The winning entry in Nikon’s annual Small World In Motion contest is facing re-evaluation following criticism from other scientists. Dr Ning Xu’s video, purporting to show cilia moving inside a child’s airways, has drawn sharp challenges over artificial intelligence usage, unusual cell shapes, and mismatched structural behaviors.
Nikon’s Small World In Motion contest has run annually for the last 15 years, accepting photos and videos captured using powerful microscopes. The prestigious scientific photography competition recently awarded its top prize to a short video submitted by Dr Ning Xu, a researcher at Tsinghua University in China. The submission claims to feature tiny, hair-like structures known as cilia moving inside the airways of a child diagnosed with a rare disease.
Contested AI Usage and Contest Rules
While Dr Xu did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment, he has addressed the backlash online, denying that he violated competition guidelines. In a response to a social media post by Nikon on LinkedIn, he acknowledged using AI during image processing but maintained that his entry stayed within permitted boundaries.
Scientific Objections Raised by Researchers
Meanwhile, Ian Donovan, a PhD student at UT Southwestern Medical Centre, pointed out that the source image appeared to contain a distinctive watermark indicating it had been AI generated. The debate has widened beyond outside observers, with two former competition judges also expressing concerns over whether the winning entry depicts real biological material.
Re-Evaluation by Nikon
In response to the mounting criticism from the scientific community, the winning entry of the scientific photography competition is currently undergoing re-evaluation.
