Have you ever heard of a phenomenon called the Uncanny Valley? Illustrations created by Swiss illustrator Christo Dagorov show how horrible something may look when it’s a hair’s breadth away from looking human. In his illustrations he combined the shape of human lips with trees, buildings, and even human bodies, making it look from a distance as if the lips were horribly deformed by some unknown disease. However, after a while you make out the shapes, yet the feeling of uneasiness remains, making you shiver from unsuppressable disgust. (Photo by Christo Dagorov)

A craftsman works on making human anatomy mannequins on April 23, 2014 in Depok, West Java, Indonesia. The mannequins are made from fiberglass and will be used in schools, hospitals and laboratories. (Photo by Nurcholis Anhari Lubis/Getty Images)

On the November 24, 2025, children are making human faces by collecting fallen leaves in the forest in front of the Yuseong-gu Office in Daejeon. (Photo by Shin Hyeon-jong)

British sculptor Laurence Edwards' striking bronze figures, Walking Men, at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, UK on April 9, 2024. The 8ft tall figures are seen to be anti-heroic and seem to have come from the earth itself. Branches, leaves and clods of clay are woven through them, making it unclear where human and ground begin and end. (Photo by Pete Seaward/South West News Service)

NASA says it could be another 20 years before humans touch down on Mars, but in a sense, the Mars Society has been exploring the red planet for more than a decade – in Utah. Photo: Csilla Orgel, a geologist of Crew 125 EuroMoonMars B mission, makes her way back to the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in the Utah desert March 3, 2013. The MDRS aims to investigate the feasibility of a human exploration of Mars and uses the Utah desert's Mars-like terrain to simulate working conditions on the red planet. Scientists, students and enthusiasts work together developing field tactics and studying the terrain. All outdoor exploration is done wearing simulated spacesuits and carrying air supply packs and crews live together in a small communication base with limited amounts of electricity, food, oxygen and water. Everything needed to survive must be produced, fixed and replaced on site. (Photo by Jim Urquhart/Reuters)

A woman wearing leggings with the colours of the US flag walks along a street of Havana on February 18, 2015. President Barack Obama announced Thursday he will make a landmark visit to Cuba on March 21-22, pledging to address human rights as America pursues a historic thaw with its former Cold War foe. (Photo by Yamil Lage/AFP Photo)

Nowadays, crossbreeding and gene splicing are creating things that would never have occurred in nature. Thanks to gene splicing, modern man can witness mice that glow in the dark, goats that produce milk which is then used to make bulletproof vests, and even cows that produce milk that is almost identical to human breast milk. One of the latest feats of human genius is the creation of Thompson and Morgan. By combining the genes of tomatoes and potatoes they were able to create a “TomTato”, which is essentially a plant that grows tomatoes and potatoes at the same time. With creations such as this, the world’s hunger problem may be resolved in a few decades.

The artworks that Alexa Meade makes are very unique and original. A usual painter creates a 2D or a 3D drawing on flat 2D surface. Alexa, on the other hand, draws over the body of a regular person, making them look like a 2D painting. The pictures of these people are almost uncanny, as you realize that the eyes “paintings” are real, and suddenly it dawns upon you that you are seeing a living and breathing human being. It is weird how we perceive this world, and how easy it is to trick our brain into thinking that it’s seeing a two-dimensional object. (Photo by Alexa Meade)