Gold in Special/Macro / 2025 / Special / Macro

• Prize
  Gold in Special/Macro
• Photographer
  Antonio Diego Molina-Garcia, Spain

Something dark and ominous lurking in the void… Actually starch granules, gelatinized by high hydrostatic pressure till their shape is almost completely lost. Starch complex polysaccharide structure, comprising a very complex arrangement of chains of polymerized glucose, incorporates water (when treated by high temperature or pressure). Granules get swollen, the polysaccharide chains protrude and granular shape becomes distorted. The image is an electron micrograph from a scanning microscope, which get surface images of the specimens, and was taken at -150 °C.