People take part in a water gun battle as part of the annual Songkran festival, also known as water festival, the traditional Thai New Year celebrations, at the tourist spot of Khao San Road in Bangkok, Thailand, 13 April 2023. Thailand celebrates its first water-splashing Songkran festival following a three-year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Songkran is celebrated with splashing water and putting powder on each other's faces as a symbolic sign of cleansing and washing away the sins from the old year. (Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA)

A general view of dried-up rivers in the Pilbara region of Western Australia December 2, 2013. Western Australia's Pilbara region, which is the size of Spain, has the world's largest known deposits of iron ore and supplies nearly 45 percent of global trade in the mineral. (Photo by David Gray/Reuters)

Inside the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia’s Danakil desert, camel caravans are used to carry salt. For centuries, the essential mineral has been mined by the Afar people, known for their ability to withstand extremes. The terrain is rugged, travelers are scarce and so are motor vehicles, where the average annual temperature is the highest in the world, and can rise to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, 50 degrees Celsius. (Photo by Ziv Koren/Polaris)

Illuminated Cut Paper Light Boxes by Hari & DeeptiDeepti Nair and Harikrishnan Panicker (known collectively as Hari & Deepti) are an artist couple who create paper cut light boxes. Each diorama is made from layers of cut watercolor paper placed inside a shadow box and is lit from behind with flexible LED light strips. The small visual narratives depicted in each work often play off aspects of light including stars, flames, fireflies, and planets.

Son doong cave is a cave in Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park, Bố Trạch district, Quảng Bình Province, Vietnam. Currently the biggest known cave in the world, the cave is located near the Laos-Vietnam border. Inside is a large, fast-flowing underground river.
In early August 2013, the first tourist group explored the cave on a guided tour at a cost of US$3,000 each. The group had six members from Australia, Norway, Russia and USA and spent 7 days and 6 nights for the tour. Next exploration trips will be arranged.

An American inventor has built a unique upside-down racecar – and successfully taken it on a 24-hour spin around the LeMons track. Jeff Bloch – also known as SpeedyCop – built his upside down 1999 Chevrolet Camaro by combining it with a decrepit 1990 Ford Festiva. To enter the latest LeMons race the car had to cost less than $500, which Bloch achieved by picking a Festiva model with a worn-out 1.3-litre engine and more than 300,000 kilometres on the clock.

While vacationing on the Maldives Islands, Taiwanese amateur photographer Will Ho stumbled onto an incredible stretch of beach covered in millions of bioluminescent phytoplankton. These tiny organisms glow similarly to fireflies and tend to emit light when stressed, such as when waves crash or when they are otherwise agitated. While the phenomenon and its chemical mechanisms have been known for some time, biologists have only recently began to understand the reasons behind it. Photo: Bioluminescent phytoplankton washes up on Maldives beach. (Photo by Will Ho)

Captured by South African photographer Dillon Marsh, these fantastic photographs depict the many designs employed by sociable weavers to build sturdy nests that are safe from intruders such as cobras and tree snakes. They are also nice cool during the day, and stay warm during cold desert nights. A University of Stellenbosch graduate, Marsh is currently interested in landscape photographer who seeks out anomalies that can be arranged in a photographic series. Assimilation depicts scores of intricate weaver’s nests atop utility poles in Southern Africa. Colonies of sociable weavers have been known to stay attached to one particular nest for up to 100 years, according to The San Diego Zoo.