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I agree with almost all the points, especially the last one. The first half of the gallery is mind blowing and really focused. The second half is as if someone decided that "we cannot just show photos from STEM fields, we need to add some human touch of social sciences" (which, having worked for a major scientific publisher in the past, I am will to bet was exactly what has happened).

Re. them being over-edited - I wonder if the reason for that is because many of those would not have any colours in them if it wasn't for the editing (because they were taken using X-rays for example).

Ah, I meant the visible-light photos. Edited comment :)

And yes, I am a bit surprised by some of the photos, particularly towards the end. I've never been involved in the science publishing scene, so to me it just looks...strange.

> but what does the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine have anything, in particular, to do with science?

Nothing. The page starts with “ The best science images of 2022 […] Images selected by Nature’s visuals team, text by Emma Stoye and Nisha Gaind”

Halfway through, there’s a paragraph

“A personal view of the news

In compiling this year’s collection of striking science images, Nature’s media and news editors identified a photograph that said something special to them. Here is their take on the past 12 months.”

So, there are two groups of photos:

- Science images that Nature’s editors find striking.

- Images in general that said something special to Nature’s editors.

I think they should have made that clearer, for example by moving them to separate web pages.

> but what does the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine have anything, in particular, to do with science?

Probably not what the author had in mind, but two reasons I can think of off the top of my head:

- science has played a pivotal role in the development of the various weapons humans use to kill each other

- had humanity decided to invest more of its resources in "the humanities" instead of the hard sciences, perhaps we wouldn't still be behaving like this in 2022, or at least have higher quality arguments about such matters

I disagree about the negative correlation between humanitarian studies and war-like behaviors, however it's an interesting point nonetheless.

Personally, and it's a rather flimsily held opinion of mine so I'm open to challenges, but I feel like it's quite the opposite. Isn't it the non-humanitarian things that have brought together unlikely sides? At the height of the cold war, Americans and Russians still visited each other's countries for Chess championships, but not much else, right? My history knowledge isn't that great :P

> I disagree about the negative correlation between humanitarian studies and war-like behaviors, however it's an interesting point nonetheless.

Fair enough, but also interesting is:

- barring access to a counterfactual reality machine, the truth of the matter is unknown

- the mind contains processes for generating virtual counter-factual realities, and these simulations are so convincing that it is easy to mistake them for the real thing (which is unknown)

It seems highly unlikely that teaching these things in school would not increase awareness of them, though whether it would also have an effect on susceptibility is another matter. I believe that it would improve that also at least somewhat, and perhaps substantially with practice.

> Isn't it the non-humanitarian things that have brought together unlikely sides? At the height of the cold war, Americans and Russians still visited each other's countries for Chess championships

To me, this is an example of the humanities in action.

Good points. Thanks for sharing :) Interesting read.

An implementation will be even more interesting...or so it seems!

>Yes some Ukrainian scientists have been displaced. Some scientific institutions and faculties too, but the image isn't even about that. Feels a bit like they could have done their "send our best regards" bit in a better way, IMHO. Am I being a bit overly pedantic/negative here? I don't know...

Not to mention how ignored so many other human tragedies that happened away from the West have been.