Cars float up from a car garage in a mixture of storm water and gasoline in lower Manhattan as workers begin the process of pumping out the mess. (Photo by Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

Second Place Winner: “Thunderstorm at False Kiva”. I hiked out to these ruins at night hoping to photograph them with the Milky Way, but instead a thunderstorm rolled through, creating this dramatic image. – Max Seigal. National Geographic Traveler Director of Photography Dan Westergren, one of this year's judges, shares his thoughts on the second place winner: “This photo combines two different scenes into one: the small kiva in a cliff dwelling and the grand vista of Canyonlands National Park across the valley. I really like the two different color palettes – warm inside and purple outside. This two-for-one scene was caused by the lightning storm outside the dwelling, which lit up the landscape like it was a huge electronic flash. Looking at this picture I can imagine what a wonderful sight it must have been for the ancient people who lived here. It doesn't seem too amazing now in our modern world, but might have been mind-blowing for the prehistoric residents”. Location: Utah. (Photo and caption by Max Seigal/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

A small series by illustration Alex Solis remembering those things that used to rule the world.

Frank Melech is a german artist that works with illustration and digital compositing. What we’re bringing you here today is a slice of such work that we thought, besides remarkably talended, highly creative, because Frank Melech starts with a light bulb, a universal symbol of Idea but also a metaphor for an enclosed but transparent world, and inserts in them precisely other worlds and ideas.

Israeli designer HIlla Shamia has found a way to mix “oil and water” or aluminum and wood – two materials I’ve never seen fused together. The product designer has created a novel way to meld both poured aluminum with irregular wood chunks to create modern tables and benches with a warm industrial feel. Old world and new world in one.

67-year-old Guinness Rishi constantly tries to make his family and the entire Indian people by constantly setting new records. He previously became father of the world’s oldest adoptee, after taking custody of his 61-year-old brother-in-law, and built the tallest sugar-cube tower in the world, which stood at 64 inches.

The pygmy marmoset (Cebuella pygmaea) is a small New World monkey native to rainforests of the western Amazon Basin in South America. It is notable for being the smallest monkey in the world at just over 100 grams (3.5 oz). It is generally found in evergreen and river edge forests and is a gum-feeding specialist