Informatics Educational Institutions & Programs

The Tomb of Bibi Jawindi is a mausoleum built in 1493 by an Iranian prince, Dilshad, for Bibi Jawindi, who was the great-granddaughter of the Sufi saint Jahaniyan Jahangasht. It is located in Uch, Pakistan, and is one of the five monuments in the city that are on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Photograph: Shah Zaman Baloch

The Chamberlin trimetric projection is a map projection where three points are fixed on the globe and the points on the sphere are mapped onto a plane by triangulation. It was developed in 1946 by Wellman Chamberlin for the National Geographic Society. It is neither conformal nor equal-area, but rather attempts to minimize distortion of distances everywhere with the side-effect of balancing between areal equivalence and conformality.

Map: Strebe, using Geocart

The Point Cabrillo Light is a lighthouse in northern California, United States, between Point Arena and Cape Mendocino, just south of the community of Caspar. It is part of the California state park system as Point Cabrillo Light Station State Historic Park. Completed in 1909, the lighthouse was manned by the United States Coast Guard from 1939 until it was automated in 1973. Beginning in 1996, the station was restored to the state it would have been in the 1930s.

Photograph: Frank Schulenburg

The M-209 is a portable, mechanical cipher machine used primarily by the US military in World War II, though it remained in active use through the Korean War. In this photograph, an intermediate gear unit (center) meshes with gears adjoining each key wheel. Visible to the left of the image is the typewheel that prints out messages and ciphertext onto paper tape.

Photograph: Rama

Irises is a painting of irises completed by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh in 1889. The artist considered this work, which was influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, a study. However, his brother considered the painting "full of air and life" and submitted it to the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. In 1987, it sold for US$53.9 million to Alan Bond, making it the most expensive painting ever sold as of then.

Painting: Vincent van Gogh

Guildhall is a building in the City of London, off Gresham and Basinghall Streets, that has been used as a town hall for several hundred years. It remains the ceremonial and administrative centre of the City of London and its Corporation. This photograph shows the interior of its main room, a medieval great hall dating back to 1411.

Photograph: David Iliff

Calocoris affinis is a species of bug of the family Miridae that can be found everywhere in Europe except for Switzerland and Greece. It feeds on Urtica dioica juices, Heracleum sphondylium nectar, and Centaurea jacea nectar. This specimen is shown on a field scabious.

Photograph: Darius Baužys

Bernhard Hoetger's 1936 relief Lichtbringer at the entrance to Böttcherstraße, a street in the historic centre of Bremen, Germany. The artist and his patron, Ludwig Roselius, intended to promote a Nazi worldview and to glorify the victory of Adolf Hitler "over the powers of darkness", but Hitler's reaction was negative.

Relief: Bernhard Hoetger; Photograph: Andrew Shiva

The Zürich Opera House is an opera house in the Swiss city of Zürich. Located at the Sechseläutenplatz, it has been the home of the Zürich Opera since the current building was completed in 1891. It also houses the Bernhard-Theater Zürich.

Photograph: Roland Fischer

A panel from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a webcomic by Zach Weiner first published in its current iteration in 2002. This daily comic features no recurring characters or storylines, and has no set format; some strips may be a single panel, while others may go on for ten panels or more. Recurring themes include atheism, God, superheroes, romance, dating, science, research, parenting and the meaning of life.

Comic: Zach Weiner

A captive Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus) showing white plumage. Wild specimens usually appear soiled, with a rusty or brown shade to the white plumage, derived from mud or iron-rich soil.

Photograph: Carlos Delgado

The Ninth Wave is an oil painting on canvas completed by the Russian Armenian marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky in 1850. It depicts a sea after a night storm and people facing death attempting to save themselves by clinging to debris from a wrecked ship. The title refers to a belief that waves grow increasingly larger until the largest wave, the ninth (or tenth) wave.

Painting: Ivan Aivazovsky

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on using Charles Babbage's planned mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine, and as such she is often regarded as the first computer programmer.

Painting: Alfred Edward Chalon

"The superficial layer of the facial muscles and the neighboring muscles of the neck seen from the side and slightly from in front."
This illustration was published in the 1909 edition of Johannes Sobotta's Sobotta's Atlas and Text-book of Human Anatomy.

Illustrations: K. Hajek and A. Schmitson; Restoration: CFCF, nagualdesign

SMS Ägir was the second and final member of the Odin class of coastal defense ships built for the German Imperial Navy. Ägir was built by the Kaiserliche Werft Danzig shipyard between 1893 and 1896, and named for the eponymous Norse god. She was armed with a main battery of three 24-centimeter (9.4 in) guns. She served in the German fleet throughout the 1890s and was rebuilt in 1901–03. She served in the VI Battle Squadron after the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, but saw no action. Ägir was demobilized in 1915 and used as a tender thereafter. After the war, she was rebuilt as a merchant ship and served in this capacity until December 1929, when she was wrecked on the island of Gotland.

