Amazing lake

This is Lake Retba (or Lac Rose), in Senegal. The colour is caused by Dunaliella salina algae, which produces a pink pigment, and it changes depending on the seasons. It's more pronouncedly pink in the dry season (Nov - June) and duller in the rainy season (July - Oct). The lake is separated from the Atlantic Ocean only by a narrow corridor of dunes and has a very high salt content, up to 40% in places. Salt is exported across the region by up to 3,000 collectors, men and women from all over Western Africa, who work 6–7 hours a day and protect their skin with "Beurre de Karité" (shea butter), produced from Shea nuts, which is an emollient used to avoid tissue damage.

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Today I'm introducing a new way of celebrating readers' birthdays. There are only so many relevant cakes and cupcakes I can find for each person and I risk repeating myself, so on the first day of each month, I'll wish all readers, including lurkers, a very simple but heartfelt Happy Birthday! The bonus are the zodiac cookies...

Invisible worlds

Mrsgunka sent us this fascinating video showing a tiny fraction of the stuff that goes on around us but we can't see... Thank you, MrsG.

Amazing art

Amy sent us the first video, showing some incredible sculptures. I went to youtube to get the embed code for the video and came across the second one, where some of the artist's techniques are shown. It also had a long article about how he started making the sculptures. It's absolutely fascinating. Thank you, Amy.





The line of pure white busts sitting amongst the dust in Li Hongbo's Beijing studio could be found in any art classroom around the world.

That is until the 38-year-old Chinese artist places his hands on one, lifts gently, and what had seemed like solid plaster transforms into a live, amorphous mass.

A roman soldier stretches like elastic, a pretty English maid suddenly rises like a terrible phantasm. They are neither plaster nor clay, but concertinas of thousands of fine pieces of paper."At the beginning, I discovered the flexible nature of paper through Chinese paper toys and paper lanterns. Later, I used this to make a gun. A gun is solid, used for killing, but I turned it into a tool for play or for decoration. In this way, it lost both the form of a gun, and the culture inherent to a gun. It became a game," he said.

To make his sculptures Li uses a stencil to paste glue in narrow strips across large pieces of paper that he then sticks together to form blocks of 500. He stacks the blocks to the desired height -- an average bust is over ten blocks or 5,000 sheets of paper high -- then cuts, chisels and sands the large block just as if it were a piece of soft stone.

Born into a simple farming family, Li said he has always loved paper, first invented in ancient China. He has spent six years producing a collection of books recording more than 1,000 years of Buddhist art on paper.

In his recent works, Li has consciously produced only perfect replicas of classical busts and shapes he used to sketch at university. The denatured human forms may make some people squirm, but Li says he uses the archetypal figures to make audiences concentrate on the material, not to shock.

'Strange' and 'unsettling' are just adjectives used by some individuals. In fact, people have a fixed understanding of what a human is, and think that a human cannot be physically manipulated, so when you transform a person, people will reconsider the nature of objects and the motivation behind the creation. This is what I care about," he said. His exhibition 'Tools of Study' at the Klein Sun gallery in New York has earned him plenty of attention across the Pacific since it opened on January 9th.

Gallery assistants pull the twenty pieces around on their plinths for visitors, but not being allowed to touch pieces themselves leaves some feeling unfulfilled.

"You know, when you can open it, there's movement, there's mobility, it becomes a dynamic thing versus a very static thing. You know, but it's like, of course, as an observer, it's like, I can only enjoy that momentum or that movement of the object if someone opens it for me. It's so funny, because it's like, enticing. You kind of want to play with it but you can't," said one visitor, Lydia Chrisman, on Tuesday (January 21).

Li is aware of this irony, and at a show in Sydney provided small models for the audience to play with. But it could be for the best. Though he refused to disclose prices, growing demand for his works means the cost of a real one would probably stretch your wallet.

Amazing board

Mrsgunka sent us this pictures of a fantastic chopping board, which reminded me of the funny video...

Thank you, MrsG.

The Almighty Board is the ultimate kitchen assistant. This smart-board will simultaneously serve as your cutting board, display your recipes, provide step-by-step directions and weigh your ingredients out for you. After you wash it, it will even tell you if it has been cleaned enough to avoid cross-contamination or food poisoning. Wow!

Amazing story from Ireland

Street art

It's amazing how they create the illusion...

Food for the soul, from a landfill

View_From_Here sent us this inspiring video. I get goosebumps when I see stuff like this. Thank you so much, View.

Incredible nature

What an fantastic place!

This photo shows a surreal-looking ice cave on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. It was formed by a stream flowing from the hot springs associated with the Mutnovsky volcano. This stream flows beneath glacial ice on the flanks of Mutnovsky. Because glaciers on Kamchatka volcanoes have been melting in recent years, the roof of this cave is now so thin that sunlight penetrates through it, eerily illuminating the icy structures within. Photo taken by Marc Szeglat on September 12, 2012

(Click on image to enlarge)

Patience

This guy must have a very steady hand, excellent eyesight and a lot of patience... Dalton Ghetti creates miniature masterpieces on the tips of pencils!

Rainbow ants

Mohamed Babu set up these photographs after his wife showed him some ants had turned white after drinking spilt milk.

He gave the creatures the brightly coloured sugar drops and watched as their transparent stomachs matched the food they were eating.

Scientist Dr Babu mixed the sugar drops with edible colours red, green, blue and yellow and placed them in his garden to attract the insects.

By placing them on a paraffin base the drops kept their shape when touched by the ants.

Some of the ants even wandered from one colour to another, creating new combinations in their bodies.

Trompe l'oeil

Mrsgunka sent me these amazing photos of body painting. MrsG remarked : "Saw a building in Berlin that had zippers painted on each end. One end the zippers was closed and the other end was open and showed windows with flower boxes painted on the plain wall... looked absolutely real!"

I have always been fascinated by trompe l'oeil. Thank you, MrsG.

Amazing dogs

Green fingers

This is quite funny. The tweet is from Bedford police in the UK:

Beware of pretty plants in garage sales. I must say, it's quite a handsome bush!

Read a bit more HERE.

Lucky guy

I hope this video plays properly. This was in the news in the UK today. Is this guy lucky or what?


A Russian truck driver has an amazing escape after crashing head-on into another lorry. He is thrown clear out of the front windscreen and walks away unhurt.

Is this Spiderman?

No, its' a Mwanza Flat Headed Agama lizard!

Read more HERE.

What colours do you drink?

Yesterday's photo was quite powerful but depressed a number of readers. Today I decided to cheer you up by showing you what the most popular drinks look like under a microscope. Choose your favourite tipple, which can be made into actual wall pictures, bar accessories, scarves and other stuff. The site where I found them has a number of goodies.

Cheers!

Champagne

Budweiser

Black Russian

Bloody Mary

Chablis

Cola

Cranberry Juice

Dry Martini

Gin & Tonic

Iced Tea

Margarita

Mexican Lager

Orange Juice

Pina Colada

Red Wine

Rosé

Scotch

Jack Daniels

White Wine

Tequila

Irish Stout