The Year's Most Amazing Scientific Images
posted by Artw on Dec 4, 2009 - 17 comments

The Polar Discovery team has documented science in action from pole to pole during the historic 2007-2009 International Polar Year, and covered five scientific expeditions. The science projects explored a range of topics from climate change and glaciers, to Earth’s geology, biology, ocean chemistry, circulation, and technology at the icy ends of the earth. Through photo essays and other multimedia, they explain how scientists collected data and what they discovered about the rapidly changing polar regions. From the awesome folks at WHOI.
posted by netbros on Nov 9, 2009 - 4 comments

It became necessary, one day, at Willet's Point, to destroy a worthless mule, and the subject was made the occasion of giving instruction to the military class there stationed. The mule was placed in proper position before the camera and duly focused. Upon the animal's forehead a cotton bag was tied containing six ounces of dynamite.....

Instantaneous Photography, 1881 style. From Scientific American, September 24, 1881: (a) Text (b) Engravings: Before the Explosion; After the Explosion. (c) Photographs: The Explosion. images from stereoviews.com; link via things magazine.
posted by Rumple on Sep 29, 2009 - 90 comments

Murmur. Photographs of flocking birds by Richard Barnes.
Boids. A program by Craig Reynolds modeling emergent behavior.
Swarm. A platform and wiki for agent-based modelers.
posted by OmieWise on Sep 17, 2009 - 14 comments

The Art of Kevin Van Aelst
posted by hypersloth on Jul 3, 2009 - 12 comments

Moon Landing Tapes Found! [more inside]
posted by sexyrobot on Jul 2, 2009 - 93 comments

The 56-Euros-and-a-balloon teenage Catalonian space program.
posted by digaman on Mar 17, 2009 - 37 comments

Rethinking Earthrise. On the 40th anniversary of the NASA's Apollo 8 mission [caution: weird JFK animation], which answered Stewart Brand's epochal, LSD-inspired question "Why haven't we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?" with an unforgettable image of a seemingly fragile and isolated blue planet, Nature editor Oliver Morton -- author of a new book on photosynthesis called Eating the Sun -- disputes the notion that the Earth is fragile and isolated. "The fragility is an illusion," he writes. "The planet Earth is a remarkably robust thing, and this strength flows from its ancient and intimate connection to the cosmos beyond. To see the photo this way does not undermine its environmental relevance -- but it does recast it."
posted by digaman on Dec 24, 2008 - 39 comments

The Beautiful Mind. An online gallery of neuroscience photographs. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Dec 15, 2008 - 10 comments

Caleb Charland's photographs artistically demonstrate the laws of physics. In "Solid, Liquid, Gas," for example, three similar glass-tumbler shapes are positioned on a film of water. One glass is filled with a separation of water, oil and alcohol. Another, overturned, contains an extinguished candle which, having burned up the oxygen inside the vessel, created a vacuum that sucked the water inside. The third vessel and the other pictures are just cool.
posted by Surfin' Bird on Oct 25, 2008 - 26 comments

A Place for Science. Where I do Science. Labs at Night. [Via grinding.be]
posted by homunculus on Jul 25, 2008 - 21 comments

The Museum of Nature by Ilkka Halso. [Via Ectoplasmosis!]
posted by homunculus on Jun 9, 2008 - 7 comments

Landsat Image Mosaic Of Antarctica UK and US researchers peice together the most detailed map of Antarctica yet, searching through years of data to find cloud free images.
posted by Artw on Nov 27, 2007 - 17 comments

Felice Frankel's photography "When people call Felice Frankel an artist, she winces. In the first place, the photographs she makes don't sell. In the second place, her images are not full of emotion or ideology or any other kind of message. As she says, "My stuff is about phenomena." [via]
posted by dhruva on Jun 12, 2007 - 29 comments

The Institute for the Promotion of the Less than One Millimeter proudly presents The Micropolitan Museum of Microscopic Art Forms. [via]
posted by mediareport on Oct 22, 2006 - 7 comments

The HiRISE camera is one of eleven instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Yesterday the first few images were downloaded from the MRO.
posted by carsonb on Sep 30, 2006 - 16 comments

"The trick to education is to teach people in such a way that they don't realize they're learning until it's too late."
Fluorescein-dyed water appears suspended in midair, only to "flow" upwards moments later. The careful dance of a splashing drop is frozen and taken for granted, painstakingly analyzed in a brilliant defiance of how water should behave. Such is the wonder of what modder Nate True calls his Time Fountain (YouTube embedded & worth it)—a well-documented, DIY version of classic science center favorite, the Water Piddler. MIT's own Strobe Alley is lined with photos created using the same technology, pioneered by Harold Eugene Edgerton, a professor whose work you're almost certainly familiar with. Naturally, some beautiful pieces have followed under the same ideal, courtesy Martin Waugh.
posted by disillusioned on Aug 8, 2006 - 14 comments

