Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/ESPC in Ukraine

Published 12/15/2015

Title ideas edit

  • First scientific Wikimedia photo contest in Ukraine: How it all happened
  • Ukraine first to hold European Science Photo Competition 2015 and to present winners!

Summary edit

  • European Science Photo Competition 2015 was held is several countries all over Europe in November. Ukrainian Wikimedians joned the competition this year and decided to make it in October so they are the first ones to present the national results. Read more about how it all happened.

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Picturing inside antenna mirror of one of the biggest radio telescopes in the world: Yevpatoria RT-70. Image by Володимир Власенко, freely licensed under BY-SA 4.0.

 
Alwisia lloydiae, one of three images to receive first place in the "Microscopy" category. Images by Dr. Dmytro Leontyev (Uk: Дмитро Леонтьєв), freely licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

A wet and chilly month makes one want to curl up on a couch, bury oneself in a fluffy blanket, drink hot tea, and look at the falling golden leaves under dark and stormy clouds outside.

Intriguingly, "falling of leaves" is how the term "apoptosis" is translated from ancient Greek. Apoptosis, also known as "programmed cell death", describes how cells in a multicellular organism (e.g. human) can destroy themselves if enough damage is endured and there are little or no possibilities of repairs. Such a self-sacrificing mechanism allows the organism to survive, while the cell in question dies—not unlike how leaves fall off trees to minimize water loss by the tree and allowing it to survive throughout winter.

 
Reticularia olivacea, one of three images to receive first place in the "Microscopy" category. Images by Dr. Dmytro Leontyev (Uk: Дмитро Леонтьєв), freely licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Held in order to entice scientists into editing and creating Wikipedia articles, the photo competition helps spread the idea that it's actually possible to share one's research achievements in peer-reviewed journals while also helping the world's free encyclopedia obtain better illustrations.

ESPC has been held annually for the last three years, but this is the first time it expanded its scope beyond Estonia. All European countries could take part, and there were two rounds of winners—nationally and continentally. The competition took place in November, and the final awards will be handed out in the next two months.

 
Tubifera dudkae, one of three images to receive first place in the "Microscopy" category. Images by Dr. Dmytro Leontyev (Uk: Дмитро Леонтьєв), freely licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

In Ukraine, however, we moved up the timeline a month so our national winners could be honored on November 10, World Science Day. This ceremony was held at the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, and the winning images, reprinted below, are currently being exhibited.

You can see more images on Commons: ESPC winners, award ceremony, and the best 159 images—from single molecules seen with an scanning tunneling microscope to different cell lines and archaeological expeditions to astronomy images.

The first place in the category "Image sets" represents an interesting mechanism for ischemic preconditioning of the heart, when under experimental conditions a heart can be "trained" to cope better with loss of blood supply. Image by Goshovska

User:Helixitta, Wikimedia Ukraine

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