Portraits Made of Screws by Andrew Myers

California based artist Andrew Myers drives screws at varying depths into plywood and paints over them, creating unique 3D images.

Andrew Myers starts with a plywood panel upon which he places pages of a phone book. He then draws out a face and drills 8,000 to 10,000 screws into each portrait.

For me, I consider this a traditional sculpture and all my screws are at different depths,” he said. “There’s nothing planned out. I draw out a figure on the board and figure out the depths.

“The real challenge comes when the sculpture is done and I have to get rid of the flat drawing. It’s hard because of the screws — you can’t get a brush behind them. I did figure out a way to do it, but I’m keeping it a secret.”

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Monkey Buffet Festival in Thailand

Lopburi, in Thailand, is famous for its long-tailed macaque monkeys who roam freely throughout the town. Locals believe that the monkeys bring good fortune, and thus an annual feast is held in their honor. In the yearly Monkey Buffet Festival, these fearsome animals are invited to the Pra Prang Sam Yod temple and offered foods ranging from fruits, biscuits to coke. Some of the treats are even encased in blocks of ice to give the monkeys some entertainment before their treat. Over 2,000 kg of fruits and vegetables are offered to the attending guest monkeys.

The Monkey Buffet Festival is held every year on the last Sunday of November.

Photos removed on photographer's request

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Romulo Celdran’s Oversized Sculptures

French artist Romulo Celdran, in his art series named Macro, created exaggerated versions of everyday objects.

Without the artist sitting beside this oversized half-used paint tube, it is impossible to tell that the object is several times larger than the real thing. More pictures below.

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Animals of London Underground

Animals on the Underground is a collection of over 30 animal characters made using only lines, stations and interchange symbols on the London Underground map, created by illustrator Paul Middlewick. The concept was used in a poster campaign by advertising agency McCann-Erickson to promote the London Zoo in 2003. Mr Middlewick’s animals were used in other campaigns as well. In April 2008, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) used posters of the Seal, Elephant and Whale images to raise awareness of seal hunting in Canada, the ivory trade and whale hunting respectively.

I got the idea when travelling on the Tube. It gets very boring commuting daily on the Underground, and I’d stare at the map as I waited for my train. After a while, I started to see shapes in the tube map, particularly animals. I sketched them down and Animals on the Underground was born. Since then, I have picked out over 20 different animals from the intersecting lines and stations on the map

Altogether there's a total of 38 variations, and incredibly, all the designs use the same version of the tube map.

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The Great Banyan Tree

The Great Banyan Tree located in Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, Howrah, near Kolkata, India, is the widest tree in the world in terms of the area of the canopy it covers. It is estimated to be about 200 to 250 years old and occupies an area of about 14,500 square meters (1.5 hectares).

With its large number of aerial roots, the Great Banyan Tree looks more like a forest than an individual tree. The tree now lives without its main trunk, which decayed and was removed in 1925. The circumference of the original trunk was 1.7 m and from the ground was 15.7 m. The present crown of the tree has a circumference of about 1 kilometre and the highest branch rises to about 25 m; it has at present 2880 aerial roots reaching down to the ground.

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The Largest Family in the World

An Indian man from Mizoram, in northeastern part of the country, has the largest family in the world with a head count of 181 which include 39 wives, 94 children and 14 daughter-in-laws and 33 grandchildren. 67 year old Ziona Chana and his family live in a 100-room, four-storey house set amidst the hills of Baktwang village in Mizoram.

The family is organized with almost military discipline, with the oldest wife Zathiangi organizing her fellow partners to perform household chores such as cleaning, washing and preparing meals. One evening meal can see them pluck 30 chickens, peel 132lb of potatoes and boil up to 220lb of rice.

Ziona keeps the younger wives near his bedroom with the older members of the family sleeping farther away. His wives visit his bedroom on rotation basis.

