u2014one through still photographs, the other through photovideography, taking advantage of all the technological advances that now allow users to make movies or time-lapse images through the microscope.<\/p>\n<p>The other winners also moved up a notch with Xu\u2019s disqualification. Benedikt Pleyer of Bavaria, Germany, placed second with a video of jellyfish larvae suspended in water droplets; Andrew Moore of Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the US placed third with a video of synchronized cell division in neighboring cells; Patrick Hickey of Hypha Research Ltd. in Edinburgh, Scotland, placed fourth with a video of the dynamics of mitochondria and chloroplasts in Turtle Vine leaf cells; and Igor Adameyko placed fifth with a video of a tiny, colorful sea slug (Cyerce kikutarobabai) on the move.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month we covered the winner of Nikon\u2019s Small World in Motion video: Ning Xu of Tsinghua University&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":876849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[74],"class_list":["post-876848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}