Every year, Nikon’s Small World in Motion competition reminds us that life is not a still picture. The 2026 edition, the 16th, received 347 entries from 40 countries, judged on originality, informational content, technical proficiency and visual impact. The top three videos show a roundworm and a single-celled hunter sharing a droplet, jellyfish larvae swirling inside water drops, and two neighboring cells dividing in step.

A note on the ranking

The podium you see today is not the one announced on September 16, 2026. At that time, first place went to Dr. Ning Xu for a video of abnormally beating airway cilia from a child with primary ciliary dyskinesia, and the videos below were ranked second to fourth. On October 9, Nikon announced that after re-evaluating the video and its supporting materials with members of the judging panel, it had determined that the winning video did not comply with the competition rules on generative AI, and adjusted the rankings. Nikon stated that the decision concerns only the entry’s eligibility and is not a judgment of the entrant’s reputation, scientific contributions or intent.

According to news reports, Dr. Xu said that AI was not used to generate the experimental movie, the cilia or their motion, and that it was used in post-processing to distinguish and color structures in reconstructed grayscale images. Nikon has not publicly detailed what role generative AI played. The ranking below follows Nikon’s updated list.

1st place: a roundworm and a Dileptus explore their world

Nguyen Nam Nhat (Nguyen Nam OME, Chu Se, Gia Lai, Vietnam) filmed a tiny roundworm and a single-celled Dileptus going about their business in the same microscopic space. Dileptus is a ciliate, a predator made of a single cell, so the scene is a meeting between a very small animal and a very large protist. The video was captured with differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy at 40X objective magnification, a technique that turns tiny differences in thickness and density into a three-dimensional-looking relief without any stains.

2nd place: jellyfish larvae in water droplets

Benedikt Pleyer (Kirchberg, Bavaria, Germany) recorded jellyfish larvae suspended in water droplets using darkfield microscopy at 25X. In darkfield, the sample is lit from the side so that it glows against a black background, which is why transparent larvae stand out so sharply. Seen in a droplet, the larvae move in a small, curved world bounded by the water’s surface tension.

3rd place: synchronized cell division in neighboring cells

Dr. Andrew Moore (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, Virginia, USA) captured neighboring cells dividing in a synchronized way. The video was recorded with confocal microscopy at 63X, which builds sharp images by rejecting out-of-focus light. Nikon’s listing does not give further detail on the cell type or the biology behind the synchrony, so I will not speculate here.

https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2026-small-world-in-motion-competition/synchronized-cell-division-in-neighboring-cells

Beyond the podium

Fourth place went to Dr. Patrick Hickey for confocal footage of mitochondria and chloroplasts moving inside Turtle Vine leaf cells, and fifth to Dr. Igor Adameyko for a tiny, colorful sea slug on the move. The full list of winners and honorable mentions is in the 2026 gallery, and Nikon also publishes the winning videos on its YouTube channel.

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