All of us jaded folks who have been around since we needed to listen to 30 seconds of ear-splitting noise just to get on the internet probably think we’ve seen it all by now.
Well, the world keeps on changing and turning up new stuff, so it’s not quite as straightforward as that. Check out some of the fascinating things out there — the learning never stops for good!
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Artists took three years to complete this stunning mosaic.
It’s located in the Temple of St. Sava in Belgrade, Serbia and represents the joint efforts of 70 mosaic masters, who covered 1248 square meters in beautiful religious artwork.
Would you have what it takes to make the journey across this bridge?
The Hussaini Hanging Bridge in Pakistan gained a reputation as the world’s most dangerous bridge, where climbers would test their mettle, as it’s a long route over Borit Lake, with the remains of an older bridge next to it.
According to Atlas Obscura , it’s believed this particular bridge washed away in a monsoon, but the area is known to have many other rope-and-plank bridges.
That’s not paint or paneling — this building really is made of wood.
Norway’s Mjøstårnet is an 18-storey, 280-foot-tall tower that has received official recognition as the world’s tallest timber building.
The tower was completed in March 2019 and contains both office space and apartments.
The pom-pom crab is kind of a jerk.
It’s obvious how it gets its nickname, from the pom-poms on the end of its arms, but what makes it a jerk is that those pom-poms are actually anemones.
The crab grabs one in each pincer and holds onto them permanently, using them to fight off predators and other crabs.
Octopus eggs are both a bit creepy and pretty cool.
They’re cool because you can see all the little ones inside as they grow.
They’re creepy because an octopus will lay tens of thousands of eggs at a time — but they have to lay that many because the survival rate is minuscule, and most octopuses only breed once.
Some animals have two sets of jaws.
Check out this X-ray of an eel, showing its pharyngeal jaws in action. Once the eel bites into its prey with the first set of jaws, it can send the second set into action to really get a grip and spell its prey’s doom.
This artwork contains no ink, paint, or charcoal.
The effect is achieved merely by folding and creasing the paper. This work is by German artist Simon Schubert .
These fossils make it look like the seas were once populated with thousands of tiny terrors.
The good news is that these are crinoids , which are related to sea urchins and starfish, and they’re generally not very mobile.
Also, crinoids are still around today, with about 600 living species.
You wouldn’t know it, but this is from a ship 265 feet below water.
And perhaps more impressively, it sank more than a century ago, in 1911. The luxury yacht Gunilda went down in Lake Superior, and the cold, deep water has left it remarkably well preserved.
You’ve heard of photosynthesis, the way plants feed themselves by sunlight, but what about radiosynthesis?
Fungus that feasts on radiation has been found around the Chernobyl complex in Ukraine. The fungus absorbs the radioactive energy and processes it, producing energy. Scientists even sent some fungus samples to see if it will grow on the International Space Station, where radiation levels are much higher compared to the surface of the Earth.
There’s a good reason why Hong Kong relocated its airport.
The old airport, Kai Tak , was known for some particularly sweat-inducing take-offs and landings as it was in the middle of Kowloon City.
Even experienced pilots had trouble there, as they were required to make a 45-degree turn below 500 feet of altitude to line up with the runway. Kai Tak closed in 1998.
In Dubai, some electric buses can charge wirelessly.
That’s right, the buses pick up a charge from the road surface wirelessly. The system uses Shaped Magnetic Field in Resonance technology over a 60 meter span where the buses can park and re-charge for a moment, or even pick up some energy while they’re in motion.
That’s quite the welcome wagon.
On a few occasions and for limited times, travelers visiting the country of Georgia — not the state — were greeted with a bottle of the nation’s wine.
The cultural exchange began right at the airport, with travelers gifted the wine with their passport stamp.
Also in Georgia, you can go see a football match inside a castle’s walls.
FC Kvareli Duruji plays its home games behind an ancient castle’s walls, which must make for a unique atmosphere for games, as well as helping keep the ball in play.
Apparently Manchester, U.K., isn’t as dirty as New York City.
Or at least, that’s what we’re supposed to think on screen, as this set-dresser in Manchester is spreading garbage on the street for the city to stand in as the Big Apple for a film production.
Before knowing the dangers, X-rays inflicted a lot of harm.
The images did a lot of good for patients, but not so much for the technicians running the machines, as this image of an X-ray technician’s hand from 1900 shows.
This looks terribly uncomfortable, but there was a method to it.
For ancient Incans, funeral rites didn’t always mean burial. They used mummification, much like the Egyptians, or buried their dead sitting up, crouched, and facing the sunrise as a symbol of rebirth.
