Every year, participants in the Burning Man Festival descend on the playa of Nevada's Black Rock Desert to form a temporary city – a self-reliant community populated by performers, artists, free spirits, and more. Last week, an estimated 68,000 people came to Burning Man 2013 from all over the world to dance, express themselves, and take in the spectacle. Gathered below are some of the sights from the festival, which lasted a week and came to its conclusion yesterday

Postcards for Ants is an ongoing painting project by Cape Town artist Lorraine Loots who has been creating a miniature painting every single day since January 1, 2013. The artist works with paint brushes, pencils, and bare eyes to render superbly detailed paintings scarcely larger than a small coin. After the first year, Loots relaunched the project in a second phase inspired by Cape Town’s designation as World Design Capital 2014.

The Greater Sage-Grouse is certainly a formidable-looking bird. Being the largest grouse in North America and having tail feathers, which look like giant spikes, make for a ferocious sight. These birds are well known for their complicated courtship rituals, in which the males perform a special “strutting display” to attract the females. Another distinct feature of the Greater Sage-Grouse is two large yellow throat sacs (gular sacs), which are inflated by the males during the courtship display. Unlike pelicans, whose gular sacs are used to store fish while hunting, the throat sacks of the Greater Sage-Grouse are merely for display.

Zahra Lari runs in a scene shot for the Nike Middle East ad campaign filmed in Dubai, UAE, February 10, 2017. An online commercial released by Nike (NKE.N) this week that showed Arab women fencing, boxing and spinning on ice-skates has stirred controversy over its attempt to smash stereotypes about women leading home-bound lives in the conservative region. (Photo by Reuters/Nike)

A ranger of Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) tries to cover the eyes of 2.5-year-old female Southern white rhino, Elia, to calm down after being shot a tranquilizer from a helicopter during Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) rhino ear notching exercise for identification at Meru National Park, 350 km from Nairobi, Kenya, on April 5, 2018. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP Photo)

Red Bull's Max Verstappen celebrates with champagne on the podium after winning the Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo on May 28, 2023. (Photo by Stephane Mahe/Reuters)

Savannah Bananas utility player Dakota Albritton throws in the seventh inning against the Savannah Party Animals at Sloan Park in Mesa, Arizona, on April 25, 2024. (Photo by Matt Kartozian/USA TODAY Sports)

Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)