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One of the many phenomena astronauts experience is the Overview Effect, which is a term for the major change in their perspective that occurs after they view Earth from space. This new cognitive awareness is the inspiration for project Daily Overview. From their website, Daily Overview describes its mission:

"From our line of sight on the earth's surface, it’s impossible to fully appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the things we’ve constructed, the sheer complexity of the systems we’ve developed, or the devastating impact that we’ve had on our planet. We believe that beholding these forces as they shape our Earth is necessary to make progress in understanding who we are as a species, and what is needed to sustain a safe and healthy planet.

As a result, the Overviews (what we call these images) focus on the places and moments where human activity—for better or for worse—has shaped the landscape. Each Overview starts with a thought experiment. We consider the places where man has left his mark on the planet and then conduct the necessary research to identify locations (and the corresponding geo-coordinates) to convey that idea."

This ambitious project features one image per day. See more of Daily Overview's captivating collection of images at their website. Via Twisted Sifter.

Images Credit: Daily Overview. 

  Central Park
  New York City, New York

   Agricultural Development
   Loxahatchee, Florida 

 Spaghetti Junction
 Madrid, Spain

I know this is a service that tattoo parlors find themselves providing constantly, but it cannot be easy. Sure, you and I can recognize it as a passive-aggressive hint to go home and think about it some more and them come back when you know what you want, but you and I also know that will go over most folks’ heads. This is part of a collection of 18 Store Signs That Are Actually Pure Poetry at Buzzfeed.

Literally, grammar Nazis https://t.co/IvuXGP1WpO pic.twitter.com/gbLrX4x0fu

— Benjamin Ramm (@BenjaminRamm) June 3, 2014

Apparently if you're a member of the master race, you've got to demonstrate a proper command of the English language. The American Nazi Party tweeted out this message to its members. Presumably some of them were able to read it.

-via Geekosystem

(Photo: Kjell Marius Mathisen)

The Scream, the most famous painting of Norwegian Expressionist Edvard Munch, cried out against the eternal horror of everyday existence though a tree stump in Norway. Kjell Marius Mathisen, a man who works in the cultural heritage field for the Oppland county government, spotted it and took this photo.

Mathisen insists that the shape of the rings is "just a coincidence." But Munch himself might disagree. He wrote of the moment which inspired this painting:

I was walking along the road with two friends
The Sun was setting – the Sky turned blood-red.
And I felt a wave of Sadness – I paused
tired to Death – Above the blue-black
Fjord and City Blood and Flaming tongues hovered
My friends walked on – I stayed
behind – quaking with Angst – I
felt the great Scream in Nature

-via Nothing to Do with Aborath

(Photo: China Daily)

China hosted an international water buffalo bodypainting competition on May 18 in Pu'er, Yunnan Province. 48 water buffaloes participated. The winning team was a group of local schoolchildren who walked away with the 100,000 yuan ($16,005 USD) prize.

That’s not surprising because painting on water buffalos is a well-established local custom. It's a traditional means of protecting them from predators:

According to legend, a villager once saw his water buffalo getting attacked by a tiger. As the creatures rolled around on the field, mud and blood covered the buffalo's body.

The bull looked so terrifying that the tiger got scared and ran away. After that locals started painting on their cattle to keep the predators away.

The tradition developed into a popular festival held each year to celebrate harvest and honor the cattle.

You can see more photos of these colorful beasts at Amusing Planet.

(Photo: Rafael Torres)

On Thursday, a black bear in the Pebble Creek neighborhood of Daytona Beach, Florida spent a day knocking over trash cans and bird feeders before climbing into a hammock. It had, after all, been a long and tiring day. It was time to take a break.

Rafael Torres photographed it lying and rolling around in it for about 20 minutes. He got within 60 feet of it. The bear didn't seem to mind. At about 8:15 PM, it climbed out of the hammock and wandered off. You can see more photos of the bear here.

-via Dave Barry

(Photo: unknown)

If your kid looks like this, and you haven't put her in a taco costume, it's time to take a break from your diet.

FYI: Tabasco sauce and diaper rash lotion are not interchangeable.

-via That's Nerdalicious!

There's no Photoshop here! DeviantART member schaduwlichtje is an artist in the Netherlands who specializes in folding pages in books to create images and words. She made this sculpture by folding individual pages with chopsticks. It's a great visual representation for how you can get sucked in by a good story or a demonically-possessed book.

