Nikon Microphotography Contest Winner Stripped of Award Over AI-Generated Video

Nikon's 16th Small World in Motion microphotography competition has revoked the championship title of Dr. Ning Xu of Tsinghua University, whose work was deemed to violate the competition rules. Researchers pointed out that the cell structures in the video were abnormally sized and cilia appeared out of nowhere; Ian Donovan, a doctoral student at UT Southwestern, also found that the source image carried an AI-generation watermark. In a deleted LinkedIn post, Xu acknowledged using AI for post-processing but said AI was not used to generate the video itself; Nikon stated it will re-examine the rules and judging process for future competitions, and the championship was awarded instead to Nguyen Nam Nhat of Vietnam.