Every year in Fairbanks, Alaska, the World Ice Art Championships takes place, and it is no cute little side hobby. Praised as one of the world’s largest ice sculpting competitions and exhibitions, the World Ice Art Championships has grown into a month-long event featuring more than 70 teams from around the world. The works are stunning and often massive in both size and visual appeal.

Lightning strikes the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) in downtown on June 12, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A girl in a vamire costume poses for pictures during the traditional park picnic on the first day of the annual Wave-Gotik Treffen, or Wave and Goth Festival, on May 17, 2013 in Leipzig, Germany. The four-day festival, in which elaborate fashion is a must, brings together over 20,000 Wave, Goth and steam punk enthusiasts from all over the world for concerts, readings, films, a Middle Ages market and workshops. (Photo by Marco Prosch)

A Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur costume runs on the field as young boys play an exhibition soccer match during halftime of the MLS soccer game between the Los Angeles Galaxy and Seattle Sounders FC in Carson, California May 26, 2013. The dinosaur was on the field to promote the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. (Photo by Danny Moloshok/Reuters)

Yang Shiguang, 77, performs stunts at a park in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, September 3, 2013. Yang has been a member of a stunt performance club since 2007, after retiring from a research institution. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

An Alitalia plane approaches to land as starlings fly at Fiumicino international airport in Rome October 14, 2013. Italy will have to notify a planned government-led 500-million-euro bailout of near-bankrupt airline Alitalia to EU regulators who will then assess whether the measure complies with EU state aid rules, the European Commission said on Monday. (Photo by Max Rossi /Reuters)

Mr. Zhong Hua, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, took this image of the peripheral nerves (those outside of the brain) in an 11.5-day-old mouse embryo, magnified five times. (Photo by Zhong Hua)