Images from inside Chernobyl's exclusion zone

29 July 2011 Last updated at 08:23

The first Scottish Nature Photography award winners.

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First images of unconscious brain

13 June 2011 Last updated at 22:55 GMT By Jennifer Carpenter Science reporter, BBC News These images capture a patient's brain activity the moment they slip into unconsciousness

For the first time researchers have monitored the brain as it slips into unconsciousness.

The new imaging method detects the waxing and waning of electrical activity in the brain moments after an anaesthetic injection is administered.

As the patient goes under, different parts of the brain seem to be "talking" to each other, a team told the European Anaesthesiology Congress in Amsterdam.

But they caution that more work is needed to understand what is going on.

The technique could ultimately help doctors pinpoint damage in the brains of people suffering from stroke and head injury.

"Our jaws just hit the ground," said anaesthesiologist Professor Brian Pollard from Manchester Royal Infirmary on seeing the images for the first time.

"I can't tell you the words we used as it wouldn't be polite over the phone."

Cross talk

Although regions of the brain seem to be communicating as "consciousness fades", Professor Pollard cautions that it is early days and that he and his team from the University of Manchester still have many brain scans to analyse before they can say anything conclusive about what is happening.

The finding supports a theory put forward by Professor Susan Greenfield, from the University of Oxford, that unconsciousness is a process by which different areas of the brain inhibit each other as the brain shuts down.

Fully operable

The new technique, called Functional Electrical Impedance Tomography by Evoke Response (fEITER), is more compact than other brain imaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and so is easily transported into the operating theatre.

It involves attaching tens of electrodes to the patient's head, which send low electrical currents through the skull. The currents are interrupted by the brain's tissues and electrical signals.

Professor Pollard explained that the brain's structures should not change over a minute-long scan, and so any differences that he and his team see as the patient falls asleep must therefore be due to changes in their brain's activity.

It is hoped that this technique could be used to learn about the nature of consciousness, but it is also likely to help doctors make headway in monitoring the health of a person's grey matter after they have suffered a head injury or stroke.

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Images show ash cloud particles

26 May 2011 Last updated at 10:46 GMT The samples were collected from the windscreen of a car in Aberdeen Scientists in Aberdeen have released pictures of volcanic glass particles from Iceland which fell in the city.

The images show the jagged edges of the particles, which were taken from the windscreen of a clean car parked at the James Hutton Institute.

They were collected on Tuesday - the same day Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary described the ash cloud as "mythical".

Flights were grounded on Tuesday and Wednesday when ash from the Grimsvotn volcano drifted into Scottish airspace.

The largest of the particles is 0.03mm across, with the smallest just 0.002mm wide. The images were taken using a scanning electron microscope.

Scientists at the institute said their composition showed that they did not come from last year's volcanic eruption in Iceland.

But they added they had not yet been compared with samples from the Grimsvotn eruption.

Ruling challenged

The ash cloud resulted in about 500 flights being cancelled across Europe after parts of British airspace were closed.

One of the worst hit countries was Scotland which saw flights at its main airports cancelled and hundreds of passengers stranded.

On Tuesday, Ryanair said it had flown over Scotland and challenged a ruling some flights should be grounded.

It said its 90-minute flight at 41,000ft showed there was "no visible volcanic ash cloud or evidence of ash on the airframe, wings or engines".

However, the CAA said the flight had not entered the so-called red zone.

Recent Met Office forecasts have shown that high density volcanic ash is no longer an immediate threat over the UK.

And Scottish transport minister Keith Brown has said bank holiday travel in Scotland was unlikely to be disrupted.

The James Hutton Institute was formed by bringing together the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute and Scottish Crop Research Centre.

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