Behind almost every scientific discovery is a fantastic image. Too often, however, publishers shrink researchers’ pics into tiny blocks speckled with letters, bury them in supplementary materials or leave them entirely out of the final work. To restore scientific imagery to its proper place, curators at the American Museum of Natural History assembled a new exhibit called “Picturing Science: Museum Scientists and Imaging Technologies.” The show debuts Saturday, June 25, and runs for a year. “A lot of people come to the museum under impression that we just look at stuff in dusty jars, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” said zoologist Mark Siddall, curator of the museum’s new exhibit. “There’s a lot of solid, cutting-edge research going on here with incredibly advanced technology.” Using everything from digital X-ray machines to laser-powered microscopes, the museum’s research staff can nondestructively examine thousands of fossils, biological samples, ancient artifacts and other items from their collections. Last year alone, the institution crammed their images into more than 400 studies. Siddall worked with other scientists and designers to select, mount and display about 125 of the museum’s best images grouped into 20 printed collections. We show off our favorites here and some of the techniques behind their creation. Above: Scorpion Heads The heads of 10 different Opistophthalmus scorpion species are pictured here, photographed under ultraviolet light. Although transparent tissue called hyaline makes scorpions’ exoskeletons fluoresce under UV light, its benefit to the creatures isn't known. In any case, it serves as a useful identification tool to museum curators. Image: AMNH/L. Prendini and S. Thurston.

Tibetan Figures X-ray cameras help curators peer inside ancient objects such as the Tibetan figures shown here. The alternative to revealing their craftsmanship with radiation? Chopping them into pieces. See-through images of the bronze statue (above) reveal its hollow body was pounded out of sheet metal. They also show builders used molten metal to cast its hands and feet. A wooden deity (below), meanwhile, can’t hide its history of repairs or ritualistic objects tucked inside its body. Images: AMNH/J. Levinson and K. Knauer

Meteorites Before the electron microprobe (below) came along, researchers had to pulverize meteorite samples like the ones above into dust before they could know much about a sample's chemical composition. Electron microprobes work by shooting a beam of electrons at a sample. Compounds in the sample absorb the energy, then re-emit it as unique X-ray signatures. Such signatures can then reveal the meteorite’s chemical makeup. Images: 1) AMNH/D. Ebel 2) AMNH/D. Finnin

Armadillo Lizard Skin The bony plates of armor distributed within this armadillo lizard’s skin are crucial to understanding its place in the course of evolution. To see the lizard's plates (above), also called osteoderms, biologists put it into a computed tomography machine (below). The device slowly rotates a sample and exposes it to X-rays. Computers then build the image data into a full 3-D model and preserve a sample’s internal structure without so much as a scratch. Images: 1) AMNH/E. Stanley 2) AMNH/D. Finnin

Egyptian Blade When a museum anthropologist couldn’t safely pry a crumbling leather sheath off of an ancient Egyptian knife (above), he turned to computed tomography. The X-ray scans allowed him to see through the decorative cover and find ornate writing on the blade (below). Images: AMNH/A. Voogt

Broadnose Sevengill Shark Skull In another application of computed tomography, researchers digitally dissected the braincase of this modern shark. The 3-D scans show where dense tiles of calcium (gold) line the skull’s cartilage and strengthen it. Image: AMNH/J. Maisey

Extinct Rodent’s Teeth Paleontologists recovered the skeletal remains of a 16-million-year-old rodent from China but weren’t certain what they were looking at. To find out, museum anthropologists plopped the rodent’s teeth into a scanning electron microscope (below). This technology bounces electrons off of samples to magnify them up to 500,000 times, or about 250 more than the best visible light microscopes can. The scans, when compared to other rodents’ remains, showed the specimen was a new species. Images: 1) AMNH/J. Meng 2) AMNH/D. Finnin

Glowing Corals Tiny communal animals called polyps slowly build up coral reefs, and some of the creatures deposit fluorescent compounds that glow in ultraviolet light. Each coral has a unique pattern of fluorescence under UV light, including staghorn coral (above) and moon coral (below). Such glowing chemicals are crucial in biomedical research -- for example, in tagging genetically modified organisms. Images: AMNH/D. Gruber

Yellowjacket Antennae Some species of bugs are tough to tell apart, so entomologists and other bug researchers enlist the help of scanning electron microscopes. Scans show an aerial antenna of a yellowjacket (above) as well as individual sensors on the antenna of a tree yellowjacket (below). Images: AMNH/J. Carpenter

Peruvian Shore Bug Genitalia Often, what decides a species of a bug comes down to the numbers of hairs on its leg. Or, in the case of Peruvian shore bugs, its genitalia (scanning electron microscope image shown above). Image: AMNH/R. Schuh

Goblin Spider Parts Scanning electron microscope close-ups reveal the detailed carapace of a goblin spider (above) and its foot claw (below). Such scans have shaken up fields before by revealing structures and abilities hidden to normal microscopes — including silk-oozing spouts on the feet of tarantulas. Images: AMNH/N. Duperre