Colorful bacteria provide palette for microbial art

In small petri dishes, colorful bacteria are arranged artfully, forming shapes of Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night and Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

They are works from a microbial art design contest held recently at Shenyang Pharmaceutical University in northeastern China's Liaoning province.

More than 170 students signed up for the competition and created more than 100 pieces of work with bacteria they had cultured. The images included people, animals, cartoon characters and copies of famous paintings.