Galleries / A Visual Tour of the World of Science

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Susannah F. Locke and Melissa Lafsky; published October 2, 2008

Blast

For Art's Sake

A Snow Crystal Takes Shape

The Mind of a Mouse

Octopus Tot

The Future of Computing

Microfluidics

A Bee's Powerful Nose

<p>Beauty isn't rocket science--but sometimes it is nanophysics. Scientists and photographers used tools ranging from traditional cameras to X-rays to million-dollar microscopes to create the art in <a href="http://www.rit.edu/news/?r=46322" target="blank">"Images From Science 2,"</a> on view at the Rochester Institute of Technology beginning October 11. The exhibition follows a four-year international tour by its predecessor, "Images From Science."</p><p>Delicate hooks on the agrimony seed in this photomicrograph snare the fur of passing animals (or your socks) to move to greener pastures.</p>

<p>Shock waves from two tiny explosions interact in this 1-microsecond <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieren_photography" target="blank">Schlieren photograph</a>, which color-codes air densities.</p>

<p>It took low-energy X-rays and 70 separate mammography films to image this water lily with petals as delicate as breast tissue.</p>

<p>What does <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jan/20-things-you-didn.t-know-about-snow/?searchterm=snow%20crystals" target="blank">snow</a> look like in its natural state? <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2004/feb/secret-life-of-snow/?searchterm=snow%20crystals" target="blank">Snow crystals</a> can grow into a wide variety of shapes, ranging from thin, plate-like flakes to slender hexagonal columns, and what shape they take depends on the temperature in which they grow. This flake, which fell in Burlington, Vermont, measures just over an eighth of an inch from tip to tip.</p>

<p>These two MRI images show details of an adult <a href="http://www.brain-map.org/" target="blank">mouse brain</a>, including the optic nerves, the cerebral cortex, the cerebellum, and the brain stem. Because MRIs are non-optical--the image is derived from contrasting the protons in water--the entire volume of the brain can be captured in one image.</p>

<p>Biologists photographed this thumbnail-size, eight-armed youngster while identifying larval <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2003/oct/feateye/?searchterm=octopus" target="blank">octopi</a> on the surface of the Coral Sea in Australia.</p>

<p>Photonic crystals could one day direct light through super-miniaturized <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2001/apr/feattrap" target="blank">optical computer chips</a>. This atomic force micrograph reveals gaps between the plastic nanospheres of one crystal.</p>

<p>Neuroscientists can test <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/10/02/new-research-points-toward-artificial-nose-based-on-human-smell-sensors" target="blank">odor-sensing neurons</a>' responses to chemical "smells" by exposing them to scent molecules in liquid gradients, which overlap like the blurry rainbow of food coloring shown here.</p>

<p>Like Pavlov's dogs, this honeybee has been trained to extend its tongue for food whenever it is stimulated with a certain scent. The <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2007/mar/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-bees" target="blank">bee</a> was fixed in a tiny harness with tape and then stimulated with an odor. Given its superb sense of smell, the bee quickly learned to associate the smell with food.</p>

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