You can see more of her work here. Print book lovers: fear not for the fate of these books. Schaduwlichtje works at a used book store which receives more donations than it could possibly sell.

(Photo: Hansueli Krapf)

That bubble of water is Strokkur, a geyser in the West Fjords of Iceland, just as it erupts. The name translates into English as "churn." Every three to seven minutes, it shoots water 98 feet into the air.

Strokkur was first reported in 1789 and may have been formed as a result of the horrendous volcanic eruption in Iceland from 1783-1784. It later fell dormant, but drilling in 1963 reactivated it.

(Video Link)

Here's a video of the geyser in action. You can view a live webcam of Strokkur here.

-via Twisted Sifter

Get it? It's table with tableware on it and she's wearing it as though she's a table!

Guys, this is your cue to chuckle.

Rose-Pastel, a master cosplayer, made this dress inspired by a portrait of Queen Elizabeth and Alice in Wonderland. She noticed that the Queen's dress was so wide that she could have served a meal off of it. Although it was difficult to find a way to keep the table-like form, she found that a large styrofoam board did the trick.

If she keeps still, I suspect she could actually hold afternoon tea on it.

Redditor jofried posted this picture and titled it “My last picture from the bird show.” The most I looked at it, the more possible captions came.

1. I said no pictures!
2. That’s one Angry Bird.
3. Why aren’t you at Hogwarts where I sent you?
4. And all we ever found was the camera.

Those are the best, but maybe you could come up with something better.

These photos would be perfect models for monsters in those 1950s horror movies. The ones in which some small, ugly thing in nature, in a freak accident, becomes incomprehensibly huge and after mankind, hellbent on destruction and large meals.

The photos are actually part of an impressive project by Marcus DeSieno, a native of Albany, New York presently obtaining his MFA in Studio Art from the University of South Florida, Tampa. His project is concerned with the history of science and exploration in relation to the history of photography. 

These shots were taken using a scanning electron microscope and subsequently exposed to dry-plate gelatin ferrotype plates. This method blends old and new photographic technology, another objective stated in DeSieno's project description: studying that photo-technological evolution. The final, archival prints are done large to give these parasites their due close-up, Mr. DeMille.

Images Credit: Marcus DeSieno
Via: Beautiful Decay

This inspiring photo is part of a brochure from the Children's Cancer Center of the University of Mississippi Health Care system. When he was 4 years old, Noah was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. His odds of surviving were about 50/50. As part of his treatment, he underwent chemotherapy and a bone marrow treatment.

As you can see from this split photo, Noah is now a healthy, happy 7-year old.

-via American Digest

An industry was born out of the R.M.S. Titanic's collision with a 500,000-ton iceberg, which famously ripped the holes in the hull of the ship that were her downfall. After the Titanic tragedy in 1912, a group of North American and European nations established the International Ice Patrol (IIP) to prevent such incidents. The IIP utilizes data collected from satellites, radar and airplanes to furnish critical information to the maritime community regarding the location of icebergs and safe detours clear of them.

IIP information is vital to an industry of ice management contractors who are hired by oil companies to keep watch over their oil rig platforms. An estimated 20,000 to 40,000 icebergs a year — massive portions of Greenland glaciers — ride with the current into the North Atlantic, where they become potential dangers to oil installations off Newfoundland's coast. The ice management contractors keep a close eye on bergs in the general vicinity of oil rig structures. When an iceberg is identified as an immediate threat, it is then towed out of the area by the contractors, using specialized anchor handling tug supply vessels. 

These contractors use towropes eight inches in diameter and up to 1/4 mile long to tow the immense icebergs. The towrope is attached to a buoy and the tug vessel circles the iceberg, while care is taken to keep a distance of 650 feet or so from the berg. Once the roping is complete, the rope is then attached to a tow cable. Between 1/2 and 3/4 of a mile of space is kept between the vessel and the iceberg to avoid a catastrophe if the iceberg flips over during the operation. If an iceberg flips during towing, it can slice through the boat, as well as cause rough seas due to the waves generated after it falls. Towing an iceberg can take up to 72 hours, as the boat needs in the neighborhood of ten hours to reach a speed of just one nautical mile (6076 feet) per hour. 

Learn more and see additional pictures at Amusing Planet.

Image credit: Randy Olson