What scientific photos are hard to believe but are indeed real?

 These photos are hard to believe but they are indeed true.

Before you look at them, know that the traits demonstrated here all have a scientific explanation such as, genetic deformities and adaptation to some illnesses that have made the body live with the affected limbs.

Let us begin:

1. The leaping Cuban Crocodile

This is the Amazon’s deadliest predator after the Green Anaconda and the black panther. It can leap a record 9 meters high and grab prey from the trees into the Amazon river. It is also as fast in running as a leopard.

2. The longest nails in the world

Beautiful uh? or just scary. However you view it, nothing surpasses the genetics behind these long nails.

3. The widest eyes in the world

If I did this to my eyes, I would simply cry and go blind. I wear glasses and this would just hurt me drastically.

4. The world’s longest neck

Even a snake would mistake you for one of them with a neck that long. How does she shower? A very long neck indeed. A genetic blessing.

5. The tallest and shortest man

Uh? How tall is your husband again? How short is your wife? Look at these two.

6. The Jesus lizard that leaps

Jesus walked on water, this lizard leaps on water. It can run faster than a cheetah and leaps for distances as long as the water goes. It has beautiful webbed feet that allow this feature. They work like hydraulics on a car. It also feeds on beautiful butterflies. It is…beautiful.

7. The two-headed snake

Hehe. This one has only two heads, here in Kenya, puff adders have three heads. However, the two-headed snake is the most common. It is actually very harmless, unlike the Kenyan puff adder or adders.

8. The longest tongue

She is pretty and lizardy. I like that tongue. We could kiss all day. However, it would creep me out at night when I am in bed with her.

All the above are scientific traits in man and animals that have developed into adaptation features for the respective affected creatures.

Our world is very interesting.

What scientific photos are hard to believe but are indeed real?

 Any one from the Nikon Small World Photography Competition

The competition has been going on for 50+ years now, but here are the 10 most recent winners (as of April 2026)

2016: A four-day-old zebra fish embryo

2017: Immortalized human skin cells expressing fluorescently tagged keratin

2018: Eye of a Metapocyrtus subquadrulifer beetle

2019: A Fluorescent turtle embryo

2020: Dorsal view of bones and scales (blue) and lymphatic vessels (orange) in a juvenile zebrafish

2021: Trichome (white appendages) and stomata (purple pores) on a southern live oak leaf

2022: Embryonic hand of a Madagascar giant day gecko

2023: Rodent optic nerve head

2024: Mouse brain tumor cells

2025: Rice weevil on a grain of rice

What are some unique scientific facts that everybody should know?

 There are basically two kinds of substances in the universe — matter and anti-matter.

Matter is what we see in the universe — protons, electrons, etc.

Antimatter particles have opposite electric charges to their matter counterparts.

They share identical mass.

When they meet, they instantly destroy each other in a process called annihilation, releasing energy — Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc2

Laozi may have known this. Maybe that’s why he has a yinyang theory!

The theory is that matter and antimatter are produced during the big bang, and they are theoretically produced in equal amounts.

If that is so, then we shouldn’t be here — neither does everything else. The universe would then be just energy — can you imagine that (anyway, there won’t be any you or me or John Lennon to imagine anything).

So why are you (or me) here?

Answer: breaking of symmetry

AI: “The imbalance between matter and antimatter, known as baryon asymmetry, exists because early universe conditions allowed matter to slightly outnumber antimatter, violating perfect symmetry. For every billion antimatter particles, a billion-and-one matter particles were created, leaving a small surplus of matter after mutual annihilation, forming the universe.

Who imagined such a thing as violation of the law of physics?

Two Chinese scientists (who later rightly got their Nobels)

Chen Ning Yang, along with Tsung-Dao Lee, revolutionized particle physics by proposing in 1956 that parity (P) symmetry—the assumption that nature acts the same in a mirror image—is violated in weak interactions. This groundbreaking work, confirmed experimentally by Chien-Shiung Wu, directly led to the recognition of Charge-Parity (CP) violation, explaining why matter dominates the universe.

So, here we are….

Another question: is antimatter of any use?

AI:

Yes, antimatter has significant practical uses in medicine and scientific research.

The most common medical application is Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans, which use positrons (the counterpart of electrons) to detect cancers, brain disorders, and heart issues.

In science, antimatter is used for probing material defects and in fundamental physics research.

I’m so happy that whatever the theory, we can get antimatter to do some good.

I’m writing, not as a physicist (my last lesson in physics was in high school in the later 1960s), but as a (pediatric) oncologist. A few days ago, I’ve just ordered a PETCT scan for 12-year old boy with lymphoma in the chest. The scan shows clearly that it is confined to the chest and hasn’t spread anywhere else. I’m so happy.

This is thus a stage 1 lymphoma, and this boy will very likely be cured.

Positron, antimatter — what a wonderful thing to have

What are some of the most amazing ongoing scientific projects?

 I read this recently. Researchers at MIT just built a wristband that lets you control a robotic hand with your bare fingers. No gloves or implants needed. Just a smartwatch sized device on your wrist.

