Some Iraqi candidates for Miss Iraq beauty contest pose in front of the Ishtar Gate at the ancient archaeological site of Babylon, outside the modern city of Hilla, south of the capital Baghdad on December 17, 2015. The beauty contest, which is the first one in more than 40 years, aims to boost tourism in the city and will take place on December 19, 2015. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP Photo)

Participants wait backstage during the Miss Wheelchair India beauty pageant in Mumbai November 26, 2014. Seven women from across India participated in the country's second wheelchair beauty pageant, which aims to open doors for the wheelchair-bound in modelling, film and television, according to organisers. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

This strange coral-looking specimen is actually a mushroom. The photo, “Beautiful Destroyer”, was taken in the Panamanian tropical rainforest where the mushroom produces nitrogen, an element vital to soil health. (Photo by Sarah A. Batterman)

If you’ve had the unique privilege of witnessing bioluminescent plankton while diving at night, you know firsthand how beautiful the underwater light show can be. For those of us who haven’t experienced it, this unique phenomenon. So what makes this beautiful show possible? In a recent post at online scuba site AquaViews they share some insight we thought you all would find interesting.

Sabine Pearlman‘s photographs find beauty in the destructive engineering of ammunition with this series of cross-sections of bullets cartridges from a Swiss bunker. They reveal the complexity inside each case. This series, which consists of 900 specimens, was photographed inside a WWII bunker in Switzerland. Pearlman says that she is intrigued by the beautiful complexity of the ammo set against its destructive purpose, at once showing off humanity’s ability to create and destroy.

Young Ian Archibald ponders the consequences of a complex critical study of beauty contestants during the Miss TV Times finals in London. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images). 30 July 1971

First place, The Beauty of Plants. “There are many stages of lotus growth on display at the Aquatic Gardens, but to come across twotwisted dancing stems of nelumbo nucifera was unexpected and quite magical”. (Photo by Kathleen Furey/The Guardian)

An enormous crocodile mauls a young hippo calf carcass near Lower Sabie on May 11, 2014, in Kruger National Park, South Africa. An enormous crocodile tosses around a young hippo calf caught in its lethal jaws. The giant reared out of the water revealing a young hippo calf between its teeth. The huge beast then span, jumped and splashed in the water with the small carcass. Amateur photographer Roland Ross captured these incredible photographs near Lower Sabie in Kruger Park, South Africa. (Photo by Roland Ross/Barcroft Media)