Growing cities, overuse of fertilizers and factory wastewater have degraded China's water supplies to the extent that half the nation's rivers and lakes are severely polluted. China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth. Photo: Fishermen row a boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, Anhui province, June 19, 2009. (Photo by Jianan Yu/Reuters)

Faces adorn crosses placed in the Garden of Remembrance of some of Britain's armed forces members who have died in Afghanistan in the Garden of Remembrance outside Westminster Abbey at the official opening of the Royal British Legion's Field of Remembrance on November 5, 2009 in London, England. (Photo by Alastair Grant-Pool/Getty Images)

Volunteers receive a professional massage from qualified therapists as they break a world record for the largest ever simultaneous massage during Massage en Masse at Lavandula Lavender Farm on March 30, 2010 in Daylesford, Australia. Two hundred and sixty three massage therapists each massaged a volunteer, breaking the former world record of 167, set in 2009 in Washington DC. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

The world's biggest copy of the Mona Lisa is unveiled on October 28, 2009 in Wrexham, Wales The giant version of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece measures 17.5 metres across and is 50 times bigger than the original painting and was created by community groups in Wrexham and artist Katy Webster. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Undulatus asperatus (or alternately, asperatus) is a cloud formation, proposed in 2009 as a separate cloud classification by the founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society. If successful it will be the first cloud formation added since cirrus intortus in 1951 to the International Cloud Atlas of the World Meteorological Organization. The name translates approximately as “roughened or agitated waves”.

Korean artist Seung Mo Park continues to amaze with his astonishingly crafted figurative sculptures made with tightly wrapped layers of aluminum wire based on fiberglass forms. The works shown here are part of the Brooklyn-based artist’s Human series where he recreates the delicate wrinkles and folds of clothing as well as the sinuous musculature of the human body in metallic layers remeniscent of tree rings. He’s also sculpted bicycles, musical insturments and other forms as part of his Object series.

A street artist dances tango in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, January 20, 2015. Tango is a partner dance that originated in the 1890's along the Rio de la Plata, the border between Uruguay and Argentina. UNESCO approved in 2009, a joint proposal by the two nations to include the dance in its Intangible Cultural Heritage List. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

“Muhammed’s work has received many international awards, among others Breaking News Pulitzer Prize of 2005 for covering war in Iraq, POYI, Picture of the year 2007, of Saudi Arabia of the Annual Muslim pilgrimage, best Multimedia of the Annual Israeli photo contest of 2007, honorable mention Atlanta photojournalism seminar of 2008 and photo of the year of the Annual Israeli photo contest of 2008 with two first prizes and two second prizes in different categories, two prizes in the Atlanta photojournalism seminar of 2009, 6 prizes in the Annual Israeli photo contest of 2009”. – Associated Press