Rooftops of solar powered houses are pictured in Ota, 80 km northwest of Tokyo in this October 28, 2008 file photo. One by one, Japan is turning off the lights at the giant oil-fired power plants that propelled it to the ranks of the world's top industrialised nations. With nuclear power in the doldrums after the Fukushima disaster, it's solar energy that is becoming the alternative. Solar power is set to become profitable in Japan as early as this quarter, according to the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (JREF), freeing it from the need for government subsidies and making it the last of the G7 economies where the technology has become economically viable. (Photo by Yuriko Nakao/Reuters)

Fossil records indicate that this early lizard, Megalania (Megalania prisca or Varanus priscus), was a whopping seven metres in length. They were part of a megafaunal assemblage that inhabited southern Australia during the Pleistocene. The youngest fossil remains date to around 50,000 years ago. The first aboriginal settlers of Australia might have encountered them and been a factor in their extinction. (Photo by Sky TV/The Guardian)

A hyena eyes a herd of zebra at Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya, August 19, 2015. The Park is home to some of the world's most majestic wildlife including lions, rhinos, zebras and flamingos. The scenery is stunning, from forests of acacia trees to animals congregating at the shores to drink. UNESCO says that with rapid population growth nearby, the area is under "considerable threat from surrounding pressures," particularly deforestation, a contributing factor in floods. (Photo by Joe Penney/Reuters)

Do tears of joy look the same as ones of woe—or ones from chopping onions? In “The Topography of Tears,” the Los Angeles-based photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher explores the physical terrain of one hundred tears emitted during a range of emotional states and physical reactions. Using a Zeiss microscope with an attached digital camera, she captures the composition of tears enclosed in glass slides, magnified between 10x and 40x. “There are many factors that determine the look of each tear image, including the viscosity of the tear, the chemistry of the weeper, the settings of the microscope, and the way I process the images afterwards,” she says.

Weddell seal numbers in 2025 have declined sharply on Signy Island, part of the South Orkney Islands in the Southern Ocean, where British Antarctic Survey researchers have tracked seal populations for nearly 50 years to understand the impact of melting sea ice. (Photo by Michael Dunn/The Times)

Veterans Day is right around the corner, so it’s nice to see that one of the time-lapses making the most impact online over the past couple of days is one showing a homeless US Army veteran being given a makeover and, in some ways, a new lease on life.

A worker makes auto parts on a machine inside a workshop in Faridabad, India, December 24, 2015. Car makers such as Maruti Suzuki India and Hyundai Motor see huge growth in India, set to become the world's third-largest auto market by 2020 as millions buy their first new car. Price tags can be as low as $3,000 for a new Tata Motors Nano mini-car. India is also becoming a low-cost export hub for global car makers such as General Motors and Ford Motor. As the sector expands, some of the work is sub-contracted out to small factories operating on paper-thin margins, where poor contract workers often have little or no access to safety equipment or health benefits. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

Burnouts became a serious form of competition and entertainment in their own right. Considerable prize money or goods are sometimes involved, and cars may even be sponsored or purpose-built specifically as “burnout cars”. Burnout contests are judged on crowd response, with style and attitude therefore being important factors. Such contests are particularly popular in Australia but often occur in North America as well. Wikipedia