“Tardigrades (commonly known as waterbears or moss piglets) are small, water-dwelling, segmented animals with eight legs. Tardigrades were first discovered in 1773 by Johann August Ephraim Goeze, who called them kleiner Wasserbär, meaning “little water bear” in German. The name Tardigrada means “slow walker” and was given by Lazzaro Spallanzani in 1777. The name water bear comes from the way they walk, reminiscent of a bear's gait. The biggest adults may reach a body length of 1.5 millimetres (0.059 in), the smallest below 0.1 mm. Freshly hatched tardigrades may be smaller than 0.05 mm”. – Wikipedia. Photo: Tardigrades. (Photo by SPL/East News)

This photo taken on April 16, 2014 shows ethnic Kayan women wearing traditional clothes and bronze rings around tbeir neck in Panpet village, Demoso township in Kayah state, eastern Myanmar. Some ethnic Kayan women, also known as Padaung, begin wearing the bronze rings on their neck and legs from a young age. Usually they start wearing six to ten rings when they are five to ten-years-old and then they put on one more ring a year for years after then. (Photo by Ye Aung Thu/AFP Photo)

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Lake Natron is a salt lake located in northern Tanzania, close to the Kenyan border, in the eastern branch of the East African Rift. The lake is fed by the Southern Ewaso Ng'iro River and also by mineral-rich hot springs. It is quite shallow, less than three meters (10 feet) deep, and varies in width depending on its water level, which changes due to high levels of evaporation, leaving concentrations of salt and other minerals, notably sodium carbonate (natron).

A team from Woody's Ice Cream shop wrangle a large inflatable dinosaur down the street during the Independence Day Parade in Fairfax, Virginia July 4, 2015. Americans marched in star-spangled parades, ran relay races, gathered for fireworks shows and crowned a new world hot dog eating champion as they celebrated Independence Day in traditional style on Saturday. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Vogue Italia is hosting a series of shows in Milan exploring how the magazine seeks to engage with hot social and political issues and provoke debate through images by top photographers. The Photo Vogue festival in Milan is hosting three exhibitions. The first, Fashion and Politics in Vogue Italia, looks at the magazine’s ambition to be a catalyst for change – in subtle and playful ways. Here: David LaChapelle – October 2004. (Photo by David LaChapelle/The Guardian)

All the drugery of dishwashing in this three-times -a day task, which comes to the house wife who does her own house work, has been eliminated by the new dish washer shown in the photograph on April 25, 1921. It is the invention of a Cincinnati school teacher, who sought to make things a bit more pleasant for his wife. Incedently, his idea was worth 12,00 to him, for a manufacturing concern thought so much of the “dish-washer” they purchased the rights and will seek to add a little joy to thousands of other housewives. With the aid of only hot water, dishes placed in a wire rack and set into the drum are made clean and spotless in two minutes. (Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

A dinosaur robot produced by Tyco Electronics Japan G.K. is controlled by a smartphone at CEATEC (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) Japan 2014 held at at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, east of Tokyo, Japan, 07 October 2014.With a Sharp Aquos ZETA mobile phone model, users can make the 6.5-meter (21 feet, 4 inches) long, 2.1-meter (6 feet, 11 inches) tall dinosaur robot to walk forward and backward, jump, move its head, hands and legs up and down, left and right, open and close its mouth by touching the screen panel and make it bark by shaking the handheld. (Photo by Kimimasa Mayama/EPA)

The northeastern United States sweltered this week in a scorching summer heat wave, complete with stagnant, sticky air and no winds for relief, forecasters said. Even in a summer already filled with stretches of very hot weather, this week will be stubbornly brutal, with no relief in sight until the weekend brings thunderstorms to the region, they said. "Plain and simple, this week may feel the worst of any week for this summer in the Northeast," said Accuweather.com meteorologist Alex Sosnowski. (Reuters)