Beautiful, ominous, and surprising, these are the winners of the 2012 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. For 10 years, the competition -- sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the journal Science -- has celebrated the creators of visually striking, informative, and original art. The 2012 winners were announced today. From glowing corals to spiky seeds to neural networks on a chip, these images speak more clearly -- and louder -- than any report ever could. Above: Alya Red: A Computational Heart First Place and People's Choice (Video) This visceral, 3-d simulation of a beating heart grabbed first place in its category. A team at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center produced the contracting digital organ using a combination of data from magnetic resonance images, observations of cardiac muscle contractions and electrical signals, and input from physicians and bioengineers. Reproducing a single heartbeat takes 100 minutes of computing time, so the team distributed calculations among the facility's 10,000 processors. The result is a beautifully simulated, seemingly tangible, spasming organ. Credit: Guillermo Marin, Fernando Cucchietti, Mariano Vazquez, Carlos Tripiana; Barcelona

Supercomputing Center

Connectivity of a Cognitive Computer Based on the Macaque Brain First Place (Illustration) Neural networks could one day form the basis of a brain-inspired computer chip. This visualization represents the simulation of a macaque's neural connections. Designed by cognitive computing researchers at IBM, the diagram depicts more than 4,000 centers of neuronal attachment, each represented as a dot along the ring, connected by more than 320,739 arcs. Credit: Emmett McQuinn, Theodore M. Wong, Pallab Datta, Myron D. Flickner, Raghavendra

Singh, Steven K. Esser, Rathinakumar Appuswamy, William P. Risk, and Dharmendra S.

Modha; IBM Research - Almaden

Biomineral Single Crystals First Place and People's Choice (Photography) Who knew sea urchin teeth looked like this? Under a scanning electron microscope -- and with the help of some false color -- they do, thanks to tooth-hardening biomineral crystals. This image of an urchin's tooth (Arbacia punctulata) was produced by a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Credit: Pupa U.P.A. Gilbert and Christopher E. Killian; University of Wisconsin-Madison

Adaptations of the Owl's Cervical & Cephalic Arteries in Relation to Extreme Neck Rotation First Place (Posters and Graphics) How owls can turn their heads almost completely around without damaging life-sustaining blood vessels has been a mystery. Now, this poster illustrates the answer. After studying the neck vertebrae and blood vessels in 12 owls, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found a number of architectural adaptations that help the birds complete this Exorcist-like maneuver. Larger image. Credit: Fabian de Kok-Mercado, Michael Habib, Tim Phelps, Lydia Gregg, and Philippe

Gailloud; Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Revealing Invisible Changes in the World Honorable Mention (Video) If you could see subtle, normally imperceptible changes -- the ever-so-slight flushing of a man's face as his heart beats, the tiny protrusions of a pulsing artery -- the world would look a lot like the scenes depicted in this video. Using a pixel-magnifying algorithm, a team from MIT and Quanta Research Cambridge demonstrates how amplified video can be used to determine such things as heart rate...from afar. Cue super spidey senses. Credit: Michael Rubinstein, Neal Wadhwa, Frédo Durand, William T. Freeman, Hao-Yu Wu,

John Guttag, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab; Eugene Shih, Quanta

Research Cambridge

Cerebral Infiltration Honorable Mention and People's Choice (Illustration) A monster tumor (red, glossy lump) is rerouting the brain's streets and highways. These pathways -- the white matter that connects neuronal cell bodies -- are represented in red and blue, with red being near enough the tumor to be a concern during surgery, and blue being a safe distance away. Constructed by a team at Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab using magnetic resonance imaging, this image was awarded an honorable mention. Credit: Maxime Chamberland, David Fortin, and Maxime Descoteaux; Sherbrooke Connectivity

Imaging Lab

Fertilization Honorable Mention (Video) Obstacles, mazes, and competition: Fertilization depicts the epic and classic struggle of sperm cells to unite with an egg. Credit: Thomas Brown, Stephen Boyd, Ron Collins, Mary Beth Clough, Kelvin Li, Erin Frederikson, Eric Small, Walid Aziz, Nobles Green

