Hot air balloons take part in the 38th International Balloon Festival of Chateau-d'oex, Switzerland, 23 January 2016. For nine days balloonists from 15 countries take part in the ballooning event in the Swiss mountain resort famous for ideal flight conditions due to an exceptional microclimate. The festival takes place from 23 to 31 January. (Photo by Cyril Zingaro/EPA)

Japanese macaques are relaxed in an outdoor hot spring bath at Hakodate Tropical Botanical Garden on December 1, 2016 in Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan. The garden offers the hot spring treatment to macaques until May next year. (Photo by The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images)

If we were to burn NH4Cr2O7 with HgSCN in the Dark Ages in Europe and show it to anyone, it is us who would be burning next on a fiery cross of Inquisition. And it’s no wonder, since this experiment produces a truly marvelous result. At first, as you ignite the mixture of NH4Cr2O7 and HgSCN, all you can see is that it is slowly burning with a reddish flame. After a while, however, a crater is formed in the middle of the burning pile, and then, suddenly, tentacle-like appendages start sprouting from the burning mixture. And you can almost hear the scream of the mad occultist – “Come forth, Kraken! Come forth!” But of course, this is simply a chemical reaction that is called the "Pharoah's Serpent". It was also often sold in firework stores until people realized that it was toxic.

A year ago, we at HootSuite showed just how much we love Game of Thrones with our Social Media Winter is Coming infographic. The infographic was a visual representation of the quiet battles being fought between many social networks, who were building walls and blocking access between their respective sites and apps. That graphic was a hit with the social media community, so we knew we had to take things up a notch for this season’s premiere. Enter the Game of Social Thrones video.

50 year-old Italian artist Riccardo Boscolo says about himself that for the last 17 years his passion has been graphics, he likes to draw picturesque caricatures of famous people, mostly actors and politicians, that look like Hollywood actors, showing them from the sides you probably didn’t know.

The fennec fox or fennec (Vulpes zerda) is a small nocturnal fox found in the Sahara of North Africa.