Center: Detail of Jupiter, Mercury and the Virtue (1522-24). Oil on canvas, 111.3 × 150 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. By Dossi Dosso (Giovanni Luteri) (ca. 1490-1542), the outstanding painter of the Ferrarese School in the 16th century. Allegory of the genesis of the Worldshown as the “painting act”. The picture represents Jupiter painting (creating) butterflies, while Mercury refuses the Virtue (not shown). Those butterflies are timeless, hardly a shape. Whentime is “injected” into those butterflies, they become alive. Mercury stops the time until the butterflies are correctly formed, otherwise they would be destroyed. See the whole painting and article by F. Baquero, pp. 81-91, this issue.)

Upper left: Several virions of human adenovirus isolated from the urine of a bone-marrow-transplant patient. Virus particle size is around 75 nm. Negative-staining with potassium phosphotungstate. Transmission electron micrograph courtesy of Laureano Cuevas (Electron Microscopy Unit, National Center for Microbiology, Majadahonda, Spain). (Magnification, ca. 175,000×)

Upper right: Transmission electron micrograph of the bacterium Clostridium bifermentans and its endospore, isolated from Ebro Delta microbial mats. Ultrathin sections were collected on copper grids and poststained with uranyl acetate and lead citrate. Samples were visualized on a JEM1010 TEM microscope (JEOL). This strain was isolated and photographed by Laura Villanueva (Department of Microbiology, University of Barcelona, Spain). (Magnification, ca. 35,000×)

Lower left: Culture of the protist Leishmania infantum promastigotes, kindly provided by F. Grimm (University of Zürich, Switzerland). Photographed after Giemsa-staining by María Colmenares (Molecular Parasitology Laboratory, Biological Research Center, CSIC, Madrid). (Magnification, ca. 2000×)

Lower right: The fungus Syncephalastrum racemosum CECT 2569. Spores develop in rows in elongated merosporangia. Scanning electron micrograph courtesy of Josefa Bosch, Jordi Abellà, and Montserrat Agut (Chemical Institute of Sarrià, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain). (Magnification, ca. 2000×)