Merit: A Night at Deadvlei. The night before returning to Windhoek, we spent several hours at Deadveli. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the sand dunes in the distance, but the skies were still dark enough to clearly see the milky way and magellanic clouds. Deadveli means “dead marsh. The camelthorn trees are believed to be about 900 years old, but have not decomposed because the environment is so dry. (Photo and caption by Beth McCarley/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

“In the late afternoon after a rain, genji botaru fireflies (luciola cruciate) dance above the swollen creek. The rocks darkened by the rain reflecting the blue sky, and the yellow-green ribbon of the glow from the fireflies, make a beautiful contrast”. – Takehito Miyatake. (Photo by Takehito Miyatake/Steven Kasher Gallery)

“Freedom”. After the 30 years banning import large motorcycle, in 2007, the Taiwan government reopened the import licensing of the motorcycle displacement over 550 cubic centimeter. Those large bikes, which were never seen before, were strange thought and treated unequally frequently. However, those adversity will not stop those enthusiastic bike riders from chasing the road of freedom. Photo location: Taiwan. (Photo and caption by 火花 羅/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Photographer Patrick Halls likes to make the people he takes photos of uncomfortable in order to “capture a real emotion”. It is no wonder that for his latest project, he decided to stun his subjects with a taser.

Mini Amsterdam has launched a promotion campaign for their brand new creation Mini Copper. The idea is that Mini Copper is so small that it could fit in a box. Thus, as part of the promotion campaign, huge cardboard boxes were left in various popular placed of Amsterdam, making it look as if someone has bought a Mini Copper and thrown out the cardboard box it came in. Of course it is simply a commercial; however, it clearly illustrates just how small the Mini Copper really is. This is a perfect vehicle to handle narrow streets and lack of parking space. Truly, this vehicle could be parked just about anywhere! (Photo by JWT)

“The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) has released the largest-ever three-dimensional map of massive galaxies and distant black holes, which will help astronomers explain the mysterious “dark matter” and “dark energy” that scientists know makes up 96 percent of the Universe”. – SDSS-III