If we were to burn NH4Cr2O7 with HgSCN in the Dark Ages in Europe and show it to anyone, it is us who would be burning next on a fiery cross of Inquisition. And it’s no wonder, since this experiment produces a truly marvelous result. At first, as you ignite the mixture of NH4Cr2O7 and HgSCN, all you can see is that it is slowly burning with a reddish flame. After a while, however, a crater is formed in the middle of the burning pile, and then, suddenly, tentacle-like appendages start sprouting from the burning mixture. And you can almost hear the scream of the mad occultist – “Come forth, Kraken! Come forth!” But of course, this is simply a chemical reaction that is called the "Pharoah's Serpent". It was also often sold in firework stores until people realized that it was toxic.

Child beauty pageants are a billion-dollar industry in the U.S. While some critics see the pageants as an exploitation of innocents, others—particularly pageant parents—view the competitions as a way for a young talent to enter the entertainment industry.

Suren Manvelyan is a professional Armenian photographer who specializes in animal eye, human eye, macro, landscape, portrait and night spirit photos.

(L-R) US singer Halsey, models Gigi Hadid and Bella Hadid and Bebe Rexha (bottom L) clap during 2019 MTV Video Music Awards at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on August 26, 2019. (Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

A freediver uses weights, yoga and camera tricks to create the illusion of walking underwater for a film which took three years to shoot and was completed in 2013 in El Hierro, Canary Islands. Like a scene from a Hollywood science-fiction movie, this trick footage shows a man apparently walking on water. The underwater film was shot by biologist Armiche Ramos and brothers Armando and Francisco del Rosario, who used their expertise in freediving to create the illusion. No computer graphics were involved in the production, with the team relying solely on their own skills – and a few hidden secrets. (Photo by Ocean Brothers/Barcroft Media/ABACAPress)

50 year-old Italian artist Riccardo Boscolo says about himself that for the last 17 years his passion has been graphics, he likes to draw picturesque caricatures of famous people, mostly actors and politicians, that look like Hollywood actors, showing them from the sides you probably didn’t know.

The fennec fox or fennec (Vulpes zerda) is a small nocturnal fox found in the Sahara of North Africa.