I don’t know about you guys, but I love learning new things. And thanks to the power of the internet, we have the opportunity to find out about the world without ever even leaving the comfort of our homes.
We may think we know everything about something, but these photos prove that there’s always more to learn. Sometimes, all it takes is a different perspective to show us some incredible new sides of this big, beautiful world we live in.
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This is what an elephant’s tail looks like up close.
A bit freaky, I know. But what you’re seeing are the massive hair fibers at the end of one of this beautiful animal’s tails, which help them swat away pesky flies, basically like a built-in fly swatter.
What a dead, decomposed cactus leaves behind.
Once a cactus has lived its life, it decomposes, and can leave behind a beautiful, intricate cage of its spikes.
Strawberries are weird.
Those little seeds that sit in a strawberry’s skin aren’t actually seeds at all. They’re more like ovaries, which have the actual seeds encased inside of them.
I bet you’ve never seen a baby flamingo before.
Obviously we all know they aren’t born those giant, pink birds. But have any of us actually even seen what a flamingo looks like when it’s an infant? No, definitely not.
Salt crystals under a microscope reveal cubic shapes.
They kind of look like literal sand boxes, don’t they? It’s incredible to see how perfectly shaped they are, too.
Believe it or not, albino raccoons actually exist.
While not cute as cute as their trash panda brethren, these red-eyed critters are ultra rare and kind of resemble giant rats.
What a television anchor is hiding during their broadcast.
In order for a newscast to go live on air, the anchor must be fitted with lots of tech, including wires for their microphone as well as an in-ear piece so they can communicate with both the floor manager and the people in the control room.
Behind the scenes at a bowling alley.
Although it definitely looks more like a laundromat, this is what bowling alley mechanics see when they have to fix the ball return or pin dispensers.
A modern navy ship with no water around it.
This is kind of like the opposite of an iceberg, where you’re only seeing something like 30 percent of how big it actually is. Here, what you see is pretty much what you get, and there’s only just a tiny bit of the ship left under the water.
This is what the inside of a pool table looks like.
Personally, I’ve never given much thought to what might be underneath that green carpet, but this is super interesting to find out!
Space Mountain with all the lights turned on inside the ride.
Yeah, behind all those magical special effects to make you feel like you’re rocketing through the galaxy is a pretty standard roller coaster track. But let’s just pretend we never saw this.
This is what Deadmau5 sees during one of his shows.
This scares my claustrophobic heart but he doesn’t seem to mind being inside this mask at all.
Mount Rushmore is one of those immediately recognizable landmarks that we’re all used to seeing from a particular angle.
From above, it looks downright tiny and insignificant thanks to the scenic Black Hills the monument was carved into.
The similarities between a human hand and a monkey’s paw are striking when seen next to each other.
Okay, the monkey is obviously hairier, but other that that, you could almost mistake it for a newborn human’s hand.
For most of us, when the pool needs to be drained, the water is simply pumped off to the street.
But, in areas where water is more scarce, pool water gets bagged during repairs.
In the heart of a sunflower are more sunflowers.
Which makes you wonder what’s in the center of those flowers — how deep does this go?
I perfectly circular smoke ring formed in the sky here.
Lightning struck a transformer below, which created the smoke ring. No vaping required!
Have you ever seen a Canada goose with this coloring?
It doesn’t appear to be albino, like that raccoon was, so it’s more likely leucistic, meaning it lacks pigmentation.
From above, you can see that UPS trucks aren’t completely brown.
Apparently this is a thing they do to prevent the sun from heating the delivery van, and light can shine through to help drivers see their packages without having to turn an overhead light on and off all the time.
Thirty minutes passed between the top photo and the bottom.
In that time, the fat in the blood, taken from a person with hypertriglyceridemia , or high levels of triglycerides, coagulated. Well, this has me decided on eating more salads, if nothing else.
Even if you’re a map lover, you might have trouble placing this photo taken from the ISS.
