Optical Microscopy

synopsis of cnn article:

Michael Davidson, a scientist -- and fervent microscope buff -- at the National High Magnetic Field Labs at Florida State University received press recently for his site Molecular Expressions which features color photographs taken through an optical microscope (commonly referred to as "photo-micro-graphs") of just about everything from beer and cocktails to integrated circuits and ice cream.

"You get the pretty images due to the light hitting the defects in the materials," said Davidson.

His passion for detail led him to another discovery. While photographing the surface of tiny integrated circuits for a research project, the art-loving professor found miniscule silicon creatures embedded on the surface of hundreds of computer chips -- put there by engineers longing for a bit of recognition. Turns out that after spending several months or years designing a chip, some techies would get special pleasure from secretly stamping their creations -- even if those signatures could only be seen through a microscope.

"Scientific images are very artistic, and we wanted to present the artistic merit of science," Davidson said.

It's taken nine years and has cost more than $5 million to create the site. But it draws 40,000 visitors a day, swallowing up about a quarter of the university's Internet bandwidth, he said.