“Lofoten Glow”. I was desperately searching a good sunrise spot this particular morning. Normally Storvatnet Lake is completely covered in snow, so you can only imagine my surprise when I saw these crazy ice formations almost being shot out of the frozen lake. I put my crampons on and took a big risk walking out. I could hear the ice cracking underneath my feet, and when you’re all alone in a fjord/canyon like this – the cracks are echoed and sound really frightening. Was it worth it? I sure think so! Photo location: Storvatnet, Lofoten Islands in Northern Norway. (Photo and caption by Stian Klo/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Residents of Reddit have found a strange phenomenon. If you make a circle on the floor with anything from tinfoil to scotch tape, the house cat would simply love to sit right in the middle of it. Is it a fake, or do cats actually like sitting in circles on the floor? We cannot answer this question until we test it out ourselves. However, one thing is for sure – cats are curious and adorable creatures that never cease to amaze us. So, if you own a cat, try this experiment yourself, and see if your cat likes to sit in an imaginary circle on the floor.

We – Verena Popp-Hackner and Georg Popp - are professional landscape photographers. While we are based in Vienna/Austria, running our own (rights managed) image library and a small but fine photo-gallery. Photographing our tiny country Austria, with all it's culture and nature, canoeing it's rivers or lakes and hiking the Alps is our profession but our photographic “backyard” includes the rest of the planet as well. We use analog large format cameras almost exclusively for our landscape work, shooting on 4x5” sheet film, to provide clients with the maximum of print-sharpness and details and unsurpassed clarity and depth of focus.

“Like most Brits, Emmie Stevens is dog mad. But the 25-year-old has taken it to the next level, spending £30,000 on her nine pets. Emmie’s dogs enjoy regular manicures and fur dyes and have their own walk in wardrobe to store their £15,000 clothing collection”. – Daily Record. Photo: Bailey the Staffordshire bull terrier, holding a red rose. (Photo by Helen Yates/Barcroft Media)

MS Allure of the Seas is an Oasis-class cruise ship owned and operated by Royal Caribbean International. The Oasis class are the largest passenger ships ever constructed, and Allure is 50 millimetres (2.0 in) longer than her sister ship Oasis of the Seas, though both were built to the same specifications. Designed under the name “Project Genesis”, she was ordered from Aker Finnyards in February 2006 and her construction began at the Perno shipyard, Turku, Finland, in February 2008. She was named in May 2008 after a contest was held to name her and her sister. The keel of Allure of the Seas was laid on 2 December 2008, shortly after the shipyard had been acquired by STX Europe.

Joseph Szabo was a frustrated high-school teacher in need of inspiration – so he started photographing his students, and captured all the angst and excitement of being caught between childhood and adulthood. Here: “Priscilla”, 1969. (Photo by Joseph Szabo/Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery/The Guardian)

Here are the bravest of the brave in 2016. Weve gathered some of the finest images showing daredevils taking their lives into their own hands and going to the very brink this year. Whether they are perched hundreds of feet up on a high wire, courageously clinging to a rockface or taking on a volcano, these adventurers take the breath away. Here: Morgane Choquet and Samuel Cobb relax in a vertical campsite on the slopes of El Capitan, Yosemite National Park. (Photo by Alexandre Eggermont/Caters News)

A machine works on a Rio 2016 Olympic medal at the Casa da Moeda do Brasil (Brazilian Mint) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 28, 2016. The Casa da Moeda do Brasil is the Brazilian mint, owned by the Brazilian government and administratively subordinated to the Ministry of Finances. It was established in 1694. (Photo by Sergio Moraes/Reuters)