These images have been created using a colour scanning electron microscope (SEM) by the award-winning Eye of Science, comprised of snapper Oliver Meckes and biologist Nicole Ottawa. For a decade the pair, based in Reutlingen in the south of Germany, worked with an old SEM they saved from the scrapheap, but for the last five years they have used a £250,000 FEI Quanta Series Field Emission SEM. Oliver said: “Flowers are beautiful in 'normal' view, but when you look closer, some parts get very bizarre and unexpected structures appear – flowers within flowers, worlds within worlds”. Photo: The floret of a Chamomile flower up close and personal. (Photo by Oliver Meckes/Barcroft Media)

“Ary Borges and his family live in southern Brazil like most families the Borges' love animals and have an array of cats living in their home. The only difference between the cats owned by the Borges family and the cat that is cuddled up on your lap as you read this is the Borges' cats weigh over 700 pounds and could kill you just as soon as look at you. The Borges family shares their home with nine tigers, two lionesses, a chimp and a Chihuahua”. – Amanda Schiavo via Latin Times. Photo: The Borges' family pet dog, Little, is placed on the back of Tom, their tiger, for a photo to be taken, in Maringa, Brazil, Friday, September 27, 2013. (Photo by Renata Brito/AP Photo)

Children eat watermelons to meet the “beginning of autumn” at a kindergarten in Handan, China on August 7, 2015. Chinese tradition to eat watermelons or peaches before that day symbolises “biting away summer”. The solar term ‘beginning of autumn’ falls on 8 August this year. (Photo by Xinhua/REX Shutterstock)

A contestant lies in a chili covered pool eating Chillies during a chili eating contest on July 8, 2018 in Ningxiang, Hunan Province of China. Citizen Tang Shuaihui ate 50 Chillies in one minute winning the contest. (Photo by VCG/Getty Images)

How sure are you of your geographical knowledge? Buzzfeed recently put Americans’ geographical knowledge to the test with a survey in which participants had to write in countries’ names on a blank European political map. Unfortunately, they didn’t fare too well, but some of their responses are hilarious (or hilariously mis-informed). But don’t be so quick to judge Americans – when Buzzfeed posted a similar survey testing Brits’ knowledge of the 50 United States, they also came up short. On the one hand, knowing a country’s states is different from knowing independent countries, but on the other, some U.S. states are larger than some European nations, and some U.S. states have larger economies than some European nations.

Catherine Hollis of Chester, Pa., and Izzy Weintraub of Atlantic City eat Cherrystone clams at Atlantic City's annual clam-eating contest September 16, 1946. They finished 96 and 66 clams respectively in 20 minutes. (Photo by Sam Myers/AP Photo)

Giant pandas eat at Chongqing Zoo in Chongqing, China on September 23, 2023. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Computer Inc. (Asus) unveiled the Zenbook, the new super-thin laptops. Encased in brushed steel, the Zenbook feels solid, yet light. “The super-thin laptop’s $999 configuration, which includes 4 GB of 133MHz DDR 3 RAM, a 128 GB SATA Solid State Drive (SSD) and two USB 3.0 ports, is $200 cheaper than a similarly configured “competitor” (read: MacBook Air). You can by a MacBook Air for $999 with the same Intel Core i5 CPU — but with only half the memory and storage space. Zenbook would get 7 hours of battery life (roughly 3.4 hours of streaming video and 3.25 hours of gameplay) and could remain in standby for up to two weeks”.