“Microscope images forge an extraordinary bond between science and art, said Hidenao Tsuchiya, Olympus America's Vice President and General Manager for the Scientific Equipment Group. We founded this competition to focus on the fascinating stories coming out of today's life science research laboratories. The thousands of images that people have shared with the competition over the years reflect some of the most exciting work going on in research today – work that can help shed light on the living universe and ultimately save lives. We look at BioScapes and these beautiful images as sources of education and inspiration to us and the world”. – OlympusBioScapes

Photo: Pretarsus of the third leg of a female drone fly (Eristalis tenax), ventral view, by Dr. Jan Michels, Institute of Zoology, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany. (Photo by Olympus BioScapes)

“The September 11 attacks (called September 11, September 11th or 9/11), were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks against targets in New York City and the Washington, D.C. area on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 terrorists from the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets. The hijackers intentionally crashed two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; both towers collapsed within two hours. Hijackers crashed a third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. When passengers attempted to take control of the fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, it crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, preventing it from reaching its intended target in Washington, D.C. Nearly 3,000 died in the attacks”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A firefighter breaks down after the World Trade Center buildings collapsed September 11, 2001 after two hijacked airplanes slammed into the twin towers in a terrorist attack. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Computer Inc. (Asus) unveiled the Zenbook, the new super-thin laptops. Encased in brushed steel, the Zenbook feels solid, yet light. “The super-thin laptop’s $999 configuration, which includes 4 GB of 133MHz DDR 3 RAM, a 128 GB SATA Solid State Drive (SSD) and two USB 3.0 ports, is $200 cheaper than a similarly configured “competitor” (read: MacBook Air). You can by a MacBook Air for $999 with the same Intel Core i5 CPU — but with only half the memory and storage space. Zenbook would get 7 hours of battery life (roughly 3.4 hours of streaming video and 3.25 hours of gameplay) and could remain in standby for up to two weeks”.

These are the explosive images of some of the world's most ASH-stonishing volcanic eruptions. Spectacular snaps capture lava spewing down the side of Kilauea, ash spitting from craters and plumes of smoke rising thousands of feet in the air. Russian non-profit AirPano travel the globe taking the breath-taking panoramic images, compiled in this series displaying their most stunning volcanic shoots. Included in the set – which spans four continents – are images from across the United States, Iceland, Russia, Ethiopia and Indonesia. To capture the 360-degree images, AirPano photographers spend around two hours in a helicopter, sending out drones to capture the action below. Here: Volcano Plosky Tolbachik, Kamchatcka, Russia. (Photo by Airpano/Caters News)

The beard of a skater, one out of some 1,100 athletes, is covered with ice and snow during the 200 km (124 miles) speed skating race in the Carinthian village of Techendorf January 30, 2015. Techendorf is hosting the Alternatieve Elfstedentocht Weissensee (Alternative Eleven City Races Weissensee) races, a traditional Dutch series of speed skating events for both professionals and amateurs with some 5,000 participants, until January 31, 2015. (Photo by Leonhard Foeger/Reuters)

An inventive make-up artist has started using her chin as a canvas for unique paintings of popular cartoon characters. Using her own mouth as the teeth and lips of her subjects, stunning Laura Jenkinson, 25, paints around them using theatrical make-up to create the pint-sized portraits. Shrek, Finding Nemo’s Dory and the Genie from Aladdin have all featured in the series of incredible pictures that she has spent a year putting together. Her pictures have gone viral on facebook and Instagram where her posts regularly receive more than 1500 likes. Here, Bugs Bunny from “Looney Tunes” is depicted on Jenkinson. (Photo by Laura Jenkinson/Caters News)

What would superheroes do if they had a part time job? Well… besides fighting crime, the powers of most superheroes aren’t exactly very useful. Sure, Flash would make a great delivery boy, delivering the freshest pizza in the world, while Thor might turn out to be a great smith (though judging by the way he handles his mallet, it is very unlikely), but in the end of the day, all these things are pretty useless. It sure is hard being a superhero when you have no villains to catch; especially if the only superpower that you have is lighting yourself on fire. Reducing you to a mere job of being used as fuel for cooking grilled chicken. Besides, it’s not exactly useful for catching villains either, if you don't plan on burning them alive… (Photo by Chow Hon Lam)