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Look for images of "Washington" online, and Google's search engine may turn up a random sea of pictures showing the Washington monument, the White House, George Washington, and actor Denzel Washington. Now Google's new "Image Swirl" feature could eliminate that hit-or-miss frustration by organizing images in neat, expandable thumbnail stacks for users to explore.

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National Geographic has published a beautiful gallery of aerial photos of the Sahara, shot by George Steinmetz. Steinmetz shoots his pictures while soaring above the Earth on a gasoline-powered paraglider he built himself.

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We always like to look forward to bigger and better tech, but NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, though it's been around the block, still holds a special place in every geek's heart. Now the freshly repaired and upgraded telescope has resumed churning out enough images of cosmic glory to turn anyone's head.

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This photo of Mount Redoubt, caught in mid-eruption, was taken from a height of 423 miles, on March 30, 2009 as the GeoEye-1 satellite moved from north to south over Alaska at a speed of 4 miles per second. Since the amount of area is so large, the ground resolution of this image is 2 meters.

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Image courtesy GigaPan and the Chicago Office of Tourism

Try this: See that bright blue sign on the far wall? Can you read it? Double-click it. Can you read it now? Now move in again. And again.

This impressive panorama is actually a collection of 592 distinct photos, shot with a Canon Powershot with a 360mm zoom, and the help of a nifty gadget called the GigaPan Epic. Plop your camera into the device and it will automatically take between 20 and several hundred slightly overlapping pictures of a scene. The GigaPan software stitches them together for you into one massive, ultra-detailed, thousands-of-megapixels collage.

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As promised, here are stunningly clear satellite images of the tops of some two million heads during today’s inauguration. These images were snapped at 11:19am today by GeoEye-1, the most powerful commercial imaging satellite in the sky, from 423 miles above the trampled grass on the National Mall.

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Who knew that the Capitol Building’s roof was bright green? I sure didn’t, until I saw this photo of the DC Mall taken by GeoEye-1, the most powerful commercial optical satellite in orbit.

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The 951 (and counting) birds collected alive after the San Francisco Bay oil spill are doing their part for science. Some of the birds are now subjects in studies led by veterinarians at the UC Davis Oiled Wildlife Care Network, who hope to improve treatments for oiled birds everywhere.

One study is using infrared thermography to spot birds that are losing heat too quickly [image at left]. In another study, birds will be equipped with radio transmitters so that researchers can study where they go and how long they live after they are released from the care center.

Of those 951 birds found alive, 197 later died or were euthanized, and 394 were washed. The remaining 360 are being monitored and fed in a warm room until they are strong enough for a bath.—Dawn Stover

See more shots of the birds after the jump.

 

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Our largest collection of the best sci-tech images around. Click "View Photos" to launch the gallery.

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