Art of Science 2006 'images, videos and sounds—produced in the course of research or incorporating tools and concepts from science.' Previously on MeFi.
posted by dhruva on Jun 5, 2006 - 4 comments

How many group photographs do you have to take to get one in which nobody is blinking? Nic Svenson and Dr Piers Barnes work it out.
posted by d-no on May 22, 2006 - 9 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

7000 frames per second Newscientist article, with links to the movies. "Atmospheric 'sprites' captured in explosive detail ... by researchers using an ultra-high-speed camera. "The best images yet of the flashes – which resemble a giant undulating jellyfish with its tentacles falling from a halo of light – have allowed the team to pick apart their structure and mechanics. "
posted by hank on Feb 17, 2006 - 22 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

Visions of Science
posted by Gyan on Sep 28, 2005 - 8 comments

Faces of Science, a collection of portraits of scientists is on display at the New York Academy of Sciences through Oct. 14. (Click the 'View Gallery' link underneath the bookcover). Mariana Cook, who took the portraits, has also had them displayed in The Guardian, and at the BioAgenda Institute (where they scroll by to the left of the screen). [Also be sure to check out the previous webgalleries at the NYAS. The Art of Science Fiction, and Hothouse Contemporary Floras are both good examples of their cool shows, as is One of a Kind.]
posted by OmieWise on Sep 28, 2005 - 4 comments

Art of Science Competition 2005 - A gallery of images celebrating the aesthetics of research at Princeton University. (via Amygdala)
posted by madamjujujive on Jun 5, 2005 - 11 comments

News from the world of plants by way of the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden weblog. Beauty in science by way of the photo of the day.
posted by plep on Jun 2, 2005 - 5 comments

The Hidden Messages in Water? Masaru Emoto claims that water has the ability "to absorb, hold, and even retransmit human feelings and emotions. Using high-speed photography, he found that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward it. Music, visual images, words written on paper, and photographs also have an impact on the crystal structure." The theory may be suspect, but the photos are beautiful.
posted by taz on May 11, 2005 - 115 comments

Plants in motion Time-lapse movies of plants doing plant-like things, such as growing, nutating, opening up, and being smelly. [requires quicktime]
posted by carter on Feb 22, 2005 - 23 comments

The Bentley Collection of Snowflake Photographs
posted by anastasiav on Mar 8, 2004 - 5 comments

The first images from the Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility and renamed after astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer, Jr., were released on Thursday. Launched on August 25, it obtains images by detecting the infrared energy radiated by objects in space, and it will drift behind the Earth as the planet orbits the sun.
posted by homunculus on Dec 20, 2003 - 3 comments

The Best of Hubble Its mission will end in 2010. Four years later it will re-enter the atmosphere and burn up. Many astronomers are calling for Hubble to be refurbished and its mission extended to 2020. Here are some of it's best pictures.
posted by reverendX on Dec 10, 2003 - 14 comments

Anima: A fascinating archive of the ways early photography was used to give the illusion of motion, as well as information on the evolution of optical toys and early cinema.
posted by anastasiav on Nov 8, 2003 - 5 comments

Images from Science - An Exhibition of Scientific Photography.
posted by ashbury on Oct 28, 2003 - 4 comments

Gold cobblestones. Cracked ice. Cave art. Just a few of the amazing shapes, textures and patterns in the Lichen Portrait Gallery. Check the descriptions of the "fungi that have discovered agriculture" for info about how Native Americans used them for food, poison and pillows. And don't forget the surprising feminist connection.
posted by mediareport on Jun 7, 2002 - 6 comments

50 foot long single spar crystals found in a Mexican cave 1,000 feet below the surface! Smithsonian has links to other related sites. This one has pictues. More pictures can be found in the April 2002 print issue of Smithsonian.
posted by onhazier on Mar 26, 2002 - 11 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

The geranium: Nature's camera. The sensitivity of certain silver salts to light was known from about 1727, when Johann Heinrich Schulze published his findings in the Nuremburg Academy of Natural Philosophers. But many natural things are sensitive to light. Long ago people noticed the effect of light on green plants, or how it made coloured fabrics fade. It is the effect of light on plants that makes Roman Photography possible. [via bifurcated rivets]
posted by skallas on Jan 20, 2002 - 12 comments

High Speed Photography is truly amazing. Who knew a water drop collapses like a racquetball?
posted by riffola on Aug 31, 2001 - 8 comments

The stars in the core of our galaxy are moving damned fast. [more]
posted by Steven Den Beste on Dec 20, 2000 - 20 comments

A Green Flash from the Sun - I always thought this was a myth, but if NASA says it's true... (and I believe everything I read).
posted by kokogiak on Oct 27, 2000 - 13 comments