Planet Earth

Quartz and some of the associated minerals that give it color enter into the fossilizing process as solutions, gels, and sols. Although they move as liquids, gels and sols are made up of very small particles bound together by weak electrical bonds. In this specimen, the linear arrays of small round structures were produced by local condensations of particulate mineral. During their consolidation, small puddles of pigment formed that are unrelated to the structure of the bone itself.

On Thin Ice: RPS Science Photographer of the Year winners unveiled

THUMB101ReneeCapozzola

A Dance of Sharks and Gulls: Underwater Photography Prize Winners

TPOTY 2020 Winners

Ghostly Arctic Fox and a Snail on a mission win the Travel Photographer of the Year awards

Yesterday evening again two polar bears came close to our ship. Probably they were the same we saw already a couple of days before our arrival at the floe. Nobody was out on the ice when the bears appeared and there was no danger for the expedition’s participants. The bears stayed several minutes around Polarstern and the ice camp. For our own safety and for the safety of the polar bears we don’t want them to get used to be our neighbors. The expedition’s lead and professional polar bear guards therefore chased them with a flare gun. The bears have not been injured and left the area immediately. This procedure agrees with the complex safety concept of the MOSAiC expedition. October 10, 2019, Esther Horvath

In pictures: Following the mission to discover how the climate crisis is changing the Arctic

UK flooding could increase by 15-35 per cent by 2080 © Getty Images

UK flooding could increase by 15-35 per cent by 2080

A graphic introduction to human history © Getty Images

A graphic introduction to human history from Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens

Antarctica: An icy time machine © Alamy

How Antarctic ice can help us travel back in time

2020 was the second-hottest year on record, Met Office says © Getty Images

2020 was the second-hottest year on record, Met Office says

Who really found the continent of Antarctica? © Getty Images

Who really found the continent of Antarctica?

How small would the Earth have to be for us to feel it spinning? © Getty Images

How small would the Earth have to be for us to feel it spinning?

Rewilding: Can it save our wildlife and temper climate change? © Alamy

Rewilding: Can it save our wildlife and temper climate change?

Rare ant rescued from brink of extinction with help of DIY conservation tools ©John Walters/Buglife/PA News

Rare ant rescued from brink of extinction with help of DIY conservation tools

World’s most threatened orangutan species ‘in more trouble than previously thought ©Andrew Walmsley, PA News

World’s most threatened orangutan species ‘in more trouble than previously thought’

In pictures: Sir David Attenborough's new series A Perfect Planet © Silverback Films/Grab/BBC

In pictures: Sir David Attenborough’s new series A Perfect Planet

Tara Shine, Chris Jackson and Helen Czerski in the Royal Institution Theatre © Paul Wilkinson Photography

Air pollution, climate change and optimism: Tara Shine’s Royal Institution’s Christmas Lecture