A couple of months ago, we posted some of the top images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest. Wouldn't you know it, the photograph that won the contest wasn't even included in them! The contest winners have now been announced, and the top prize goes to Wim van den Heever for the image above, titled "Ghost Town Visitor." The Grand Title image is of a rare brown hyena framed against a building of an abandoned diamond mine in the ghost town of Kolmanskop, Namibia. The image also won in the category of Urban Wildlife. Below is the winner of the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year award.   



Winner Andrea Dominizi named this photo "After the Destruction." It shows a longhorn beetle witnessing the machinery destroying his habitat. This image also won in the 15-17-year-old category. You can see the winning photos in the different categories here. 

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is held annually by the Natural History Museum in London, and the best of the 60,000 or so photos entered will be the subject of an exhibition opening Friday and running into July of next year. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: M3COPT3R4)

With so many people taking digital photos with their phones all the time, there's going to be some that will surprise or confuse you. These guys in Romania are looking down on tiny little people, but there's no Photoshop at work here. I'll explain it, but you've got to stop reading here if you want to figure it out on your own. The "big guys" are standing on the bucket of a heavy construction vehicle, high above the street. The edge of the bucket lines up nicely with the street lines, so you might not see it right off. Sometimes you spot an illusion as it happens, and since you have a camera right there with you, you record it to share, like this building in Osaka.

(Image credit: Raxxla) 

It's a tower that extends through a hole in the sky! Or is it  a blue ceiling with a hole in it? No, the building has a metal rim jutting out from the top, so shiny that it reflects the rest of the building. You can see it better in this picture. These are just a couple of illusions in a list of 50 of them at Bored Panda that might take you some time to figure out, but you'll be glad you saw them.   

Look at the size of this pumpkin on the banks of the Colorado River! It's not a garden pumpkin, though, it's made of mineral deposits. This is Pumpkin Spring, named for the obvious reason. The pumpkin is the result of a warm mineral spring that deposited limestone as it met the river, creating a natural pool. The water churns inside and then spills over the top, leaving orange streaks down the outside, giving it an autumn harvest color. 

Inside, Pumpkin Spring is more like a witch's cauldron than a gourd. The warm water contains all kinds of dissolved metals, including a high concentration of arsenic. Yes, people swim in it, although it is not recommended, and it is forbidden to drink the water. It is the most poisonous water in the Grand Canyon. Pumpkin Spring is not that easy to get to, anyway. There are no trails, but if you're boating down the river, you'll find it at mile 212.9. See more of Pumpkin Spring at Atlas Obscura, where it is today's "place of the day." 

(Image credit: Nate Loper) 

Here's something you probably didn't know about bats: the common vampire bat has a natural knife sharpener in its mouth to keep its teeth sharp enough to pierce skin. Cool, huh? Vampire bats are the only mammals that can live solely off the blood of their victims (insects are another story), and they have developed adaptations that make them really good at it, like saliva with anticoagulants in it. It might have rabies virus in it, too, but that doesn't help or bother the bat at all.

The good news is that vampire bats only take a small amount of blood relative to the size of the victim, which is usually livestock, and they learn to do it without being noticed. That's all fine and good until your pig comes down with rabies. And it's all the more reason to make sure your window screens are in good shape if you live in vampire bat territory. Vampire bats are scary enough without having to look at them up close, so this TED-Ed lesson animates these bats as much cuter than they actually are.   

Sobibor was a Nazi death camp that operated in Poland beginning in 1942. It was a relatively small camp, because the Jewish people who were brought in by train were immediately killed. The only permanent inmates were a few hundred workers who had skills necessary to run the camp, like carpentry or cooking. Then in the fall of 1943, the Nazis planned to close Sobibor and turn it into a munitions facility. The workers knew that they, too, would be executed instead of transferred. The standard procedure at death camps was to leave no witnesses. 

Yet 58 people survived their time at Sobibor. They had nothing left to lose, so they staged an uprising on October 14, 1943. The plan was put into place after Alexander Pechersky arrived at Sobibor. He was a captured Red Army soldier who had hidden his Jewish heritage from his captors for a year. He was the first actual Allied soldier the inmates of Sobibor had met, and they looked to him for leadership. Some of the camp's German guards or other employees were recruited for the effort, but among the prisoners, few knew what the exact plan was. When prisoners started killing SS officers on the 14th, it caused chaos all through the camp. Around 365 prisoners made an escape attempt, but most were shot. Another 100 or so were caught outside. All the remaining camp inmates were executed. But 58 people made their way to safety, and served as witnesses to the horrors of Sobibor. Read their story at Smithsonian. 

(Image credit: Azymut (Rafał M. Socha) -image cropped) 

Joy is a young woman trying online dating in hopes of finding someone she's compatible with. But she's really Sofia, a much older woman who is using Joy as her cover. Sofia isn't evil, she's just lonely and desperate. For her part, Joy isn't exactly perfect, either. The short JOY by director Steve Oen is a recent offering from DUST. It's partially in English, partially in Dutch, but there are captions. Contains NSFW language. 

