Science isn't all about examining graphs and charts. In this weekly column, staff writer Andrea Alfano puts together the most striking science images from the past week's news for your viewing pleasure. Scroll down to find phenomenal images and fascinating facts about the science behind them.
Whether zooming in on a tiny coronavirus or zooming out on coral reefs, science provides dramatic perspectives that bring out beauty in the natural world that we would otherwise miss. This week has proved that the aesthetic appeal of their work isn't lost on the scientists themselves — with another stunning shot of our planet from astronaut Scott Kelly and bacterial art on a Petri dish.
Harvard scientist Robert Brucker created this microbial masterpiece with different strains of bacteria. These primitive creatures depict a portion of the tree of life. The image accompanied a paper prescribing a new view of life that places more emphasis on the crucial role microbes play in the lives of higher organisms.
Found in the mountains of central Spain, this fossil may depict the first flowering plant on Earth. The species is Montsechia vidalii and it lived in the freshwater lakes that covered central Spain more than 125 million years ago. The fossil itself shows no obvious flower parts, but does present a fruit with a single seed – a feature characteristic of flowering plants.
Astronaut Scott Kelly is spending a year aboard the International Space Station, and it doesn't look like he'll be getting tired of the view anytime soon. His Twitter feed is a barrage of breathtaking photos from space. Among them this week was this gorgeous shot of a desert in Africa.
You won't find any salamanders in the Dominican Republic today, but this specimen preserved in amber shows that salamanders used to roam the island. The poor little guy got his leg chomped off by a predator before falling into a sticky pool of resin, where it has remained entombed for 20 million years. This discovery represents the first evidence that salamanders ever lived on a Caribbean island.
Scientists are a using molecule that gives fireflies their signature feature to illuminate root systems deep underground. This molecule, known as luciferase, causes a chemical reaction that gives off light. By splicing the gene for luciferase into a mustard plant, scientists were able to gain new insights into how plants survive droughts.
This pretty little virus has taken hundreds of human lives, but this week, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine reported that they are closing in on an effective vaccine. The Middle East Respiratory System (MERS) coronavirus is thought to have come from camels, and is highly contagious and deadly. The new vaccine protected monkeys from the virus, suggesting that it has a good chance of protecting humans, too.
The European Space Agency's Sentinel-2A satellite captured this stunning view of a coral reef off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Part of Sentinel-2A's mission is monitoring pollution in coastal waters.
