I am supposed to be writing an article about cyberspace and the creative imagination, but the mind wanders – cyberspace is a labyrinth in which you stray at your peril. Around any corner await discoveries so stunning that work is forgotten for a few minutes, sometimes hours.

The Wellcome Institute’s Image Award Winners for 2010 have just been announced and the resulting gallery of pictures, accompanied by videos, interviews and scientific background is completely beguiling. I must now return to my article, but it gives me real pleasure to lead you astray, so without further ado, here is the diving beetle leg I promised:

THIS WAY FOR MORE PICTURES AND TO WIND YOUR WAY TO THE EXHIBITION

Paul Phare’s series of artworks is a personal response to Dow Chemical’s “Human Element” advertising campaign, on which Dow has spent hundreds of millions of dollars. Dow’s victims, whether the twisted children of Vietnam, the wretched survivors of Bhopal, or plantation workers in banana growing regions, are some of the poorest people on the planet. They can’t match this spend, but they have something more valuable than dollars. You. Please download these posters and spread them widely. Post them on your websites and blogs, email this link to friends, print them out, get them seen by as many people as possible. For high quality files suitable for litho or giclée printing, please email the editor of this website.

CLICK THE IMAGES TO OPEN LARGE VERSIONS

This story has spilled over from my Today subsite, which tends to be about cultural events – things that one might want to go to. In this case, its the Wellcome Library’s High Life exhibition about the history of recreational drugs in Britain.

To promote the exhibition, the Wellcome have created an online game, High Tea that invites you to play the role of an 18th century British merchant, buying Indian opium and trading it for Chinese tea. Out of the opium trade the great British cuppa which, to add insult to injury, was often enjoyed in cups that conjured serene dreams of Cathay –very different dreams from those of the opium addicts the tea drinkers were creating.

••••••

MORE ABOUT THE WELLCOME’S “HIGH SOCIETY” EXHIBITION

PLAY “HIGH TEA”

THE WELLCOME’S “HIGH SOCIETY” PAGES

Visitors to ‘High Society’: Please note that in the final weeks of the exhibition, the gallery is likely to get very busy at weekends, in which case a queuing system may be in operation. For the best viewing experience, we would advise you to visit the exhibition on a weekday, Tuesday-Friday, or on our special late-night Thursday openings (see opening hours).

With the illicit drug trade estimated by the UN at $320 billion (£200bn) a year and new drugs constantly appearing on the streets and the internet, it can seem as if we are in the grip of an unprecedented level of addiction. Yet the use of psychoactive drugs is nothing new, and indeed our most familiar ones – alcohol, coffee and tobacco – have all been illegal in the past.

From ancient Egyptian poppy tinctures to Victorian cocaine eye drops, Native American peyote rites to the salons of the French Romantics, mind-altering drugs have a rich history. ‘High Society’ will explore the paths by which these drugs were first discovered – from apothecaries’ workshops to state-of-the-art laboratories – and how they came to be simultaneously fetishised and demonised in today’s culture.