Over the years, many readers of The Last Word have sent in photographs of extraordinary clouds, wanting to know how or why they might have formed.

Here is a selection of the best images. Some come with explanations, others are still waiting – perhaps you’ll be able to shed some light.

See the strange clouds and find out how they formed

Indeed, this very question gave rise to our bestselling book

Thanks to our readers, we now know that many species do – including other wasps (such as social paper wasps), robber flies, beetles and moths. But it’s not just invertebrates; numerous species of birds, skunks, bears, badgers, bats, weasels, rats and even humans do, too.

We now have an archive of photographs of wasps in the process of being eaten – all sent in by our readers.

See the photographic evidence

Before you groan, these images were all taken by scientists and are not simply art for art’s sake. They were all produced during the course of scientific research, and were chosen both for their aesthetic excellence as well as scientific or technical interest.

See some of the winning pictures

In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009, ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ takes you on an armchair tour of some of the most important telescopes ever built.

See the gallery

is a portrait exhibition of pioneering young scientists. It features a snowboard designer, a space nanomaterials researcher, a sustainability adviser for the 2012 Olympics, and many more.

See some of the best portraits from the exhibition

The exhibition opens on 1 May in Manchester and will be touring the UK. The portraits have been commissioned by , the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths Network, and were taken by leading photographer .

The portrait subjects are not only pioneers in their fields: they also work as ambassadors for science, technology, engineering and maths. They go into schools and colleges all over the UK and fire up young people about jobs in these areas, by giving workshops and talks, organising activities and experiments, and mentoring.

The ambassadors programme was created in 2002 by STEMNET, using government funding. Since then it has grown to involve over 19,000 professionals, and plans to recruit another 8,000 by 2011.

The UK is the only country at present to have such a scheme.

See some of the best portraits from the exhibition

The winners of the University of Miami’s â€ÈÙ have just been announced and include stunning photographs of a whitetip shark, a pygmy seahorse and boxer crabs.

See the winning photographs in our gallery

See a slideshow of images of the womb

It’s hard to believe but just 250 years ago, we had no idea about what went on inside the womb to produce a baby – yet now we know exactly what a baby looks like, from the moment of conception and at every stage, right up until birth.

An online exhibition funded by the documenting the evolution of our knowledge of fetal development has recently been launched by the . uses dozens of images – many of them rarely reproduced – to trace the visual history of the unborn from medieval art and medicine through to ultrasound scans.

See a slideshow of images of the womb

Click here to see a gallery of the photographs

The finalists of the popular competition have just been announced. This year has attracted some beautiful photographs, including the close up of a garden tiger moth, the sharp spines of an agave, and a common blue butterfly taking a shower.

The winners will be announced in May, just as the photographs go on display in , London, from 22 May until September 2009. There is a new category for this year’s competition: World Botanic Gardens, inspired by .

Budding photographer yourself? If you want to enter the next International Garden Photographer of the Year competition, then click

Click here to see a gallery of the photographs