The Princeton campus flier threw down a challenge: "Science Is Boring. Art Is Stupid. Prove Us Wrong." Ecologist Stephen Pratt was intrigued. He knew that his photos of individually marked ants were striking. "But I have to admit," he says, "I didn't think of them as art." Still, he decided to enter this action shot in the university's inaugural Art of Science contest this summer. Pratt, a postdoc and lecturer, studies the social behavior of ants - in this case, Temnothorax curvispinosus. To track them, he dabs each one with a unique pattern of paint drops. "It's tricky," he says. "But with a bit of practice you get the hang of it." Pratt's persistence paid off: His photo placed third in a field of 200. How will he spend the $95.50 in prize money? On a new camera.
- Mark Robinson
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