Skeleton involves a person riding a small sled down a frozen track while lying face down. The sport is a more intense form of luge because skeleton competitors leap onto the sled and slide downhill head first. Skeleton athletes can reach up to 80 mph on straightaways, causing forces up to 5g, so the helmet is a critical component for attitude as well as safety.

Physicist Arie van't Riet uses a series of duel X-ray cameras to capture flowers, plants and small animals in living dioramas. The x-rays are then finished and colorized in Photoshop. Giving way to some breathtaking nature scenes. Photo: “Chameleon and Begonia”. (Photo by Arie van't Riet)

They say the great photographers are out of bed before sunrise and always late for dinner. Photographer Alex Robciuc does just that; waking at 5 AM to capture the gorgeous morning light spilling over a small county in Transylvania, Romania. This dedication to early rising and sticking around for the "perfect light" has offered Alex some seriously beautiful landscape images.

Hunter Chiaki Kodama guts a deer in a shed in Oi, Fukui Prefecture, Japan, November 17, 2016. A small but growing number of Japanese women enter the male-dominated world of hunting, where it was once taboo for men to even speak to a woman before going on a hunt. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

“The red panda (Ailurus fulgens, or shining-cat), is a small arboreal mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It is the only species of the genus Ailurus. Slightly larger than a domestic cat, it has reddish-brown fur, a long, shaggy tail, and a waddling gait due to its shorter front legs. It feeds mainly on bamboo, but is omnivorous and may also eat eggs, birds, insects, and small mammals. It is a solitary animal, mainly active from dusk to dawn, and is largely sedentary during the day”. – Wikipedia

Photo: In this handout image provided by Taronga Zoo, Seba, a baby Red Panda, explores his new home at Taronga Zoo on April 7, 2011 in Sydney, Australia. The Red Panda cub was born at Christmas and is the 45th to be born at the zoo since 1977. (Photo by Peter Hardin/Taronga Zoo via Getty Images)

Jesse Larios, 33, from Los Angeles, wears a bear suit while walking along Hollister Road in Gilroy, California, U.S., April 21, 2021. Larios, also known as Bear Sun on social media, is walking from his home in Los Angeles to San Francisco while wearing the bear suit as a social media fundraising event. (Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small/Reuters)

Journalists report during a media tour near the volcano on the island of La Palma in the Canaries, Spain, Wednesday, September 22, 2021. A volcano on a small Spanish island in the Atlantic Ocean erupted on Sunday, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people. Experts say the volcanic eruption and its aftermath on a Spanish island could last for up to 84 days. The Canary Island Volcanology Institute said Wednesday it based its calculation on the length of previous eruptions on the archipelago. (Photo by Emilio Morenatti/AP Photo)

April Haze, a San Jose-based stripper, teaches a pole dance class to her students at Revel Room Studios in Milpitas, California, April 15, 2021. As some of the United States' estimated 3,821 strip clubs start to open up again, women who work as strippers are confronting a transformed industry. Revenue in the industry is estimated to have decreased 17.4% in 2020 and is forecast to fall another 1.5% this year, according to research by IBISWorld. (Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small/Reuters)