Here's how it works. The band uses ultrasound stickers to image the muscles and tendons beneath your skin in real time. An AI algorithm reads those internal shifts and maps them to 22 degrees of freedom across your fingers and palm. Your tendons literally act like puppet strings. The wristband reads the strings. The robot mirrors the hand. In demos, volunteers used it to play piano tunes and shoot basketballs, through a robotic hand, wirelessly. It even decoded 26 American Sign Language signs accurately.

This wristband could generate massive training data for teaching robots dexterous, human-like movements. For VR/AR, hand-tracking cameras are not needed. A wristband that sees inside your wrist is more accurate, more portable and harder to fool.

The paper was published this week in Nature Electronics

[1]

 .

Radhe Radhe 💛

Footnotes

[1] Wristband enables wearers to control a robotic hand with their own movements

What are some strange but fascinating scientific experiments?

 A small team of researchers from Spain and Mexico made a discovery, almost by accident, which

was later published in the renowned journal

Physics Review Letters .

Thousands of cubes randomly poured into a glass align themselves perfectly when the mixture is subjected to "oscillating rotation," that is, alternately accelerated clockwise and counterclockwise.

The researchers poured 25,000 plastic cubes into a transparent cylinder. They then tested various shaking techniques to determine which resulted in the highest compaction of the cubes.
They found that alternating rotation (left-right-left-right) worked best. However, the individual rotations had to be performed at high speed.
This caused the cubes to align themselves from top to bottom, forming concentric circles in each layer.

At an acceleration of 0.52 g, the pile of cubes reached its maximum density after 10,000 alternating angular impulses.
This seems to work significantly better than a simple "jerking," because at a state of medium density, the latter causes the cubes to wedge themselves together and remain stuck.
If the rotational impulses are too slow, the compaction and alignment of the cubes could potentially take years.

The researchers now hope that their findings will open up a potential new way to compact materials during the manufacturing process.

What are some interesting and fascinating scientific phenomena in pictures?

 Is science boring? ... your opinion will change once you've experienced these amazing and beautiful scientific phenomena.

1) Reaction of gallium and aluminum:

2) Magnetic putty:

3) Human white blood cells hunting bacteria:

4) The candle relights itself with its trail of smoke:

5) Spins inside a bubble:

6) The glass cracks in a stunning fractal pattern:

7) Octopus using its camouflage skills:

8) The impatiens plant scatters its seeds:

9) Pine cone opening to release the seeds:

10) Plasma loop erupting from the surface of the sun:

11) The lunar cycle of one month:

12) A drop of snake venom when mixed with blood:

13) Reaction of mercury and aluminum.

This one is quite disturbing!

It is human nature to inquire, recognize, see, and understand. Exploration and experimentation are not really an option; they are an imperative

What scientific facts sound made up, but are actually true?

 A type of white blood cell roaming around in blood in your body expels all it’s inner contents mainly DNA, in form of a ‘net’ to trap and kill bacteria and other microbes (imagine trapping bacteria in a sticky mesh and killing them). Sounds gore! No need to mention the poor cell dies (commits suicide to save the body) as it loses it’s DNA in the process.

Doesn’t it sound like a sci-fi movie?

When I first learnt about this process in Medical school, I was fascinated.

This process is called as Netosis and the cells which have this special superpower are Neutrophils. Neutrophils are a type of white blood cells. They are the most abundant of white blood cells, accounting for 60 to 70% of all white blood cells.

NET stands for Neutrophil Extracellular Traps. So the process was named as NETosis.

Neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation. Scanning electron microscopy of neutrophil (yellow) casting a net (green) entrapping Helicobacter pylori bacteria (blue).

Immunofluorescence confocal microscopy to visualize NETs. Neutrophils forming extracellular traps that are characterized by extracellular filaments of chromatin decorated with granular proteins. Cells were stained with anti-MPO (red) and counterstained with Hoechst 33342 (blue).

A scanning electron micrograph shows stimulated neutrophils forming NETs to trap Shigella flexneri (a type of bacteria).

Netosis was first discovered in 2004 (it’s a fairly new discovery). High-resolution scanning electron microscopy has shown that NETs consist of stretches of DNA and globular protein domains with diameters of 15-17 nm and 25 nm, respectively. These aggregate into larger threads with a diameter of 50 nm. NETs contain proteins from various granules of neutrophil cells.

A scanning electron micrograph. PMN (polymorphonuclear cell) is other name for neutrophil.

A scanning electron micrograph shows PMN/ Neutrophil trapping malarial parasite (Pb). Seems like it shot slime towards Pb and trapped it.

A scanning electron micrograph shows PMN/ Neutrophil trapping malarial parasite (Pb).

(All images from Google)

However, Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) can also play a role in causing various autoimmune conditions. They have been implicated in diseases like rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus, vasculitis and multiple sclerosis (MS). NETosis seems to be a major triggering event common to these rare disorders. NETosis can also induce damage to blood vessels and increases risk of clotting.

So what evolutionary may have evolved as a protective mechanism, in rare instances can be responsible for causing diseases as well.