Our guest post this week comes from Emei Ma, a scientific artist. If you would like to contribute a guest post, please get in touch on Twitter or Facebook. Occasionally, we come across an image or a video that compels us to ask, “What is that?” Such was the case when I saw the mesmerizing work of Aaron…
Tag: photography
Incredible electron microscope GIF gives an amazing sense of scale!
//giphy.com/embed/26BRQY7cHMMVzU6n6 This series of SEM (scanning electron microscope) images shows a tiny crustacean called an amphipod before zooming in on a miniscule diatom resting on its head, and finally picking out the shape of a single bacterium on the surface of the diatom. A truly awesome science GIF! Via Smithsonian mag, GIPHY.
New photographic project captures intricate beauty of insects
A new collection of images launched this week by the Oxford University Museum of Natural History reveal in stunning detail the intricacies of insect anatomy. Each image is a composite of around 8,000 individual photos, with the artist Levon Biss painstakingly adjusting the lighting and settings for each one to best highlight the microscopic details…
A fluffy mammal? A furry tail? Believe it or not, this is a mollusc!
Well, this certainly isn’t the image that springs to mind when you think of molluscs – but the more recognisable snails, oysters and octopus only represent three out of the eight living groups. This beautiful creature is a solenogastre, one of the two vermiform (worm-like) molluscan groups. Solenogastres are found in oceans across the world, from…
Rock-climbing cavefish ‘walks’ like a salamander
One of our interests at the RVC is examining the early history of tetrapods (four-legged vertebrates) and how their ancestors made the transition from water to land. Some studies have examined species of living fishes that can move on land, such as mudskippers and lungfish, but although they are able to make do using their…
April fool! This ‘snail shell’ isn’t quite what it seems…
When is a snail not a snail? What if it’s something totally, completely different? This mollusc-like shell was described as a new species of trochid in 1903, but in fact it comes from an entire different phylum (one of the highest levels of distinction between animals). Any ideas what it might be instead? … It’s an anemone!…
Rattlesnake strikes are far more sophisticated than a simple ‘spring’ release
More than half of a rattlesnake’s body may be involved in striking behaviour, particularly where the strike is defensive, and the anterior third of body length is usually active when hunting. The remainder of the body ‘anchors’ the snake to a solid base position. Tracking the kinematics of a single strike reveals that different segments of…
Stunning X-ray still life images show skeletal adaptations in life poses
Seeing the skeleton in action can give viewers a very different perspective on adaptation and evolution, and most museums endeavour to pose their exhibits in real life position. This can be tricky, reassembling the bones and trying to give a realistic impression of total body shape and size beyond the skeleton itself. These images, from…
Anatomy To You 