One of ten little spotted kiwi is released on Motuihe Island, a conservation pest-free island close to Auckland, on March 21, 2009 in Auckland, New Zealand. Eventually up to 40 endangered kiwi birds will be relocated to the island. (Photo by Hannah Johnston/Getty Images)

Sprout A Pencil That Grows is a very simple but excellent concept. We all know that as soon as a pencil gets down to the point where there’s only an inch or so left it’s pretty much useless. The Sprout lets you put that little stub to get use. The end of the Sprout has a seed capsule that is water activated, after you plant your pencil and water it a few times the capsule dissolves and the seed’s start germinating. The plants usually take about a week to sprout. The Sprout pencils come in a number of varieties including vegetables, herbs and flowers like rosemary, tomato, marigold, and many more.

Harnaam Kaur has polycystic ovary syndrome, which can cause excessive hair growth. She was just 11 years old when a beard started to appear on her face and the hair quickly spread to her chest and arms.

A little blue penguin which was found at Papamoa Beach, covered in oil after the Liberian cargo ship, Rena, hit a reef, on October 7, 2011, in Tauranga, New Zealand. Reports of an oil sheen have been spotted on the surface of the water surrounding the ship and two penguins have been found covered in oil. (Photo by SUNLIVE New Zealand/Getty Images)

People will spout about impermanence of digital records, but books are really fragile, too. Alexis Arnold from San Francisco wanted to illustrate that with her project The Crystallized Book: collecting books and growing Borax crystals on them. Books range from literature classics to magazines, and there’s even a mysterious and arcane tome called “Linux: The Complete Manual”.

Elio Angulo (bottom C) lies inside a cardboard coffin next to Alejandro Blanchard as they introduce their product to potential customers at a mortuary in Valencia, in the state of Carabobo, Venezuela August 25, 2016. When Venezuelan entrepreneurs Alejandro Blanchard and Elio Angulo decided to create cardboard coffins, they were looking for an ecological selling point to compete against classic wood and brass caskets. Three years on, with the oil-rich country mired in deep economic crisis, their “bio-coffins” are becoming a viable option because of high prices for wooden coffins and shortages of brass ones. (Photo by Marco Bello/Reuters)