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49th Anniversary of the Historic Mercury 6 Flight

February 20th, 2011, marked the 49th anniversary of Astronaut John Glenn's historic 1962 flight aboard the NASA spacecraft Friendship 7, when he became the first American (and third human being) to orbit the Earth. After being delayed ten times, the Atlas LV-3B launch vehicle finally lifted from Cape Canaveral, Florida to boost Glenn into space and into the history books. Glenn made three successful orbits at 17,400 miles per hour, and after four hours and 56 minutes in flight the spacecraft re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean and was safely taken aboard the USS Noa.

John Glenn ventured into space one more time, in 1998, at age 77 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery to study the effects of space flight on the elderly. Below are images gathered from NASA's early Mercury Project, which lead up to Glenn's famous journey.

NASA's Mercury astronaut, John Glenn sits inside a training capsule on January 11th, 1961, in preparation for manned space flight. (AP Photo/Harvey Georges) 

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New Zealand Earthquake in Pictures

A powerful earthquake of magnitude 6.3 in Richter scale shook New Zealand's South Island and its largest city of Christchurch on Tuesday afternoon at 12:50 p.m. local time. The New Zealand Herald reported that the quake's epicenter was Lyttelton with a depth of 5 kilometers, though it was felt as far away as Wellington and Dunedin per Twitter reports. It shook the Canterbury region, which has a population of approximately 500,000. The death toll at the time of this writing is 65 but is expected to rise. The country’s television channel, TV3, has estimated the figure could reach between 200 and 300.

The pictures in this gallery show extensive damage.

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Chinese Man Lives With Knife In Head For 4 Years

Surgeons in southern China successfully removed a rusty, 4-inch knife from the skull of a man who said it had been stuck in there for four years. Li Fuyan, 30, had been suffering from severe headaches, bad breath and breathing difficulties but never knew the cause of his discomfort. Li he had been stabbed in the lower right jaw by a robber four years ago and the blade broke off inside his head without anyone realizing it.

Dr. Eugene Flamm, chairman of neurosurgery at New York's Montefiore Medical Center, said X-ray images of the man's head posted on the hospital's website show the knife sitting behind the man's throat, having missed the carotid artery and other key structures. Surgeons worked cautiously to remove the badly-corroded blade without shattering it. The case, which one of the doctors described as a "miracle," has been widely covered by the Chinese media and discussed on the Internet.

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Lemon Festival Begins in Menton

From February 18th to March 9th the French town of Menton on the Riviera is given over to the celebration of the fruit Lemon. The lemon festival is marked with the construction of sculptures made out of lemons and oranges, floats decorated with lemons are paraded on the streets with folk groups and baton-swinging majorettes. The evening processions are followed by fireworks that light up the bay and the waters of the Mediterranean.

It all started in 1929 when Menton became the continent's premier producer of lemons. In order to celebrate the first flower and citrus exposition was organized at the Hotel Riviera gardens. It was so successful that the following year, the exposition extended into the streets with wagons beautifully planted with oranges and lemons. In 1934 the Lemon Festival or Fête du Citron was officially born.

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Life is Too Short for the Wrong Job: Ad Campaign

At the 2007 International Andy Awards, held in New York on April, this Scholz & Friends campaign for a German job seekers' site took gold for the best campaign in the big print/outdoor category. JobsInTown.de’s creative posters were affixed to the sides of ATMs, vending machines and photo booths in high-traffic metro stations to the amusement of onlookers.

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Anamorphic Artworks of Awtar Singh Virdi

Awtar Singh Virdi from India is a skilled anamorphic artist. Anamorphosis is an art of distorted projection or perspective requiring the viewer to occupy a specific vantage point in order “see” the image. The image appears distorted at first when viewed from a conventional position and without aid. But when a cylindrical mirror is placed on the drawing and the reflection viewed, the distorted image magically transforms into a beautiful painting.

Awtar Singh Virdi was born in India in 1938. Once when Mr Virdi was working at Mercedes Benz training center at Jamshedpur, India, he saw his own distorted reflection on the body of a highly polished car. He was intrigued. That day he went straight to his room and started practicing using a polished metallic cap of a fountain pen. He placed the pen cap on a white card and tried to make a figure on the card so that a correct and upright image appeared on the pen cap. After a few trials he got it right. Mr Virdi has never stopped since.