Lithography: Hugo Graf, restoration: Adam Cuerden

The Behrmann projection is a cylindrical map projection created by Walter Behrmann in 1910. It is equal-area, but distortion of shape increases with distance from the standard 30° parallels. Scale is true along the standard parallels. This projection is not equidistant.

Map: Strebe, using Geocart

An aerial photograph of Six Flags New Orleans taken two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck the city. The theme park is located in a low-lying artificial basin, and as such remained flooded with 4 to 7 feet (1.2 to 2.1 m) of brackish water for more than a month. The corrosive water damaged most of the rides past the point of salvageability, and Six Flags terminated their 75-year lease over the property. Though there have been several plans to redevelop the site, Six Flags New Orleans today remains abandoned.

Photograph: Bob McMillan/FEMA; edit: Chris Woodrich

The Sicilian wall lizard (Podarcis waglerianus) is a species of lizard in the family Lacertidae. Endemic to Italy, it occurs in temperate forests, temperate shrubland, Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation, temperate grassland, arable land, pastureland, and rural gardens in Sicily and the Aegadian Islands. The species' numbers are generally stable, and it has been listed as Least Concern by the IUCN.

Photograph: Benny Trapp

A flock of James's flamingos (Phoenicoparrus jamesi) during a mating ritual, in which it is not unusual for the entire colony to participate. Males put on a show by vocalizing, sticking their necks and heads straight up in the air, and turning their heads back and forth. A female can then walk away from the group, which is an invitation for a male to follow. The ritual is completed by her spreading her wings and the male mounting her.

Photograph: Pedros Szekely

Muammar Gaddafi (c. 1942 – 2011) was a Libyan revolutionary and politician. Taking power in a coup d'etat, he ruled as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011, when he was ousted in the Libyan Civil War. Initially developing his own variant of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism known as the Third International Theory, he later embraced Pan-Africanism and served as Chairperson of the African Union from 2009 to 2010.

Photograph: Jesse B. Awalt/US Navy

An interior view of the chapel at Exeter College, Oxford. Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and constructed between 1854 and 1860, it was heavily inspired by the Sainte-Chapelle chapel in Paris.

Photograph: David Iliff

An Afghan National Army soldier firing an RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher during a live-fire exercise at Camp Shorabak, Helmand, Afghanistan, on May 20, 2013. Designed by the Soviet Union and first used in 1961, the RPG-7 is now produced in nine countries. Several variants are available, including a paratrooper model and a lighter Chinese version. The RPG-7 has become the most widely used anti-armor weapon in the world.

Photograph: Ezekiel Kitandwe/US Marines

Kimmeridge is a small village and civil parish on the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in Dorset, England. The Kimmeridgian geological age is named after the village, which is also the type locality for Kimmeridge clay. The coastline of the parish forms part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site.

Photograph: David Iliff

The red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa) is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae. This seed-eating species breeds in southwestern Europe, but has been naturalised elsewhere.

Photograph: Pierre Dalous

The Last Day of Pompeii is an oil painting on canvas completed by the Russian artist Karl Bryullov between 1830 and 1833. The painting is based on sketches the artist completed in 1828 while visiting Pompeii, a city destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It is now held in the State Russian Museum.

Painting: Karl Bryullov

The reading room at the Sainte-Geneviève Library, a public and university library in Paris which contains around 2 million documents, including the collection of the Abbey of St Genevieve. The building was designed by Henri Labrouste and completed in 1850. Its 17-by-80-metre (56 ft × 262 ft) reading room, which reaches 15 metres (49 ft) in height, is noted for its slender cast iron structure.

Photograph: Marie-Lan Nguyen

A cordwainer making shoes in Capri, Italy. Cordwainers are shoemakers who make shoes from new leather. They are distinct from cobblers, who repair shoes or make shoes out of old leather.

Photograph: Jorge Royan

A 1934-series gold certificate in the denomination of $10,000. This bill depicts Salmon P. Chase and was signed by Henry Morgenthau, Jr. and W.A. Julian. This denomination was never released to the public and does not exist outside of United States government institutional collections.

Banknote: Bureau of Engraving and Printing (image courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History)

The common redshank (Tringa totanus) is a Eurasian wader in the large family Scolopacidae. This migratory species feeds predominantly on invertebrates.

Photograph: Andreas Trepte

Kuchipudi is a Classical Indian dance from Andhra Pradesh, India. According to legend, an orphan named Siddhendra Yogi established the Kuchipudi dance-drama tradition in the seventh century. The performance usually begins with stage rites, after which each character comes onto the stage and introduces herself with a small composition of both song and dance. The drama then begins, and the dance is typically accompanied by Carnatic music.

Photograph: Augustus Binu; edit: Chris Woodrich

Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette is an undated oil painting on canvas completed by Vincent van Gogh. It is held in the Van Gogh Museum of Amsterdam.

Painting: Vincent van Gogh