Lions, the so-called “kings of the jungle” (even though they don’t live in jungles), are terrifyingly large. How large? Well, just like the blue whale, the best way to find out is by comparing a human to a lion.
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Luckily for those of us who don’t want to lose our heads, the brave man above did that comparison for us by taking a selfie with a lion. If you’ve ever wondered what a 10-foot long and 550-pound cat looks like, there’s your answer.
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It turns out that human hair isn’t as unique as many of us assume. If you look at the picture below, you’ll see the long black hair of a boy on the right, and the long-haired body of a Peruvian guinea pig on the left. You’ll also see that they’re nearly identical!
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Peruvian guinea pig hair, just like human hair, also requires a bit of maintenance. Although it doesn’t need gel and conditioner, it does need a daily clean and regular trimming.
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On May 18, 1980, after two months of steady earthquakes, the north face of Mount St. Helens slid downstream. The devastation caused by this landslide – the biggest in recorded history – was captured by two separate photos taken a few months apart.
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The first shows the north face intact. The second shows it after the eruption. The explosion not only damaged the mountain, but also caused the deaths of 57 people (including a prominent volcanologist), a few thousand animals, and countless nearby trees.
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We all know that cars take up a lot of space. We also know that most cars only carry one or two people at a time. Putting these two facts together can help us understand just how inefficient our fuel-efficient cars can be.
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The photograph above makes it even easier to visualize by showing how much space (and traffic-induced stress) could be saved if more people took the bus. It’s a strong visual argument for the importance of public transport.
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When many of us imagine what a starfish looks like, we think of Patrick from Spongebob SquarePants – in other words, a five-sided creature. However, it turns out that starfish come in a bewildering variety of forms with an equally bewildering amount of arms.
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As you can see from above, the five-arm starfish that’s so popular in cartoons is only one version of this magnificent creature. Plenty of other starfish move about with four arms or six arms – some even have 24 arms!
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The city of Seattle, Washing is known for being the home of Starbucks, Microsoft, and the Seattle Seahawks. What it isn’t known for is a city of beautiful weather. Summers are short, the winters always drag on, and rain is always looming over the horizon.
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The two photos above, taken only 15 minutes apart, show how quickly and drastically weather can change in the rainy city. If you plan on visiting, pack an umbrella – or get comfortable spending time indoors.
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Porvoo city in southern Finland is known to be an idyllic (and eminently paintable) spot. Over the years, hordes of local artists and foreign artists have set up their easels to try and capture the unique beauty of this 800-year-old settlement.
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The photo above, shared on social media, is a great comparison of Porvoo as painted in the old days and Porvoo as photographed now. Despite the passage of time, we can see a lot of similarities between the two.
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Over the years, NASA has given us some breathtaking images of the universe – especially after the 1990 launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. Soon after, the telescope began bringing home images from unfathomably far away places.
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One of the most famous of those was 1995’s “Pillars of Creation.” Although the image of cosmic gas and dust can be seen from other telescopes (the image on the left), it’s immediately apparent how much better the image quality is on Hubble (the picture on the right).
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As if 2019 and 2020 weren’t filled with enough catastrophic events, Australia also had to deal with devastating bushfires that lasted for more than 240 days. Over that time, they wreaked havoc as they spread all over the country.
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The image above captures a bit of what the bushfires did to Australia’s beautiful landscapes. On top of that, they took the lives of 28 people and well over a billion animals. Finally, in February 2020, torrential downpours and human intervention put an end to it.
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Nature has long served as a source of inspiration for human inventions. There’s a whole area of study called “biomimicry” that seeks to copy and re-work designs already found in nature.
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The image below shows how the hypodermic needle compares to other sharp and pointy things – a spider’s fang, a viper’s fang, and a scorpion’s stinger. See any similarities? Other inventions inspired by nature include scotch tape (after gecko feet), LED lights (after fireflies), and bullet trains (after a Kingfisher’s beak).
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