American sculptor Michael Alfano has been sculpting for over fifteen years. A native of New York, he now lives and works in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. His major influences are Salvador Dali, Jo Davidson, and Jean-Antoine Houdon, as well as Buddhist, Taoist, Sufi and other eastern philosophy and literature. He first studied at the Art Students League of New York, with an emphasis on life-size sculpture from the model. His formal education continued at Boston University and was augmented by internships with several prominent sculptors.

A visitor kneels down nex to an iCub robot made by the Italian Institute of Technology at the scientists congress IROS 2015 in Hamburg, Germany October 2, 2015. The robot congress is organized by TAMS group (Technical Aspects of Multimodal Systems) of Hamburg's university. (Photo by Fabian Bimmer/Reuters)

People enjoy the fine weather on the coast at Wembury during the first ever nationwide survey to map the location of the threatened and creatures on March 24, 2011 in near Plymouth, England. Often found on the coast, and particularly in the south west of England, the number of oil beetle species found in the UK has halved in the last 100 years and the survey will help establish the whereabouts of the remaining four species and boost efforts to secure their future. The survey is being launched today by Buglife: The Invertebrate Trust and the National Trust in partnership with Natural England and Oxford University Museum of Natural History. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Dramatic photos show the measure of a man in contrast to the enormity of nature.
A series of photos from the Humboldt State University Library capture lumberjacks working among the redwoods in Humboldt County, California.
The photos are part of the Ericson Collection....

SEE ALSO: «Huge Plants» AND «Loggers»

“Cockayne syndrome (also called Weber-Cockayne syndrome, or Neill-Dingwall Syndrome) is a rare autosomal recessive congenital disorder characterized by growth failure, impaired development of the nervous system, abnormal sensitivity to sunlight (photosensitivity), and premature aging. Hearing loss and eye abnormalities (pigmentary retinopathy) are other common features, but problems with any or all of the internal organs are possible. It is associated with a group of disorders called leukodystrophies. The underlying disorder is a defect in a DNA repair mechanism. It is named after English physician Edward Alfred Cockayne (1880–1956)”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Mother of 12-year-old Chinese girl Sun Yangyang suffering from Cockayne syndrome, tends her at the First Affiliated Hospital of Jilin University on November 11, 2006 in Changchun of Jilin Province, China. The disease results in the senile appearance of Yangyang and also causes eyesight, hearing weakness and other problems. Doctors failed to cure the girl... (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)