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The World’s Smallest Aquarium

Miniature artist Anatoly Konenko, who hails from the Siberian city of Omsk, has built the world’s smallest aquarium. A glass cube measuring 30mm by 24mm by 14 mm, complete with sand, multi-coloured stones and seaweed can contain 10 ml of water and play home to tiny fish. The mini-aquarium is even equipped with a water purification filter. It took the skillful master about two weeks to fashion it.

Anatoly Konenko has been fiddling around with micro-miniatures for 30 years. He writes on rice grains, poppy seeds and even human hair. In 2002, his micro-book that measured less than 1 sq. mm entered the Guinness Book of Records. His most recent accomplishment until now was the smallest ever functioning mousetrap: 6mm by 3mm. His other micro-miniature work includes a violin for a grasshopper, a camel caravan that fits inside a needle ear, an alphabet inscribed on a hair, a zoo that balances on a dragonfly’s wing and the most stunning display of all: a model Eiffel tower that teeters on a mosquito’s antenna.

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Banksy’s Artwork Spotted in Los Angles

Graffiti credited to secretive British artist Banksy has been appearing in Los Angeles over the past few days. Banksy is nominated for best documentary for "Exit Through the Gift Shop" at the Oscars, due to be announced on February 27th at the climax of the annual awards season.

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Disassembled Objects by Todd McLellan

Canadian artist Todd McLellan disassembles various gadgets, such as old telephones, cameras or typewriters, and arranges their parts in an orderly manner often creating the impression of an explosion within.

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Chinese Lunar Year Celebration

The Lantern Festival marks the 15th and final day of Chinese Lunar New Year festivities and was celebrated all over the world by the Chinese community yesterday. The holiday is the most important annual celebration in China, when the nation largely shuts down as families gather together for reunions and feasts. On the night of the festival, decorative lanterns depicting birds, beasts, historical figures, and any one of a number of different themes are hanged at homes and along the streets. Often competitions are held. The Lantern Festival is further enriched by the customary lantern riddle parties that are held on this night.

The Lantern Festival, or Yuan Xiao Jie, completes the welcoming of the Year of the Rabbit - from the Chinese zodiac, indicating a year of caution and calm.

A folk artist pauses while waiting for to perform at a temple fair celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year at Dongyue Temple in Beijing, February 7, 2011. The Lunar New Year began on February 3, and ends on February 17th. starting of the Year of the Rabbit, according to the Chinese zodiac. (REUTERS/Jason Lee) 

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Lip Art by Paige Thompson

American artist and DeviantArt member Paige Thompson paints her own lips vividly colorful to create cute little animals in her series “Animal-ipstick”.

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He Will Never Have a Girlfriend

I usually don’t post memes, but this one really got me laughing. The “He Will Never Have a Girlfriend” meme of a stick-figure cereal guy who makes terrible predictions of future heartthrobs, originated on Reddit, and has prompted many others to make their own versions. It is also another way to compare looks of current Hollywood hunks with themselves when they had just crawled out of their diapers.

The original

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Back to the Future by Irina Werning

Back to the future is an ongoing project where Argentinian photographer Irina Werning takes different people's favorite old school photos and recreates them in the same place, with the same clothes and with the same person. Not that it hasn’t been tried before, but the attention to detail in Irina Werning’s series is astounding.

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The World's Rarest Bird Photo Competition

The World’s Rarest Birds international photo competition by the World's Rarest Birds project was announced last month. The competition, launched in 2010, aimed to secure images of the 566 most threatened birds on Earth for a new book highlighting their plight. Thousands of images were entered into the competition out of which hundreds will be featured in The World’s Rarest Birds to be published in 2012. Profits from sales will go to BirdLife International’s Preventing Extinctions Programme to help support conservation projects worldwide.

Here are the winning photographs:

Winner of the critically endangered or extinct in the wild category: Kakapo by Shane McInnes.

