Now in its eighth year, the Beaker Street Festival's Science Photography Prize tells the story of one of the more remote places on Earth, Australia's southern island state of Tasmania, and the 12 finalists for 2024 have captured the beauty and diversity of this far-flung region. These 12 finalists – all of which you can view in our gallery – weren't voted on by a panel of photographers but chosen half by competition judge Cam Blake and half by public vote. One of the most otherworldly, captivating images came from the camera of Luke Brokensha, who inventively used a scanning electron microscope to bring a tiny, single-celled calcifying phytoplankton ( ) to life.
These ball-like organisms, with a surface covered in calcium carbonate plates, are big players in fighting climate change, pumping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to deep into the ocean. It's a stunning look at a lifeform we're unlikely to ever see in our lives. Each finalist was selected because their image stood out in various categories – from showing a biological concept to showing human impact.
You can also , to see if the public got it right ...
"Glimpse into the endangered red handfish's unique beginnings" by Andrea Williamson is a special look at red handfish ( ) embryos. While only tiny, the survival of the species depends on them – there are fewer than 100 adults remaining in two small areas in Tasmania. "Eddies of Time" by Deon Scanlon captures the worn, rippled wood of a dead snow peppermint tre.
