2 February 2012 Last updated at 14:14 ET

In pictures: Science meets art in annual contest

The results are in for this year's annual Visualisation Challenge, sponsored by Science magazine - dedicated to "conveying the complex substance of science through art". This illustration of carbon nanotubes of varying diameters helps University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers envision the unimaginably small.

Magnified image of the skin of an immature cucumber (RR Belliveau)

The contest is open to photographs and microscope images as well as pure artwork. Here, Robert Belliveau's 800-times magnification of a growing cucumber's skin shows its microscopic defence: trichomes. Forty times thinner than a needle, the sharp structures protect the cucumbers from being devoured as they grow.

Layered titanium/aluminium/carbon compound (B Anasori/M Naguib/Y Gogotsi/MW Barsoum)

This image by Drexel University scientists shows what happens to a material made of titanium, aluminium and carbon when it is placed in hydrofluoric acid - the aluminium is etched away, leaving incredibly thin layers loosely bound together. Such "two-dimensional" structures are a rich area of research in materials science.

Visualisation of a cell dividing (A Noske/T Deerinck/H O/C O'Shea)

In cell division, the cell membrane (blue) stretches, while the genetic storehouses called chromosomes (yellow) split into identical sets. This illustration from University of California and Salk Institute researchers is built up of real image "slices" of a cell caught in the act, assembled into a striking 3-D whole.

Artwork of Tumor deach-cell reseptors on a breast cancer cell (E Paul/Q Paul/R Gamble)

Some of the visualisations border on science fiction - attempting to capture the complexity of biological reactions that are still understood only on a basic level. Here, a University of Alabama Birmingham illustration shows tumor death-cell receptors surrounding a breast cancer cell being targeted by an antibody.

"Cosmic web" poster showing matter, dark matter, voids (MAA Calvo/J Aguilera/M Subbarao)

Johns Hopkins and Adler Planetarium researchers took the prize for Informational Posters. Their depiction of the "cosmic web" shows how matter moves through the Universe from low-density "voids" onto more dense "filaments", leading to "matter trails" and eventually to the more prosaic structures we know: stars and galaxies.

Section through a mouse retina (BW Jones)

First-place photography winner Bryan William Jones used a technique called Computational Molecular Phenotyping to image this slice through a mouse's retina. Differing types of tissue can be seen as different colours, with the optic nerve in blue at centre. The full list of winners can be seen at the Science website.