The Tasmanian Giant Crab is the king of crabs
Add the Tasmanian Giant Crab (Pseudocarcinus gigas) to one of the animals you’ll want to see in person one day. Moreover, the crab’s…
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Here’s a bird you’ll never get tired of looking at. Children’s author and illustrator Claude Ponti’s gigantic topiary named Poussin Endormi or Sleepy Chick resides in Jardin des Plantes’ botanical garden in Nantes, France. The outdoor installation relaxes nearby Ponti’s zany other works, the sleeping koala. Who wouldn’t want these in their front yard? Check…
Photographer Lucas Zimmermann’s long exposure photos of traffic lights in the fog are mesmerizing. The images appear as part two of the German fine art photographer’s Traffic Light series. “The unknown hue of blueish light is hidden for the human eye, but the photography shows us things we otherwise overlook, such as a simple traffic light on…
On December 26, 2019, amateur photographer Elias Chasiotis captured an incredible ‘red devil horns’ sunrise over the Persian Gulf during a rare solar eclipse. The Athens-based photographer was vacationing in the coastal city of Al Wakrah in Qatar just before the new year when he snapped the rare spectacle of the moon blocking the sun.…
Knitting is a popular hobby in Finland. But 30-year-old artist Liisa Hietnanen takes the practice to a whole new level. She uses wool to create life-size crocheted sculptures of the neighbors in her village. “The slow handcraft techniques work as a counterforce to the accelerating pace in different areas of life,” says the artist, who…
William Mullan is a photographer who specializes in taking pictures of rare apples from around the world. The golden Knobbed Russet, the star-shaped api etoile, hard red Black Oxford apple — these are just a few of the varieties that appear in Mullan’s 200-page photo-book, Odd Apples. Writes Atlas Obscura on how Mullan’s fascination with…
In the 1880s, French designers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier mocked up what would become the Eiffel Tower. You can even see the size in comparison to other landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty. Thankfully, someone held on to the 14 other rejected designs. Number 3 seems to come closest to the final design, with embellished trusses…
Here’s something you can look at for hours: looping waves in progress. Created using visual effect software Houdini by Polish motion designer who goes by the name 00.032, according to her dribble page, the piece takes after Matthieu Lehanneur’s original physical work of the same vein. The French designer Lehanneur constructed a furniture collection called…
In 1911, Swedish film company Svenska Biografteatern recorded its trip to New York. Fortunately, the footage survived and most recently was speed-corrected (slowed down) and reproduced with the ambient audio of street sounds of car horns, horses, and police whistles to give us a sense of the environment back then. There’s also a color version of the…
Treadmills were originally torture devices, meant to break the mind, body, and spirit of English prisoners. Two hundred years ago, the treadmill was invented in England as a prison rehabilitation device. It was meant to cause the incarcerated to suffer and learn from their sweat. Groups of prisoners were forced to walk 6 hours a…
There is a bizarre-looking church in the Indonesian jungle that’s shaped like a giant chicken. Located in the forests of Magelang, Central Java (here it is on Google Maps, Gereja Ayam or “Chicken Church” was built in 1992 by Daniel Alamsjah. He foresaw the structure in the late 80s when he received a spiritual message…
Eye patch, parrot, and wooden leg, and a limp. Those are the essential ingredients to becoming a pirate. But did you know that pirates wore an eye patch, not because of a missing eye, but because the patch increased their sight instantly inside low lit areas? Early technology to avoid temporary blindness During raids, pirates…
There’s a road in the Netherlands that starts to sing the Frisian Folk Song when cars hit the right speed of 60 kph/40 mph limit. The musical road resides in the village of Jelsum in the north part of Holland. The structure of the strategically laid “rumble strips” was built in 2018 to celebrate the…
Add the Tasmanian Giant Crab (Pseudocarcinus gigas) to one of the animals you’ll want to see in person one day. Moreover, the crab’s…
Keep readingThe discovery of the Dragon’s Eye Stone Mine at the Hall of Giants stone mine in Lancashire, UK, resembles a scene from Indiana…
Keep readingWhat looks like the end of the Earth is really just the end of Australia: what’s known as Nullarbor Cliffs. The Bunda Cliffs,…
Keep readingThe Grandidier’s Baobabs (Palmate adansonia) are giant trees indigenous to Africa. Nicknamed the “mother of the forest,” this species of Baobab trees is…
Keep readingGiant Groundsels (Dendrosenecio kilimanjari) are prehistoric plants found on top of Mt Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. They evolved about a million years ago in altitudes…
Keep readingDun Briste is a 150-foot sea stack off County Mayo on the western coast of Ireland, at Downpatrick Head. According to the legend,…
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