We’re always learning about the world, even long after leaving classrooms behind. Or rather, you could safely say that the world becomes our classroom after school teaches us how to learn in it.
And it’s a big world out there! Even when you think you’ve seen it all, chances are you haven’t seen nearly as much as you’d think.
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This diver is touching North America and Europe at the same time.
There’s a spot in Iceland where the tectonic plates come within an arm’s reach of each other.
No, this isn’t some blob-like monster, though it certainly appears that way.
This is actually a giant salamander that crawled out of Kamogawa River in Kyoto. It definitely looks much bigger in the first picture than it actually is, but it’s still startling huge, bigger than any salamander I’ve ever come across.
Believe it or not, this is a vineyard.
Located in the Canary Islands, it’s unlike any other vineyard most of us has ever seen before, with the vines growing in holes dug out of volcanic soil.
This is the skull of a man who fought in the Battle of Visby in 1341.
It looks like the skull has been encased in something, but what you’re actually seeing here is the man’s chainmail armor that he clearly died wearing in battle.
This little critter will build its own cabin.
The bagworm moth caterpillar will collect pieces of twigs to make themselves little log cabin-style hiding spots.
This orange grew with a beachball-like pattern on its peel.
It must have gotten cross-pollinated or something, but I feel like it’s odd for it to grow with such straight lines separating the colors like that.
Sometimes not pedaling is best.
Can you imagine being in a bike race and seeing this guy just soar past you effortlessly while your legs pump away? It’s just a matter of physics and aerodynamics, of course, which is kind of crazy.
Pictured: Obama sitting for the first ever 3D presidential portrait.
It definitely looks like he’s about to give some sort of live speech to the people of America. But in fact he’s sitting as still as possible so he could be scanned by all 8 cameras and 50 LED lights.
This piece of wood had a natural joiner, making it tough to split.
A branch somehow manage to grow right through it, like a nail.
Not only are not all bees black and yellow, but some of them have blue wings.
This happy customer is a violet carpenter bee , and they pretty much stick to Europe and North Africa, which is why those of us in North America aren’t very familiar with them.
That’s as beautiful as it is painful.
A burn in the skin has revealed the lower layer of dermis, the level at which tattoo ink actually sits, which makes the colors appear much more vibrant than it looks with the top layer of skin over it.
These massive frozen “waves” in Antarctica are not all that they appear to be.
As one Reddit user pointed out, these are not waves from the ocean that have froze in motion. Instead, these are massive frozen forms that have been created over time from ice that has been compacted and uplifted by glaciation, then shaped through exposure to the elements. The result are these incredible wave-like icicles.
These trees have all grown with a significant curve in their trunks.
One Reddit user helpfully pointed out that this is likely the cause of snow that put pressure on the tree’s trunks when they were young, resulting in these unique forms.
That’s a unique and meaningful marble.
It’s not really a toy, but a keepsake, as a glassblower made it from cremated remains.
Seeing sharks through waves like this is surreal.
I guess it makes sense that they might be caught up in the motion of the ocean, but it’s still not where you’d expect to see them.
This is a black lotus flower bloom.
Although we’re used to pretty, white and pale-pink lotus flowers, there exists a gothic black bloom that was once feared by any who came across it, believing its scent to cause black, nightmarish dreams.
This person grew an amazing set of wisdom teeth.
Somehow they managed to grow directly into each other. Thankfully, this person’s dentist said they shouldn’t cause complications. “I feel pretty special ‘cause he also said it’s mega rare and he’s never seen this before,” the uploader wrote .
This opal stone looks like it has an entire nebula captured inside of it.
This is absolutely beautiful, and makes you wonder if maybe our own universe is being examined by someone else through an opal, a la the end of Men in Black where all universes are revealed to be contained inside marbles.
Whoa .
Turns out, “Up” wasn’t complete fantasy.
A team of scientists, engineers, and balloon pilots successfully re-created the house, hoisted aloft by weather balloons.
This turtle has been notably pictured twice, once in 1886 (left) and then again in 2017 (right).
Aldabra giant tortoises, like the one we see here, usually live between 80 to 120 years. This one, named Jonathan, was hatched in 1832 and is currently 187 years old.
This mildly irritated cat is blessed with two perfectly symmetrical face colors.
Known as Chimera cats, these felines occur because their cells contain two types of DNA, which is caused by two embryos fusing together. Thus, two different fur colors and also, notice, two different eye colors as well.
Some trees will stop growing — at least, up.
When they reach their full height, baobab trees will grow out instead of up, expanding by up to 1 cm every year.
This is how whales sleep, bobbing vertically in the ocean.
While this alone is interesting enough, the really interesting facts are that these sperm whales only sleep for about 10 to 15 minutes at a time and take various naps throughout the day. What I personally didn’t know was possible is that while they sleep, they stop moving and breathing completely.
This circus uses hologram projections of animals instead of live ones.
This is in an effort to prevent the mistreatment of animals for the purpose of human entertainment. You still get a magnificent show, hold the animal abuse.
Move aside brown crickets because this one is bright pink!
These beautifully vibrant insects are known as Katydid, a breed of crickets so rare that there’s only a 1 in 500 chance of finding one. Their eye-catching color is the result of a genetic mutation known as “erythrism”.
What causes that weird honeycomb pattern?
It’s all part and parcel working with a laser cutter, apparently. The pattern only showed up when some ash settled on the back of this person’s hand.
Behold, the world’s smallest computer!
How small is it? Well, to put it in perspective, that’s a single grain of white rice sitting beside it. Yeah, it’s that small.
Google went a step beyond their typical doodle to honor Apollo 11 computer programmer Margaret Hamilton.
The tech geniuses took over a solar array and arranged more than 107,000 mirrors to reflect moonlight to create this stunning tribute.
A turtle’s broken shell can be healed using bra clasps.
With wire, of course. The clasps are attached on either side of the break with some glue and then the wire gets threaded through and used to pull the crack together to help it heal.
A whale’s skeleton is a delicate part of the ocean’s ecosystem.
Known as “whale fall”, these skeletons can sustain an ecosystem for decades, as every part of the deceased creature is consumed. Even their bones are eaten by deep sea worms.
This is a camera glitch gone strangely right.
The weirdest thing is that only the water in the photo was affected, possibly because the camera’s rgb sensor was confused by the motion.
There’s another cool camera effect that can create some seemingly impossible things.
Like this photo, where you can see the reflection of a lightning bolt on the water, but there’s no lightning bolt in the sky.
Speaking of strangely wonderful camera glitches…
When panorama modes mess up, it’s usually funny, not artistic. But because this was taken during a trippy laser light show at a concert, we get this crazy display.
It’s a rolling shutter effect, and this picture illustrates it as well.
The frisbee is still in this guy’s hand as he throws it, but in the shadow, his hand has already released it. It’s all about the shutter timing and how it scans the lens from top to bottom.
