Three funnels dangle from a roiling storm cloud in the earliest known tornado photograph. Snapped in 1884 near Howard, South Dakota, the scene is one of several hundred vintage images on display at this gallery from the U.S. National Weather Service.

The illustrations and photos date from the early 1800s to the 1990s, recording the effects of floods, hurricanes, blizzards, and other types of extreme weather. Visitors can relive the dust storms that swept the Great Plains in the 1930s and view some of the damage from Hurricane Camille, which swamped the Gulf Coast 36 years before Katrina. The gallery also records advances in weather-observing technology and holds what might be the oldest existing radar images of a weather event, which show a cold front blowing toward Boston in 1943

Volume 315, Number 5814, Issue of 16 February 2007

At this new evolution timeline, the history of life unfolds in nearly 90 arresting images from renowned nature photographer Frans Lanting. Life: A Journey Through Time is a Web version of Lanting's latest book and a touring multimedia show. It features a dramatic score by composer Philip Glass. To depict critical geological and evolutionary events, the timeline showcases modern landscapes that resemble those of primordial Earth and present-day representatives of groups from diatoms to birds. For example, the ancestors of this Australian desert spadefoot toad (Notaden nichollsi) clambered onto land some 370 million years ago.

Science 13 October 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5797, p. 229

A freshwater shrimp (Macrobrachium amazonium) goggles at the camera through a square pupil. The shot by photographer Alex Griman of São Paulo, Brazil, nabbed one of the top places in this year's Small World contest, sponsored by the camera company Nikon. Held annually since 1974, the competition showcases photographic artistry through the microscope. Visitors can browse a gallery of this year's best submissions or check out previous winners. Peruse the backgrounders if you're curious about winning techniques such as stereomicroscopy, which Griman used to capture the shrimp image.

Science 6 October 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5796, p. 27

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has been amassing photographs such as the 1890 shot of a snowflake almost since the medium was invented. Now you can check out highlights from the museum's more than 13 million images at the new Smithsonian Photography Initiative Web site. Visitors can flip through about 1800 photos, some of which date back to the 1840s. The subjects of the nearly 600 entries on science and nature range from a water-scarred martian crater to native seal hunters in Glacier Bay, Alaska. Some of the images are historically important. The snowflake shot, for instance, is part of a collection from Wilson Bentley (1865-1931), a Vermont farmer and self-tutored scientist who was the first to photograph an individual snowflake.

Science 1 September 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5791, p. 1211
DOI: 10.1126/science.313.5791.1211e