Music, moped clubs and air guitar championships

Finnish photographer Esa Pekka Isomursu has been shortlisted for the Royal Observatory Greenwich's coveted Astronomy Photographer of the Year award. Isomursu made the cut with his picture of a vivid auroral corona behind a wind turbine in North Ostrobothnia, Finland. Check out the full shortlist on Astronomy.com. (Photo: Solar Wind Power © Esa Pekka Isomursu)

Dalia Stasevska impressed with her Los Angeles Philharmonic debut at the Hollywood Bowl amphitheatre. The Finnish conductor led an evening of music from Anna Meredith, Daníel Bjarnason and Antonín Dvorák. The concert received high marks from the LA Times, which wrote, “the five-minute score [...] became a compelling wow moment as delivered with Stasevska’s dynamic energy”. (Photo: Veikko Kähkönen)

“Finland has become a home for women’s skateboarding in a way that no other place has,” writes Vogue Scandinavia. The magazine visited the Helsinki HELride skateboarding community and talked to the locals about how the sport is changing for the better. (Photo: Samu Karvonen / Helride )

Atmospheric data from NASA’s Mars mission just became a lot more accurate thanks to a new error compensation model created by VTT, Finland’s largest research institute. “Planetary scientists and other researchers around the world can now benefit from this measurement data,” tells VTT. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

It's here. A new album from Finnish nu-metal band Blind Channel. Lifestyles Of The Sick & Dangerous is the band’s first album since it rocked the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest. Distorted Sound magazine is a fan, calling it “a brilliant album for the year”. (Photo: Facebook / Blind Channel)

Web Bike World has documented the "very unique relationship" between Finland and motorcycles. Charting more than 100 years, it follows the rise and fall of the once-ubiquitous Pappa Tunturi mopeds, the explosion of moped clubs, off-road ADV bikes and the winter habit of riding on frozen lakes on spiked tyres at 100 kilometres per hour. (Photo: Karen McKenna/ Visit Finland)

Actual guitar playing skills are optional at the Air Guitar World Championships. Nevertheless, there will be plenty of masterful guitar solos and a great time is guaranteed. If this sounds like your cup of tea, make sure to check out the event, now in its 25th year, on 24–26 August in Oulu. (Photo: Juuso Haarala)

StemSight was crowned the winner of the New Nordics Pitch Competition in Finland. The Tampere-based call therapy startup develops novel treatments for blindness and aims to create off-the-shelf human spare parts to replace corneal donor tissue. Platform6 has the details. (Photo: Platform6)

In 2012, Helsinki was named the World Design Capital. Now, 10 years later, the city is celebrating this anniversary with a new B2B festival called Design Helsinki. It will feature a series of events and activities around the Finnish capital from 24 to 25 August. Dezeen picked the festival among its highlighted architecture and design events of the month. (Photo: Design Helsinki / Carl Hansen)

The ViLLE learning platform has been awarded a UNESCO prize for ICT in education. The platform, developed by the Centre for Learning Analytics at the University of Turku, offers students and teachers detailed information on their learning process through immediate feedback and learning analytics. Read more in the university’s press release. (Photo: University of Turku)