A villa privately built on the rooftop of a residential building in downtown Beijing has prompted complaints from neighbours living below. Professor Zhang, the villa owner, has been instructed to tear down the illegal building, according to the property managers. (Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP Photo)

A pair of ice climbers have been snapped in front of a stunning aurora. Mike Stuart and Takeshi Tani were climbing the Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, when the aurora lit up the nights sky. They were photographed by famed night-time photographer Paul Zizka, who specialises in photographing auroras in some of Canadas most beautiful parks. (Photo by Paul Zizka/Caters News)

Burnouts became a serious form of competition and entertainment in their own right. Considerable prize money or goods are sometimes involved, and cars may even be sponsored or purpose-built specifically as “burnout cars”. Burnout contests are judged on crowd response, with style and attitude therefore being important factors. Such contests are particularly popular in Australia but often occur in North America as well. Wikipedia

Jenny Odell repurposes online imagery mostly from Google Maps, but also from YouTube, Craigslist, and other sites. In her “Satellite Collections”, for example, she incorporated aerial views of swimming pools, basketball courts, parking lots, and other recognizable structures, seen from space. Her more recent series, “Satellite Landscapes”, includes painstakingly isolated Google Maps imagery of oil refineries, wastewater treatment plants, solar farms, etc. This work is meant as a reminder of our physically determined and vulnerable existence, since we depend on many of these things for survival and maintenance of our way of life. Photo: Natural gas plant in Pittsburg, CA (detail of Power Landscape), 2013. (Photo by Jenny Odell)

Honorable Mention: “The Storm”. During I was taking photo with my nephew, the storm came and I caught this beautiful moment. Photo location: Kocaeli, Turkey. (Photo and caption by Aytül Akbaş/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A Hindu devotee girl stands after getting her tongue pierced with a metal rod during the Thaipusam festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tuesday, February 3, 2015. Thaipusam, which is celebrated in honor of Hindu god Lord Murugan, is an annual procession by Hindu devotees seeking blessings, fulfilling vows and offering thanks. (Photo by Joshua Paul/AP Photo)

Meri Nirmala Sari, 11, poses in her traditional costume before a performance August 6, 2002 in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. Meri dances with the Gunung Sari Peliatan dance group and has become a professional. She started dancing at age 5. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

“Mehndi or menhdi is the application of henna as a temporary form of skin decoration in India, as well as by expatriate communities from the country. The word mehndi is derived from the Sanskrit word mendhikā. The use of mehndi and turmeric is described in the earliest Vedic ritual books. Haldi (Staining oneself with turmeric paste) as well as mehndi are important Vedic customs as a symbolic representation of the Outer and the Inner Sun. Vedic customs are meant to awaken the “inner light” and so the gold of the inner Sun has an important symbolic function”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Application of henna or “Mehndi” to a girls hand in a market on October 18, 2010 in Jaipur, India. (Photo by Simon de Trey-White/Getty Images)