“Cheddar Gorge is a limestone gorge in the Mendip Hills, near the village of Cheddar in Somerset, England. The gorge is the site of the Cheddar show caves, where Britain's oldest complete human skeleton, Cheddar Man, estimated to be 9,000 years old, was found in 1903. Older remains from the Upper Late Palaeolithic era (12,000–13,000 years ago) have been found. The caves, produced by the activity of an underground river, contain stalactites and stalagmites”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A general view of Cheddar Gorge is seen on March 22, 2012 in Cheddar, England. With only a few months to go until the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic games, Britain's tourist industry is hoping to benefit from the influx of athletes, officials and visitors. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

“Hey! I'm Thomas Shahan, an artist and macrophotographer from Oklahoma. In my spare time over the past few years, I've been shooting portraiture of local arthropods. Why would I devote countless hours to tramping through forests, fields and the like searching for insects and spiders? Well, despite some common beliefs, arthropods (members of the phylum Arthropoda – insects, spiders, crustaceans...) represent an endlessly varied, wildly beautiful and fascinating bunch of animals with surprisingly personable faces and behavior. Often, all it takes is simply inspecting their lives on a closer level to turn repulsion to reverence”. – Thomas Shahan

Photo: Adult Male Jumping Spider at Sunset – Phidippus mystaceus. (Photo by Thomas Shahan; Source: Flickr)

“The Yao nationality is a government classification for various minorities in China. They form one of the 55 ethnic minority groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, where they reside in the mountainous terrain of the southwest and south”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A woman combs her hair at the Huangluo Village of the Yao ethnic group in Guilin, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, July 15, 2012. The Huangluo Village of the Yao ethnic group locates at the Longji Terraces in Heping Town of Longsheng County in Guilin. Women here have the tradition of keeping long hair. They believe that long hair brings good luck and fortune. The average length of hair of 180 women in the village is 1.7 meters. (Photo by Lu Boan/Xinhua)

The 8th annual Miss International Queen beauty pageant was held in Pattaya in Thailand. The twenty-one contestants from fifteen countries were all born male, so the Miss International Queen 2012 pageant is not an average beauty pageant.

Photo: Panvilas Mongkol, a contestant from Thailand, waits for the start of the final night of Miss International Queen 2012 transgender/transsexual beauty pageant in Pattaya November 2, 2012. Some 21 contestants from 15 countries, all of them born male, compete in the week-long event for the crown of Miss International Queen 2012. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

“Red Land: Sunset Cloud Village is one of the most picturesque places in Red Land, China. As its name indicates, it's best to see before sunset. The reddish brown soil turns redder after rainfall and after farmers plow the land”. (Photo and comment by Peng Jiang/National Geographic Photo Contest via The Atlantic)

“The Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It was developed as a black project from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1960s by the Lockheed Skunk Works. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson was responsible for many of the design's innovative concepts. During reconnaissance missions the SR-71 operated at high speeds and altitudes to allow it to outrace threats. If a surface-to-air missile launch was detected, the standard evasive action was simply to accelerate and outrun the missile”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A U.S. Air Force SR-71A, also known as the “Blackbird”, is put through it's paces during a test flight over Beale Air Force Base in California. The aircraft is a strategic reconnaissance plane by Lockheed and is the world's fastest and highest flying operational aircraft. (Photo by Getty Images)