“A small British company with a dream of building a re-usable space plane has won an important endorsement from the European Space Agency (ESA) after completing key tests on its novel engine technology. Reaction Engines Ltd believes its Sabre engine, which would operate like a jet engine in the atmosphere and a rocket in space, could displace rockets for space access and transform air travel by bringing any destination on Earth to no more than four hours away”. – Chris Wickham via Reuters. Photo: Artist's impression of Skylon. (Photo by Reaction Engines Ltd)

A tour group wanders through block 7 of Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania April 30, 2014. Opened in 1829, with the original corrective system of “confinement in solitude with labor”, the penitentiary housed about 75,000 inmates in its 142 years of operation. At Eastern State reunions, former inmates, staff and guard gather to share memories and trade stories and get a chance to describe their experiences in question-and-answer sessions with the public. (Photo by Mark Makela/Reuters)

The wreckage of a van is overgrown by plants in Simacem village in North Sumatra, Indonesia, November 16, 2015. The village was abandoned following the eruption of Mount Sinabung as it was considered too close to the still rumbling volcano. (Photo by Binsar Bakkara/AP Photo)

Sustainable development goal target 12.5 is to reduce waste. But with a planet increasingly dependent on technology, is that even possible? As of today, over 30m tonnes of electronic waste has been thrown out so far this year, according to the World Counts. Most e-waste is sent to landfills in Asia and Africa where it is recycled by hand, exposing the people who do it to environmental hazards. Kai Loeffelbein’s photographs of e-waste recycling in Guiyu, southern China show what happens to discarded computers. (Photo by Kai Loeffelbein/laif Agentur)

As part of FLAIR Melbourne – a Flinders Lane art festival – Melbourne’s Lisa Minogue presents stylised photographic portraits of Australian women of colour, their faces painted vibrantly to accentuate their individuality and encourage the viewer to study each face more closely. Minogue asked each woman the same question: “What do the words “coloured girl” mean to you?”. (Photo by Lisa Minogue/The Guardian)

The Great Picture” is a black and white panoramic print of Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, an old military outpost. The print measures 111 feet wide by 32 feet high on seamless white muslin cloth. (Photo by Caters News)

Photographer John Maher, once the drummer with punk bank Buzzcocks, travelled to the Outer Hebrides to photograph abandoned crofters’ cottages – many of which, like this one, have seemingly been untouched since. Here: “Peat Fire”. Taken in March 2013 on the east coast of Harris. The fire is from muir-burning, when farmers burn off grasses and heather to improve grazing for their sheep. (Photo by John Maher/The Guardian)

The series of shots show the bare steel infrastructure of the Bushfield army training camp near Winchester which was in operation during World War Two and was used to train Royal Green Jackets recruits in the sixties. The spectacular images were taken by an urban explorer who wished to remain anonymous. Here: A railway siding in Wiltshire, UK where ammunition was transferred by tunnel to an underground storage facility. (Photo by MediaDrumWorld.com)