It never would have even occurred to me to do something like build a tennis court hundreds of feet off the ground or run a highway below sea level, but sometimes, folks just have to work with what they’ve got. The ingenuity of people will never cease to amaze me.
You might never even notice these railings, but they’re significant.
In WWII, these railings were stretchers, used to bear those injured in the Blitz in Britain to hospitals. In fact, during the war the nation faced such metal shortages that these stretchers might have started their lives as railings before being melted down, and been re-purposed as railings after the war.
That’s a lot of air.
We all know that bags of potato chips come filled with a lot of air compared to chips. These Korean students demonstrated just how much air those chip bags contain, using them to build a raft and go for a float.
Weirdly beautiful.
Usually we only care that they work, not what they look like, but those massive undersea cables that carry internet and electricity from continent to continent are pretty attractive inside. Credit to the folks who put them together for creating this art. Note, however, that the top middle image is a piece of glasswork that merely resembles the others, which kind of goes to reinforce what artwork the cables are.
An ingenious, inexpensive way of sorting fruit by size.
Scrooge McDuck knew what he was talking about when he said “Work smarter, not harder.” This guy has it figured out, sorting fruit with little more than a pair of sticks and some boxes below, saving himself a whole heap of headaches.
Take a good look at the colors of these rainbows.
The one on top is inverted from the more typical ROYGBIV rainbow on the bottom, right? That’s because with double rainbows the second rainbow is a reflection, which reverses the effect – it’s a VIBGYOR rainbow.
So wrinkly!
This is reportedly what a doctor’s hand looked like after spending 10 hours inside a glove while treating patients. You have to give extra credit to the healthcare professionals who put themselves through this to help their patients get better.
Specimens for days.
The Smithsonian has a lot of stuff on display, but if this is any indication, visitors only get to see a fraction of what they have on hand. This is the specimen collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and it’s critical to understanding things like evolution and what changes a species might be going through during things like extended droughts.
Speaking of specimens…
Did anybody think that penguins had such long necks? It makes sense to see them side-by-side with their skeleton, but you kind of expect a bit more…structure above the wings, don’t you? Note also that plate on its belly – it must help these guys slide around on the ice.
Seeing things.
Back in Ancient Mesopotamia, clay envelopes like this one were used to transport important documents. Scientists used a CT scanner to read the message inside this 4,000-year-old envelope without having to break it open and found that the message confirmed delivery of a large quantity of sesame seeds.
No Pooh bears were harmed.
A beekeeper caught this unusual pyrotechnic display on their trail camera after lightning struck their electric fence. Have to think that they will need a new electric fence after that strike. What a scene.
You either love it or you hate it.
If you whack a ball out of play here, man, it’s gone, because this is the world’s highest tennis court. It’s actually a helipad on the Burj Al-Arab in Dubai, but it was temporarily converted into a tennis court for a PR campaign. Andre Agassi and Roger Federer faced off in a match on the helipad back in 2005.
I’m never taking my keyboard for granted again.
This is an old keyboard from Japan, where they obviously don’t have a 26-character alphabet like the English language does. So, instead of the arrangement of letters and symbols we use, Japan would have keyboards with up to 500 kanji on them. Alternatives to these cumbersome inputs have since been developed.
Don’t brush off your screen.
That little black dot is supposed to be there – that’s the planet Mercury silhouetted against the sun. We know that Mercury is tiny and close to the sun, but seeing it like this really puts how tiny and how close into perspective.
Owls can swim.
One wonders why a bird, equipped with the power of flight and known to snack on land animals, would need to be able to swim. Nevertheless, this owl shows that indeed, they can.
Bringing joy to the world.
This is Daisuke Inoue . You have him to thank for all the joys of taking belting out your favorite tunes off-key out of the shower and into public spaces with his invention, the karaoke machine. Inoue didn’t think much would come of it when he invented it, however, and he didn’t patent it. Within the first year of business, his company produced 25,000 units, sending them all over Japan.
Must be quite the view.
And also a bit of a nervous drive, too. This highway in The Netherlands sits just below sea level, with a dike holding the sea back. Those windmills arrayed alongside the highway help to power a series of pumps that get activated in the event of flooding.
“The dying art of globe-making by hand.”
There has to be some real talent behind making a globe by hand – sorting out the scale of everything, drawing in the continental boundaries so carefully, and so on. It’s little wonder it’s a dying art.
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Mossy!
And yet, not mossy at all, because this is a mineral. The effect of looking into a verdant forest scene has been created by other minerals like iron and chlorite.
Better get there early!
If you’re ever planning on seeing the world-renowned Mona Lisa in person, you’re far from alone. In fact, this is what she gets to see during a typical day at the Louvre: a mass of patrons all jammed in to get their gander at the world’s most famous portrait.
Artwork of another kind.
Nature is pretty much the best artist out there, and in this case, it’s been created by moths gathering around a light. Their flits and flutters have been captured by a long exposure shot, showing all the spiralling movements they make as they swarm in the light.
