At the end of rice harvesting season, the folks of the Kagawa and Niigata Prefectures in Japan hold a straw festival to celebrate the abundance of the harvest. Dried straws cover wooden frames to form larger-than-life sculptures from animals like sharks and gorillas to vessels such as ships and tanks. The family-friendly event invites visitors of all ages to engage, interact, and play on the enormous structures.

Edinburgh-based physicist-turned-web-designer Tom Beddard was inspired by geometry to create these virtual Fabergé fractals – made up of self-repeating patterns, so that structures within the object resemble the whole. “Within a 3D fractal, there is infinite detail”, says Beddard, 37. “The closer you zoom in, the more structure is revealed”. Beddard rendered the fractals using WebGL, a technology used to animate 3D scenes in a browser.

A 500-pound lion and an 11-pound dog have formed an unlikely friendship, proving that cats and dogs really can get along. Bonedigger the lion and Milo the dachshund live together at Garold Wayne Exotic Animal Park in Wynnewood, Okla., along with three other dogs. The puppies were introduced to Bonedigger in 2008 when he was just a 4-week-old cub.

A tiger jumps while being trained at the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi province, west of Bangkok, Thailand, February 25, 2016. Thailand's controversial Tiger Temple, dogged for years by talk that it supplies the black market and mistreats its animals, is fighting to keep the big cats after wildlife authorities rejected a bid to extend a zoo licence that expired in 2013. The Buddhist temple, home to more than 100 tigers, has been investigated for suspected links to wildlife trafficking and wildlife activists have accused it of illegal breeding of the animals. Thai wildlife authorities have sent ten of the temple's tigers to a wildlife sanctuary. But the temple, which bills itself as a wildlife sanctuary, has denied links to illegal trafficking, and wants to hold on to its tigers. (Photo by Chaiwat Subprasom/Reuters)

In this January 25, 2013 photo, snake handler Saintilus Resilus holds a snake in front of his lips as he trains the snake to recognize his smell as he prepares for his street performances during the pre-Lenten Carnival season, at his home in Petionville, Haiti. Resilus sees himself as something of a performance artist, showing off with snakes and other animals that Haitians don't see every day, earning tips from impromptu audiences. (Photo by Dieu Nalio Chery/AP Photo via Matt Dayhoff)

The “voodoo” wrestler known as Panthère utters incantations above the alter of his shrine in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on July 27, 2023. In the capital of DR Congo, dozens of men and women – including former wrestlers – practice “voodoo wrestling”, using traditional fetishes and animals. Fights are organised in some of the city's poorest and most densely populated districts. (Photo by Alexis Huguet/AFP Photo)

Members of Siam Classic Dance Studio perform for onlookers at Haymarket on January 21, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. The Lunar New Year or Spring Festival marks the transition of the Chinese zodiac sign from one animal to the next. 2023 sees in the Year of the Rabbit, which begins on January 22. In Chinese culture, the Rabbit is a symbol of longevity, peace and prosperity. The festival is celebrated in Australia by the country's significant Chinese-origin minority, who follow much of the same traditions as the Chinese diaspora in the rest of the world. (Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

A homeless man sleeps against a wall adorned with a mural featuring a Shipibo Indigenous girl and Amazon rainforest animals, in Pucallpa, in Peru's Ucayali region, Wednesday, September 2, 2020. Peru is home to one of Latin America's largest Indigenous populations, whose ancestors lived in the Andean country before the arrival of Spanish colonists. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)