Facial expressions can convey emotional nuances that words fail to communicate. Researcher Terrence Sejnowski has developed a computer program that analyzes images of human faces, purportedly matching the skills of professionals trained to read fleeting expressions of emotion. Learn more in an online article from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's HHMI Bulletin and at the Paul Ekman Web site.Go to: http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/may2001/faces/index.html and http://www.paulekman.com/

The Phimai temple complex in Thailand was an important Khmer economic, religious, and military center about 1,000 years ago. Richard M. Levy of the University of Calgary has created an elaborate computer reconstruction of this historic site, allowing visitors to wander the complex without traveling all the way to Thailand.Go to: http://www.phimai.ca/

See whether BatCam catches a tropical bat visiting a banana, or review QuetzelCam highlights for a murky but impressive view of how such a long-tailed bird jams its plumage into a nestbox. Or, if the cameras aren't picking up anything in particular, visitors can listen to short recorded commentaries from such denizens as prong-billed barbets and smokey jungle frogs.Go to: http://www.cloudforestalive.org/tour/qcam/

This elaborate Web site brings together a wide variety of resources devoted to the question of life in the universe. Mounted by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and other European agencies, the site serves as home base for a competition aimed at eliciting responses from European students to the possibility of extraterrestrial life.Go to: http://www.lifeinuniverse.org/

Dramatic images from the largest computer simulation ever of a plausible collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies highlight this report from the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure and the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Astrophysicist John Dubinski describes the science underlying the computations.Go to: http://www.npaci.edu/online/v4.9/galaxies2.html and http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~dubinski/tflops/.

For armchair space explorers, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory offers a tutorial on how to operate an interplanetary space mission. Originally created a decade ago, the newly updated guide includes information on spacecraft engineering, mission design, trajectories, launch, navigation, telecommunications, and much more.Go to: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/

The circle serves as starting point for this exploration of Native American geometry. Developed by Chris Hardaker for schoolchildren in Arizona, the Web site vividly illustrates the geometric principles that underlie Native American designs.Go to: http://www.earthmeasure.com/

We can't see this forest for the seas, but several Web sites offer colorful introductions to the variety and complexity of kelp forests. The State University of New York at Stony Brook site presents a photo album of different kelp forests. The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary pages summarize the ecology of these complex ecosystems.Go to: http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/marinebio/kelpforest.html and http://bonita.mbnms.nos.noaa.gov/sitechar/kelp.html.

Just in case anybody thought real life paled before the twisted creatures of sci-fi movies, check the Mite Photo Gallery by biologist David Walter of the University of Queensland in Australia. Portraits of more than 40 species offer plenty of weird shapes. The peacock mite, for example, bristles with little leaf-shaped flaps, and a "pan-tropical tramp" mite illustrates what a sports dome would look like if it had spindly legs.Go to: http://www.uq.edu.au/entomology/mite/mitetxt.html

For chemistry students, Molecular Universe offers a host of images, explanations, and other resources concerning molecules and chemical systems. Developed by Richard Catlow of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the site features lessons and material on protein folding, the molecular basis of taste, and many other topics.Go to: http://www.molecularuniverse.com/