geekosystem

No, that's not the next wave of futuristic eye exams you see before you -- it's a still from a video of what happens when you activate the lymph node of a mouse with a laser to trigger its immune response. That's the video that won Nikon's Small World In Motion microscope video contest for the best moving images of tiny, tiny things from last year. Keep reading to see this and other awesome videos that capture the beauty of things that are usually way too small to see.

In a stirring reminder of what art and science can do when they put their minds together, faculty from the art and geology departments at Syracuse University have joined forces to make a DIY lava flow in one of the school's parking lots. The picture above is not an artistic exploration of the nature of molten rock, or a very convincing substitute that helps students better understand the nature of a geological phenomenon that isn't often seen in upstate New York. No siree, that is honest-to-goodness homemade molten basalt right there. Hit the jump for more info on the project and a video of the homemade lava flow in action.