Winner. “This was taken in the South Ari Atolls, Maldives, as the south-west monsoon season was setting in. It features my partner – and dive buddy – Emma after surfacing at the end of the last dive of the day to find 1.5 metre swells and dark monsoon clouds. MICK RYAN, JUDGE: This beautiful portrait of a diver in an ocean swell below a menacing sky stands out this month for its emotional and elemental beauty. It is a reminder that while we may play among nature we are always dwarfed by its power and must be constantly on our guard”. (Photo by Simon Dunn/The Guardian)

Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west. Its population was estimated to be around 6.5 million in 2012. A third (33%) of the country's population lives below the international poverty line which means living on less than U.S. $1.25 per day.

Window washers from the American National Skyline company (from left to right in the image below: Jordan Emerson, Steve Oszaniec and Danny Oszaniec) suit up as Marvel Comics superheroes to pleasantly surprise the children (who are patients) and their families inside as the dressed up crew cleans the outside of the windows at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis

The Royal Observatory just announced its Astronomy Photographer Of The Year 2013 winners. Australian photographer Mark Gee was chosen among a thousand amateur and professional photographers around the globe to win the top title. His work is part of an exhibition of the winning photographers, which opened on Sept. 19 at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The Royal Observatory shared with us the winners and notable mentions of the competition. Their descriptions of the prizewinners can be found below the images.

A skill like woodworking takes years and thousands of hours to become more than just a proficient at, but this man invested that time to be a certifiable master. His name is Randall Rosenthal and he has talent that can result in mind-bending illusions. The project in the gallery below all started with three pieces of white pine he glued together. What he turned that block of wood into is so cool.

South Korean special warfare command soldiers participate in winter military training exercise on January 11, 2012 in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea. The South Korean troops train in temperatures below -20 degrees celsius to defend the country against any possible attacks from North Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

Justin Rowe creates these magical sculptures from hand cut books and found images with the help of just a touch of gum arabic and 24 carat gold or palladium leaf. Some are very much in the realms of fairy stories like the one above, but my favourites are the stories below where Justin’s skill brings the book’s own illustrations to life.

After some days with temperatures below freezing point, I was out skating at some lakes at the outskirts of Oslo in Norway. After a while I noticed something on the ice. To my astonishment it was a dead frozen frog.