Athletes attend training session at the Ak Bulak Nordic Arena outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, July 16, 2015. Kazakhstan is aspiring to host the 2022 Winter Olympics but many in the Central Asian nation view the bid as yet another vanity project of long-ruling President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Almaty, the financial capital, will go head-to-head with the Chinese metropolis Beijing on Friday when the International Olympic Committee elects the winner at its session in Malaysia. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

Teeming with images of spectacular underwater scenes from around the world, Call of the Blue is the culmination of a five-year project by the photographer and ocean conservationist Philip Hamilton. This groundbreaking book includes contributions from acclaimed scientists and ocean “guardians”, who reveal what drove them to answer the call of the blue. (Photo by Philip Hamilton/The Guardian)

A fisherman carries a silver carp during a traditional fish haul at the Horusicky pond near the town of Veseli nad Luznici, Czech Republic, Tuesday, October 24, 2017. Each autumn, Czech fishermen get to serious business of a century-long tradition of catching carp for Christmas markets. Southern Bohemia, where the Horusicky pond is located, with its elaborate network of ponds is at the center of the local carp universe. (Photo by Petr David Josek/AP Photo)

William Gibson is not one of the authors that spits out novels like a machine – in his long and fruitful career he has only published 11 novels andof short stories and articles in the tens each. Still his impact on modern literature was huge – the “noir prophet” of the cyberpunk subgenre (that he was one of the pioneers of) has predicted the rise of reality television, virtual reality, video games and the internet. He is a Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction writer, with a special eye for what the future might bring.

A farmer uses a GoPro as he takes a picture of his carabao kneeling during the annual Carabao Festival in Pulilan, Bulacan in northern Philippines May 14, 2015. Water buffalos, locally known as carabaos, are led during a parade in the streets of the town to honour its patron saint San isidro Labrador, and carabaos will kneel in front of the church to give thanks for a year-long bountiful harvest. (Photo by Lorgina Minguito/Reuters)

In this photo taken on Saturday, May 16, 2015, Snoek fish with salt on them after they were cleaned in Lambert's Bay, South Africa. The boats line up along the jetty, bobbing in the cold south Atlantic waters, bringing in the day's catch in the early afternoon. The long silver snoek fish is one of South Africa's traditional foods, and a main source of income for the town of Lambert's Bay. (Photo by Schalk van Zuydam/AP Photo)

Twenty-four-year-old Maryam Aghayee makes hyper-realistic baby dolls acting as surrogates for some Iranian families who are apprehensive of having more children. “It has been about three or four months since I started this work”, says Maryam in Tehran, Iran on October 7, 2020. “After making my second doll, many orders have been coming in. The second doll was much more realistic than the previous one. After making my second doll, I said that from now on I can take customer orders. I did not intend to start a business from the beginning because it was a hobby, but after the second doll, the demand for these kinds of dolls increased, customers want to have such dolls”. (Photo by Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters)

Devotees of the small farming village of Bibiclat celebrate the Feast of Saint John the Baptist while covered in banana leaves and mud on June 24, 2025 in Aliaga, Philippines. Known as the “Taong Putik” (mud people), the ritual happens yearly in this small farming village as their own version of expressing their faith and celebrating the feast of Saint John the Baptist whom the survivors of the Japanese occupation in 1944 in their area prayed to for rain to save their fellow villagers. (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)