Mosaic Salamander, Park Guell, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, Europe

Tsutenkaku tower in Shinsekai (Shin Sekai) (New World), Osaka, Honshu, Japan, Asia

Eton schoolboys in traditional tails looking through the window at Eton College, England, UK

Eton schoolboys in traditional tails at Eton College, England, UK

Eton schoolboys in traditional tails at Eton College, England, UK

Eton schoolboys in traditional tails looking through the window at Eton College, England, UK

Eton schoolboys in traditional tails at Eton College, England, UK

Starbucks coffee shop, American influence, alongside Chinese street signs in Yu Garden Bazaar Market, Shanghai, China

Dutch style gables show colonial influence, Oranjestad, Aruba, Caribbean, Central America

Batik from Pekalongan, dating from wartime, showing Japanese influence, North Coast of Java, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Asia

Timber frame houses and fountain showing Danish influence in a typical street in Solvang, California, United States of America, North America

Medieval fortress showing Venetian influence in the building, at Korcula, Croatia, Europe

Baroque influence in a gable in Hamelin, Lower Saxony, Germany, Europe

Phare Ponleu Selpak Influence show in Battambang, Cambodia, Indochina, Southeast Asia, Asia

Exterior of a Chinese house with French influence in Hoi An, Vietnam, Indochina, Southeast Asia, Asia

Wall mural in Travessa do Comercio in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Men from the village of Gangwal, which was devastated in the 2005 earthquake, show makeshift shelters that villagers constructed themselves after the quake, in the upper Allai Valley, NWFP, Pakistan. Most of the villagers fled to tent camps at lower elevations to spend the winter, leaving just a handful of families to look after livestock and possessions. The people of this remote area are Pashtun and until the earthquake, neither the government nor the military had much presence or influence in the region.

Nepal, Kathmandu, painted religious man wearing western sunglasses at Pashupatinath holy Hindu place on Bagmati River.

India, Rajasthan, near Ranthambore, old Hindu men, one wearing western sunglasses, in small village of Charu.

Portugal, Evora, Building exterior representing architecture with Moorish influence

Tara Oceans Expeditions - May 2011. Tara with deployed plancton nets. On "station", the boat is drifting without engine or sails. Tara Oceans, a unique expedition: Tara Oceans is the very first attempt to make a global study of marine plankton, a form of sea life that includes organisms as small as viruses and bacterias, and as big as medusas. Our goal is to better understand planktonic ecosystems by exploring the countless species, learning about interactions among them and with their environment. Marine plankton is the only ecosystem that is almost continuous over the surface of the Earth. Studying plankton is like taking the pulse of our planet. Recently, scientists have discovered the great importance of plankton for the climate: populations of plankton are affected very rapidly by variations in climate. But in turn they can influence the climate by modifying the absorption of carbon. In a context of rapid physico-chemical changes, for example the acidification observed today in the world's oceans, it is urgent to understand and predict the evolution of these particular ecosystems. Finally, plankton is an astonishing way of going back in time ? a prime source of fossils. Over the eons, plankton has created several hundred meters of sediment on the ocean floors. This allows us to go back in time, to the first oceans on Earth, and better understand the history of our biosphere. More than 12 fields of research are involved in the project, which will bring together an international team of oceanographers, ecologists, biologists, geneticists, and physicists from prestigious laboratories headed by Eric Karsenti of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. Galapagos