The kakapo is a large, flightless parrot from New Zealand and one of the rarest birds of all, with only 124 individuals alive today. The main reason for its decline is predation by introduced mammals, particularly feral cats

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Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental Aircraft Debuts

On February 13, Boeing unveiled a new passenger airplane – the extra spacious Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental, which is characterized by low operating costs and better economic performance in the class of large passenger aircraft, as well as high environmental performance. The 747-8 is the largest 747 version, the largest commercial aircraft built in the United States, and the longest passenger aircraft in the world.

The 747-8 is offered in two main variants: the 747-8 Intercontinental (747-8I) for passengers and the 747-8 Freighter (747-8F) for cargo. The first 747-8F performed the model's maiden flight on February 8, 2010. Delivery of the first freighter aircraft has been postponed multiple times and is now expected in mid-2011; passenger model deliveries are to begin in late 2011 or early 2012. In December 2010, orders for the 747-8 totaled 107, including 74 of the freighter version, and 33 of the passenger version.

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Westminster Dog Show 2011

New York is currently hosting the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden for the 135th year. Approximately 2,500 dogs arrived in NYC for the two day event on February 14-15, 2011.  Hotels around the city are making accommodations for their furry guests' comfort, and on the city streets, there are more four-footed pedestrians than usual.

The first Westminster show was held on May 8, 1877, making it the second-longest continuously held sporting event in the United States behind only the Kentucky Derby, which was first held in 1875. Dogs are judged against their breed standards, to see how close each dog matches the standard description of the ideal specimen of that breed. Standards may include references relating form to function in the performance of the job that the dog was bred for, and may also include items that seem somewhat arbitrary such as color, eye shape, tail carriage and more.

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Arctic Technology by Christian Houge

Photographer Christian Houge's Arctic Technology series offers a look at large-scale scientific installations on the Norwegian island of Svalbard, located between Greenland and the North Pole. The seclusion of the island results in its having the cleanest atmosphere in the world and being one of the best places to do astronomical, meteorological or climate research. Hence, the remote and pristine landscape is marked by installations of technological and scientific equipment.

Since 2000, Christian Houge has been making large-scale panoramic images in this landscape, exploring the human presence in this bleak yet beautiful site. Making reference to art forms as diverse as traditional landscape painting, the photography of Bernd and Hilla Becher, and the Land Art of Walter De Maria and James Turrell, these images provoke a meditation on one’s place in the universe.

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Alexander Farto Makes Art By Scratching Walls

Alexandre Farto is a gifted Portuguese street artist who has an amazing knack for creating large wall art pieces. Mr Farto, better known as Vhils, creates large scale portraits by carefully scratching and chipping plasters out of walls of disused and depleted buildings. Alexandre Farto’s wall portraits are spread over a handful of European cities, and also Moscow and New York.

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Thai Airline Hires Transsexual Flight Attendants

A new Thai airline, PC Air, has recently hired four crew of the “third sex” as flight attendants, including Thanyarat "Film" Jiraphatpakorn, who won the annual Miss Tiffany beauty pageant in 2007. More than 100 transsexuals applied for the first round of jobs.

Transsexual flight attendants (from left to right): Nathatai Sukkaset, 26, Dissanai Chitpraphachin, 24, Chayathisa Nakmai, 24, and Phuntakarn Sringern, 24, pose for photographers at the PC Air office in Bangkok on Feb. 9.

Peter Chan, the president of the new airline which is yet to take to air, is enthusiastic about his groundbreaking move because of the opportunities it would afford transsexuals. "I think these people can have many careers, not just in the entertainment business, and many of them have a dream to be an air hostess,” he said. "I just made their dream come true. Our society has changed. It's evolution. I'm a pioneer and I'm sure there will be other organizations following my idea."

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International Balloon Festival at Chateau d'Oex

The International Balloon Festival in the picturesque alpine village of Chateau d'Oex, Switzerland, has been held for three decades. This 33rd year at the Swiss resort were 18 pilots from different countries and about 80 hot air balloons of different sizes, colors and patterns.

