The winning entry of Nikon’s 15‑year‑old Small World In Motion contest has sparked debate after peers argue it bears signs of AI editing, undermining the contest’s integrity.
Nikon accepts stills and videos shot with powerful microscopes, and this year the top prize—a $3,000 reward—went to a video by Dr. Ning Xu from Tsinghua University, supposedly showing cilia moving inside a child’s airway with a rare disease.
Xu has not responded to this inquiry but posted online rejecting any breach of rules, saying AI “was not used to generate the experimental movie, the cilia, or their motion.” Link to LinkedIn post
He admits AI helped highlight features in the grayscale reconstruction, a permitted form of image enhancement that can involve manual staining and digital colourization, but critics contend the filmed structures look too large and appear to pop in and out, inconsistent with real cellular behaviour.
Associate professor Edward Phelps of Florida University described the motion as “appearing from nowhere”; PhD student Ian Donovan reported a watermark that “indicates it had been AI generated”; two former judges also raised doubts.
Nikon says it is cooperating and has supplied extra technical data, asserting no rules were broken, while Dr. Patrick Hickey—an 2026 finalist—said authenticity matters to all participants and that if the video were manipulated it would be unfair.
The company pledged a thorough review will follow, leaving the scientific community—and any future entrants—to watch closely as the investigation unfolds.
