Celebrity portraits grown from stars' own bacteria

Well-known faces including Stephen Fry and Carol Vorderman are helping make art out of science by taking part in an experiment to grow portraits using their own bacteria.

The celebrities teamed up with American microbiologist and photographer Zachary Copfer to make the images by contributing a swab covered in bacteria from their arms.

He then took a digital photograph of the stars which was made into a negative and placed over a petri dish and shot through with radiation to burn away the bacteria in places leaving the image to emerge over 48 hours.

Children's TV presenters Dick and Dom also had their portraits created, along with Hollyoaks star Kieron Richardson and Bang Goes The Theory presenter Liz Bonnin in a bid to promote The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair where the pictures will go on show.

The fair takes place in March at the NEC in Birmingham and is aimed at encouraging young people to get involved in science and engineering.