Hirotoshi Itoh graduated from Tokyo National Fine Arts University in 1982 and later went into his family business as a stonemason. He spent several years working with metal before turning his attention to stones. He utilizes stones found in a river bank near his home, and he creates sculptures that juxtapose the original shape and hardness of the material with surprising humor and texture. You can find more of his work on his Deviant Art page.

If you ever wanted to meet a live Pikachu, you might have a hard time finding one. However, there is a creature on this Earth that kind of looks like one. That creature’s name is Thecacera pacifica and it is a species of a sea slug. These little critters can be found in the Indian Ocean from African coast to Indonesia and Vanuatu. Their vibrant orange and blue colors look gorgeous, making it look like some sort of anemone. Also, as you might have guessed from the striking colors of the sea slug, just like most of anemones, this creature is very toxic. Thus, keeping it as a pet isn’t an option.

The President tree is the name of a giant sequoia located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in the United States, east of Visalia, California. The tree is believed to be at least 3,200 years old.
The tree was named after President Warren G. Harding in 1923. Nearby trees include Chief Sequoyah, the 27th largest giant sequoia in the world, and the Congress Group, two dense stands of medium sized sequoias that represent the "House" and "Senate".

“I was born in 1977 in Warsaw, Poland. I had graduated from the High School of Art in Warsaw. My journey into the world of photography began in the early 90's, but at that time my biggest passion was painting. Painting helped me develop vision that was hard to create. Unfortunately I had to leave the paintbrush and canvas. A few years ago, I opened “the door” to my own world with help of a different key”... – Michal Karcz. Photo: “Last Outpost”. (Photo by Michal Karcz)

Without mincing words we would like to present a feature: Self-Publishing, let's call it Samizdat. :-) Sure we aren't Flickr, StumbleUpon or add_whatever_you_like, we're really small in comparison with these giants but we have constant, very attentive and grateful audience. All we can offer you is a place on the main page and attention of all our visitors to your posts, the things that are hard to achieve on numerous social services. Who knows, maybe tiny and humble indie project like AvaxNews will be much more helpful in searching of your audience than facebook for example. %-)

A paper craft art installation by Wataru Itou, a young student of a major art university in Tokyo. The installation is hand made over four years of hard work, complete with electrical lights and a moving train, all made of paper! Clearly, this man must have created one of the most stunning examples of Paper Craft in the world. The exhibition where this masterpiece was exposed was entiteled A Castle On the Ocean. It was exhibited at Umihotaru, a place which in itself is a major attraction: a service area in the middle of the ocean, right between Tokyo City and Chiba Prefecture.

Some people joke about having clowns at their funeral, but how about having a coffin that looks like a gigantic cellphone? It is impossible to tell at the first glance that these colorful sculptures are actually coffins. The coffins were made by Kane Kwei and his assistant Paa Joe more than twenty years ago and have been a somewhat grim tourist attraction ever since. These coffins were probably made as an advertisement for the actual business, since it would hard to imagine someone actually ordering a coffin such as this.

This photographer is walking on thin ice after taking stunning photographs inside an Alaskan ice cave that could collapse at any moment. With it's dazzling turquoise walls and and huge open spaces, it's hard to imagine that this incredible frozen cavern was only formed at the beginning of 2012. But despite it's seemingly mystical allure, the fascinating natural phenomena is at risk of collapsing in on itself without warning. (Photo by Ron Gile/Caters News)