Held in January each year, the International Balloon Festival attracts ballooners from around the globe. The picture of colorful balloons against the snow-capped Alpine peaks is unforgettable.

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Magnificent Sculptures at 62nd Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan

The Sapporo Snow Festival is one of Japan's largest and most distinctive winter events, and taken part by artist from various regions of the world. This year, around 250 ice sculptures, created by teams from over a dozen countries around the world including Finland, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Thailand, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and U.S will be on display as long as the freezing temperatures do. The subject of the statues cover a broad range of subjects from cartoon characters and Japanese sports icons to complex architectural feats.

It took over 6,000 truck-loads of snow to create the sculptures but the temporary art works will only remain on display until Sunday, Feb 13.

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Light paintings by Janne Parviainen

Finland based artist, Janne Parviainen creates 'light paintings' featuring eerie skeletal figures glowing in the dark. Janne Parviainen explains: "Light painting photography uses different light sources during long exposure times. All of my photos are straight from the camera, the light skeletons and light figures are drawn with LED lights, and no post processing of any kind has been done to them."

"The exposure times vary from a few seconds to hours, depending on the desired effect. The actual light painting can be done with coloured strobes, flash lights, light toys or tools especially engineered for light painting," he says.

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Tropical Extravaganza Festival at Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens is hosting a month-long festival to showcase thousands of exotic orchids and tropical plants. The Tropical Extravaganza is an orchid exhibition held by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, to celebrate biodiversity that is held each year. Last year’s event had marked the 10th anniversary of the festival.

This year, the exhibition organizers have reportedly collected more than 7 thousand plants. For visitors the exhibition will run from 5 February to 6 March.

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Haw Par Villa–Singapore’s Most Bizarre Theme Park

Haw Par Villa, originally known as the Tiger Balm Gardens, is a Chinese mythological theme park in Singapore that is home to some of the freakiest and demented statues ever. The park contains over 1,000 statues and 150 giant dioramas depicting scenes from Chinese folklore, legends, history and illustrations of various aspects of Confucianism. From a statue of a woman nursing her father-in-law, to a statue of a woman’s head and face attached to the body of a crab, this place has it all.

The Tiger Balm Gardens were built in 1937 by brothers Aw Boob Haw and Aw Boon Par as a way to celebrate Chinese culture. They later sold the park to the Singapore Tourism Board, who then renamed it Haw Par Villa (“Dragon World”) and replaced many of the most popular scenes with fairground rides.

Today, the Haw Par Villa is mostly empty, except for the occasional visitors who drop in to snap pictures and wonder at the disturbed minds behind the sculptures.

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Funny Headgear at Egypt Protest

Photos of the unrest in Egypt that has been splashing across news tabloids and Internet blogs the last few days are mostly violent and depressing. But sometimes they take a comical turn. Demonstrators in Cairo calling for Hosni Mubarak's removal are resorting to a variety of makeshift headgear to protect themselves from rocks and other objects thrown by regime supporters.

There's a man with a saucepan on his head, another with plastic bottles wrapped around with a piece of cloth, while another looks like pieces of bread kept in place by cellophane tapes. Smart fellow – serves both as a helmet and food. Enjoy the gallery.

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Largest Game of Dodge-ball Held in Edmonton, Canada

A team of exactly 2,012 members consisting of staff and students of University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, took to an indoor field at the University campus on February 4, to reclaim the record for the world's largest dodge-ball game.

Earlier, the Edmonton-based institution set the record when nearly 1,200 students took part in a game last February. But that record was broken in September by nearly 1,800 University of California Irvine students. This week, the Edmonton team snatched it back. The Guinness World Record for most players in a single dodge-ball game was played with over 1,000 balls.

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Nuremberg International Toy Fair 2011

The Nuremberg Toy Fair, open to industry professionals only, is one of the biggest events of its kind. At the 62nd edition of the fair, about a million toys from more than 2,640 exhibitors from over 60 countries worldwide are on display.

The six day long fair is open from February 2 to February 8, 2011. Below are pictures from the Nuremberg International Toy Fair.

