And the Winners of the Annual Agar Art Contest....

Environmental & Science Education, STEM, Microbiology, Art and Environment

Ed Hessler

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) holds an annual art contest. This year it expanded the type of art to any kind of art so long as it adhered to the overall theme "Microbes Are Beautiful." In the past the art had to be based in agar (aka agar-agar). If you need a short refresher--few of us have experience with it--see the Wiki entry.

"Overall," ASM writes, "we got 189 submissions from 203 different submitters, representing 29 countries around the globe. Each of the pieces of art was incredible on its own, which made picking winners difficult. After a rigorous, 2-round judging process, we chose the top 3 in each category, along with People's Choice awards determined by voting on our Facebook page."

And here they are.

Lovely and amazing.