But that’s a photo of the Nile River delta and Mediterranean Sea. Just goes to show how much orientation helps, and how little of that there is in space.
These tiny spines are found in a familiar spot.
This is what you see when you zoom in very close to a dog’s paw.
Paintball is fast and furious action, but this slows it down nicely.
And shows why face masks are a great idea. That would have left a mark whether it was filled with paint or not.
This just goes to show that some landmarks are timeless.
When a delegation from Japan went to Europe in 1863, they stopped by Egypt for a photo op with the Sphinx and the Pyramids.
Once upon a time, Vikings would file horizontal lines into their teeth.
It’s still not clear why, but it definitely makes your skin crawl thinking about it, doesn’t it?
A completely empty Boeing 787 airplane.
Without all the extra bits and pieces (seats, etc.), this kind of looks like something from the set of Star Trek . And it definitely looks way calmer than it will once it gets filled with people, that’s for sure.
Now here’s something that actually is from the set of ‘Star Trek.’
The original model for the Starship Enterprise was 11 feet long, almost as big as a car.
Another surprisingly large movie prop.
For the close-up shots of the one ring in The Lord of the Rings , they used this two-hander.
If you wanted to hold a giant squid’s eyeball, you could.
It would pretty much take up your entire hand, however, because it’s almost as big as a basketball.
This really gives you an idea of how much snow accumulates on ski hills.
So, take your safety on the slopes seriously!
Okay, maybe you’ve seen baby flamingos before, but how many of you have seen baby penguins?
Maybe now it’s better to ask how many want to see baby penguins again? They’re a bit fearsome, don’t you think?
This is turning my memories of ‘Winnie the Pooh’ around.
Some bees create honeycombs out in the open, not in a hive. This is what one looks like when it’s full of honey.
Owls have been hiding some pretty spectacular legs from us.
My favorite part about this picture is the clear displeasure on that particular owl’s face. He’d like you to put his pants back down, thank you very much.
When wasps built their nest on a window, you get to see a pretty cool display.
The inner workings of the hive are easy to see, and if you can get over the idea of hundreds of wasps being right next to you, the science is neat.
There are fridges out there with lazy susans for shelves.
Which seems like an ingenious design, but this is a 20-year-old fridge, which makes you wonder why you don’t see these everywhere.
This spiral structure exists inside a cement mixer.
Just think: the truck drivers have to navigate these huge drums to clean them out and keep concrete from building up because it throws off their capacity and their balance.
Someone decided to split open these pearls to see what’s inside.
You can see clearly how they are built up, layer by layer, before becoming the shiny precious jewels they are.
Not all wooden baseball bats are made from a single piece of wood.
This one is made from slats of bamboo pressed together.
This incredible maze is what lets your car change gears.
It’s the valve body for an automatic transmission, where hydraulic fluid gets directed to the right areas to smoothly shift gears. This kind of explains why a transmission can be so costly to replace, doesn’t it?
If you’ve ever wondered why spray paint cans rattle, here you go.
There is a plain glass marble inside. Do with that what you will.
You’ve definitely seen this before, even if you don’t realize it.
That’s what the Sydney Opera House’s exterior looks like up close.
Sperm Whales don’t actually have a top row of teeth, only bottom.
Its top jaw has little sockets that its bottom teeth fit into, which means its bite isn’t all that strong. Because of that, it usually swallows its dinner whole, like squids. Thankfully I’m sure they go down pretty easy. Not much chewing required.
Flying over an offshore wind farm shows an amazingly regular array.
I’m surprised at how straight those rows are considering they’re in water.
Phone cameras with rolling shutters can create some odd scenes.
This is what one did to an old propeller plane in motion.
It’s curious to see what you think this is compared to what it actually is.
Some folks might say mud, some might say the Moon surface, but it’s not. It’s the surface of water during a rain storm — taken from under the water.