Designer Alexander van de Rostyne kissed a Silverlit toy helicopter during a media preview for the 61st International Toy Fair in Nuremberg, Germany, Wednesday.

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Thomas C. Chung’s Knitted Sculptures

Artist Thomas C. Chung was born in Hong Kong and lives and work in Norway. Like previously featured artist Ed Bing Lee, Chung uses wool to create replicas of food and other items.

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Spectacular Caves and Rocks at Staffa Island

The island of Staffa in Scotland is probably best known for its unique geological features, such as the many caves and the unique shape of the basalt columns which are also found in the Giant's Causeway. This remarkable little island, located south-west off the isle of Ulva and halfway between the Ross of Mull and the Treshnish Isles is one of the smallest in the Southern Hebrides.

On the east coast of Staffa are Goat Cave and Clamshell Cave. The latter is 10 m high, about 6 m wide at the entrance, some 45 m long, and on one side of it the ridges of basalt stand out like the ribs of a ship. On the southwest shore are Boat Cave and Mackinnon’s Cave, which has a tunnel connecting it to Cormorant Cave. Staffa's most famous feature is Fingal's Cave, a large sea cave located near the southern tip of the island some 20 m high and 75 m long formed in cliffs of hexagonal basalt columns.

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The House in the Island of Elliðaey

If there ever is an ultimate holiday getaway location, it has to be the island of Elliðaey near Vestmannaeyjar, a small archipelago off the south coast of Iceland, and the enchanting little house on it.

Elliðaey is the third largest island in Iceland having an area of 0.45 square km in area. It is believed to have formed in an eruption about 5-6 thousand years. The island is accessible via a rope on its lower east side and by a boat from the mainland. There are a few lonesome cattle to keep you company on the island and thousands of sea birds that use it for a nesting site.

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Walton Creel Creates Artwork By Shooting Bullets

Walton Creel is an American artist who uses a .22 caliber rifle given to him by his father as a present to create artwork by shooting complicated patterns on painted sheets of aluminum. Creel calls it “deweaponizing”. “My main goal was to take the destructive power away from the gun. To manipulate the gun into a tool of creation and use it in a way that removed it from its original purpose,” says the artist.

The images used in this series are of southern wildlife – animals which are traditionally hunted - and include: Deer, Owl, Bunny, Opossum, Squirrel, and Wren. When asked how others view his work Creel states, "Whatever view a person already holds on guns is the view they project onto me. If they love guns and think gun ownership is a God-given right, then they see my work as reinforcement of that view. If they think guns should be banned, they see my work as an ironic protest.”

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Tough Guy Challenge 2011

The annual Tough Guy competition, an event which bills itself as 'the safest most dangerous taste of mental and physical pain, fear and endurance', took place around an eight mile course at Mr Mouse's Farm in Perton, near Telford on January 30.

The race consist of 21 obstacles aimed to test contestants fear of heights, tight spaces, fire, water and even electricity. The obstacles, set among 15 metre-high trees with swinging Tarzan ropes, include a fire leap, a dive through shoe-sucking mud, icy water swimming and includes a section called the Killing Fields. Within the Killing Fields contestants can expect to tackle the the Brandenburg Wall, Tyre Torture, Death Plunge, the Battle Of The Somme, Deadleg Swamp and the Vietcong Tunnels.

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Cabin Built From Fossilized Dinosaur Bones

Located near Medicine Bow, Wyoming, along US Route 30 lies one of USA’s oddest roadside attraction. It’s a cabin constructed out of fossilized dinosaur bones. It contains 5,796 pieces of bones recovered from the nearby Como Bluff, one of the major sites for the early discovery of dinosaur.

The cabin was built as part of a gasoline filling station by Thomas Boylan in the early 1930s. Thomas Boylan had been collecting bones for seventeen years, intending to create sculptures of dinosaurs in front of his house and gas station along the Lincoln Highway. But when Boylan realized that the bones came from various species and there appeared to be no complete specimen in the entire pile, he dropped the idea and instead built the 29 feet by 19 feet cabin with the help of his son.

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