Self Defense Honorable Mention (Photography) The image depicts a live clam (left) and whelk (right) tucked into their shells. Unlike the clam, which can quickly slam its shell shut in response to danger, the whelk can only squirm back into the spiral recesses of its calcified fortress. But the whelk ultimately has the upper hand: it can drill into the clam's shell and suck it dry. This image was produced by a team in Hong Kong that CT-scanned live organisms. Credit: Kai-hung Fung, Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital (Hong Kong)

CyGaMEs Selene II: A Lunar Construction GaME Honorable Mention (Games and Apps) Build the moon, pummel it with asteroids, and pour a lava ocean over the nascent crescent.This computer game, called Selene II, helps players learn geophysical and space science concepts by presenting lessons visually, following the same paths a scientist might take to solve problems. Behind the scenes, the game analyzes and tracks players' performance, using algorithms that collect information on how and when concepts are learned and absorbed. Credit: Debbie Denise Reese, Robert E. Kosko, Charles A. Wood, and Cassie Lightfritz,

CyGaMEs Project, Center for Educational Technologies, Wheeling Jesuit University; Barbara G.

Tabachnick, University of California, Northridge

Observing the Coral Symbiome Using Laser Scanning Confocal Microscopy Honorable Mention (Video) Living corals form a fluorescent kaleidoscope of awesomeness when imaged with a non-invasive confocal microscope and laser. This video, produced by a team at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, takes viewers on a trip through Alice's Disco-Inspired Undersea Wonderland. Bright red, blue, and green, corals anchor dynamic and essential communities, and are much more active than one might realize. Bonus: Bach and Vivaldi. Credit: Christine Farrar, Zac H. Forsman, Ruth D. Gates, Jo-Ann C. Leong, Robert J. Toonen;

Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaii at Manoa

X-Ray Micro-Radiography and Microscopy of Seeds Honorable Mention (Photography) Curled, spiny, and squid-like, these X-rayed plant seeds demonstrate the minifying of existing imaging technologies applied to plant biology. The image, produced by a team from the Czech Republic, presents the X-ray images next to a normal microscope capture. Credit: Viktor Sykora; First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, and Institute of

Experimental and Applied Physics, Czech Technical University; Jan Zemlicka, Frantisek Krejci,

and Jan Jakubek; Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics, Czech Technical University

Earth Evolution: The Intersection of Geology and Biology Honorable Mention (Posters and Graphics) The history of life on Earth -- and Earth itself -- are represented in this poster. From the planet's primordial dust cloud, to mass extinctions, plate tectonics, rock types, and photosynthesis, the planet's 4.5 billion year history is illustrated in one go. Larger image. Credit: Eriko Clements, Mark Nielsen, Satoshi Amagai, Bill Pietsch, Davey Thomas, Andy

Knoll; The Educational Resources Group, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Astronaut 3

Media Group

Velocity Raptor Honorable Mention (Games and Apps) Guide a velociraptor at near light-speed through icy mazes in this web-based game, designed to teach players about special relativity. Using dinosaurs. Levels introduce various bits of relativistic weirdness, like time and length dilation, and Doppler-shifting colors. But the caped Velocity Raptor slips-and-slides on -- unless you plunge him into a pool or something. Credit: Andy Hall, TestTubeGames

The Pharma Transport Town: Understanding the Routes to Sustainable Pharmaceutical Use People's Choice (Posters and Graphics) Our pharmaceutical-saturated world is illustrated in this poster, designed by a team at the European Centre for Environmental and Human Health. Can you incinerate drugs? What happens if you flush them? In this tangled ecosystem, most pipelines lead to the environment. Larger image. Credit: Will Stahl-Timmins, Clare Redshaw, Mathew White, Michael Depledge, and Lora

Fleming; European Centre for Environmental and Human Health