The Burns Archive is a collection of over 700,000 historical photographs that document disturbing subject matter: obsolete medical practices and experiments, death, disease, disasters, crime, revolutions, riots and war. Newsweek posted a select gallery this past October, as well as a video interview and walk-through with curator and collector Dr. Stanley B. Burns, a New York opthalmologist. (Via) (Content at links may be disturbing to some.) [more inside]
posted by zarq on Apr 26, 2011 - 15 comments

How do you spread your genes around when you're stuck in one place? By tricking animals, including us, into falling in love. Orchids — Love and Lies [more inside]
posted by netbros on Aug 30, 2009 - 15 comments

Picturing the Museum: The American Museum of Natural History Photo Collection.
posted by peacay on Jun 26, 2008 - 13 comments

The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss, online gallery. Revealing nature's oddest and most mesmerizing creatures in crystalline detail; color photographs of deep ocean species, some photographed for the first time. An online companion to the book by Claire Nouvian. Deep-sea photography.
posted by nickyskye on Apr 26, 2007 - 36 comments

What are nudibranchs? Jewels of the sea. Page after page of photographs of these squishy hermaphrodites.
posted by Gator on Mar 10, 2006 - 20 comments

These images remind us never to underestimate our opponent. -- The science behind the art (.pdf). Fractal art by way of bacteria growin' in a petri dish. A few more images here.
posted by Gator on Mar 7, 2006 - 7 comments

The site design is somewhat unfortunate, but The Virtual Cave features lots of photos and information on, well, caves and cave formations. We've all heard of stalagmites and stalactites, but I'd never heard of cave draperies or cave pearls before. Then you've got your helictites, your aragonite, and your splash stalactites (found in lava tubes). And they've got a Show Caves Directory of caves in the United States that are open to the public, with addresses and contact information by state.
posted by Gator on Jan 14, 2006 - 23 comments

The winners of the 2005 Nikon Small World Competition are up (previous years going back to 1977 are also worth a look). Photomicrography produces some amazing imagery, giving us glimpses into both the inner workings of living things, and the intricate structure of nonliving things (just click "find all").
posted by Gator on Dec 4, 2005 - 4 comments

The most detailed map of Mars ever produced. Brought to you by Malin Space Science Systems. The images were captured from The Mars Global Surveyor. They really are incredibly clear. I'm trying find the Mars Face. No luck yet though. (Click image to zoom in)
posted by RobertLoch on Feb 25, 2002 - 12 comments