Last month, the winner of Nikon's Small World in Motion video contest was announced as Ning Xu of Tsinghua University in China, whose video captured tiny cilia beating in the airways of a child with a rare respiratory disorder. However, allegations surfaced regarding Xu's use of AI in creating the video. Nikon conducted an investigation and determined that Xu's entry did not comply with competition rules. The new winner is Nguyen Nam Nhat of Vietnam, who submitted a video featuring a tiny roundworm and a single-celled organism.
According to a BBC report, some researchers raised concerns about structural abnormalities in Xu's video, noting that cell features appeared and disappeared in ways not typically observed in cellular biology. Others identified what seemed to be AI watermarks embedded within the source files. Xu stated that he used AI to distinguish and visualize features in the reconstructed grayscale images but denied that AI was used to generate the experimental movie, the cilia, or their motion.
The Nikon Small World in Motion competition, established in 2011, is a continuation of the company's Small World Photomicrography Competition, which began in 1974. Both competitions aim to showcase the beauty and complexity of microscopic subjects, utilizing technological advancements that allow for the creation of movies or time-lapse images through the microscope.
With Xu's disqualification, other winners were elevated in rank. Benedikt Pleyer from Bavaria, Germany, placed second with a video of jellyfish larvae suspended in water droplets. Andrew Moore from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the US secured third place with a video of synchronized cell division in neighboring cells. Patrick Hickey from Hypha Research Ltd. in Edinburgh, Scotland, placed fourth with a video of the dynamics of mitochondria and chloroplasts in Turtle Vine leaf cells. Igor Adameyko rounded out the top five with a video of a tiny, colorful sea slug (Cyerce kikutarobabai) in motion.