However, you should know that JOY was made during the 48 Hour Film Project Amsterdam in 2019. It was written, shot, and edited in only 48 hours, a "weekend of adrenaline, caffeine, and creativity." The prompts in that competition (to make sure every entry was new) were a character named Frits or Freija who is a cartoonist, the line "blind birds do not fly far," and perfume as a prop. JOY won Best Film in that competition, and went to place third in the global 48-hour film competition the next year. -via Geeks Are Sexy     

Very wealthy people come in all flavors, but studies show that on average, they tend to be more selfish than the general population. That seems obvious, but it's only a part of what newer studies show. They also tend to be less empathetic, more aggressive, and more likely to break rules. In other words, they tend to display "dark traits": psychopathy, narcissism and machiavellianism. 

However, this presents a chicken-or-the-egg problem. Is there something about wealth that turns people toward those dark traits, or are people who already have those traits more likely to accumulate great wealth? It could very well be both. Studies show that people who have trouble connecting with others chase money as a substitute, but when that still doesn't provide satisfaction, they become more determined to fill the void with more wealth and power. 

This doesn't apply to all rich people (and wealth is relative), but we all know that there are benevolent ways to become less wealthy and more connected to others. Read about the psychology of the very rich at the Conversation.  -via Damn Interesting

We don't know what her name used to be, but Bella Bellarda was adopted three times. The first two placements didn't work out because Bella was super nervous and didn't always use a litter box properly. Her third placement was with a young man who has infinite patience with her and a commitment to making her feel loved. In return, she showers him with affection. Bella also bonded with his friend who looks just like him except he wears glasses. The friend with glasses moved in, and the roommate became Bella's "godfather," so there is always someone to record Bella on video. I swear there are two guys- I saw them together in one video.   

This video doesn't tell you, but Bella has applied for a Guinness World Record in the cat long jump. The current record is 213.36 centimeters (7 feet). Bella often jumps 240 to 260 centimeters! See her long jump at Instagram, or just bookmark her page to keep up with Bella and her guys.  -via Laughing Squid

While European alchemists were looking to manufacture gold, Chinese alchemists were looking for an elixir of life. What they development instead was gunpowder. The possibilities were endless! First they made flaming arrows with gunpowder, but the development of the bomb came soon afterward during the Song dynasty, who had plenty of wars to fight. The first deployment of bombs, made of gunpowder stuffed into bamboo with ceramic shards added as shrapnel, was in the 11th century.  

Over time, bombs became more deadly, as gunpowder was later packed into ceramic casings (shown above), and then iron shells, first deployed in 1221, which tore apart on detonation and became far-flung shrapnel that could pierce iron armor. These "heaven-shaking thunder bombs" could be heard exploding thirty miles away, and were used during the Song dynasty's 45-year war against the Mongols. Read about the development of the first bombs, and the terror and destruction they created in wartime, at Amusing Planet. 

(Image credit: 震天動地) 

McDonald's made a name for itself by making fast food really fast, as in, come in, get your 15 cent hamburgers, and walk out. Since all they sold was hamburgers and cheeseburgers (and drinks and fries), they always had them hot and ready to go. Even after they expanded their menu, it was all about hamburgers. But then the Chicken McNugget was introduced in 1981, and they sold like hotcakes, until entire generations of children were raised on them. Not only that, preparing and serving McNuggets at the point of sale was faster and easier than hamburgers, considering all the "manufaturing" was done elsewhere ahead of time. 

McDonald's has experimented with chicken for more than 50 years now, because chicken is much more profitable than beef. Other fast food outlets found out how good chicken was for sales, too, sparking an actual trade war. Weird History Food takes us through the history of McDonald's and chicken.

Quebec Comiccon is wrapping up tonight at the Quebec City Convention Centre, right in the back yard of our friends at Geeks Are Sexy. That means we have a gallery of the best cosplayers who made their way to the con. A rather large gallery, too. Above you see superheroes that look rather familiar. It's Wolvebling and Blingpool, or what Wolverine and Deadpool would look like if they were women and fell into a rhinestone depository. I bet those costumes are heavy! And the Ghostbusters showed up, too, with their own sidekick Slimer.   

It's hard to stand out when you are surrounded by cosplayers who put their heart into their presentations, but Princess Batman managed to get a lot of attention among the superheroes, TV and movie characters, folklore figures, comic book heroes, video game game characters, and villains, too. 

See 55 photos of the best cosplayers at Quebec Comiccon at Geeks Are Sexy. Click on each photo to see a full-size version. 

What is the difference between a doctor and a witch? Or between a physician and an alchemist? During a large part of our history, those distinctions often came down to gender. If an illiterate old woman mixed up strange herbs and used it to alleviate someone's illness, it had to be magic, or worse, witchcraft. But that deep knowledge of plants and chemical processes that was handed down orally was actually science, although it appeared to be supernatural to people who didn't understand it. And it's hard to prove these days because most of it wasn't written down. 

But from analyzing the few of these "magic potions" and "spells" that were written down, historians and scientists can see why many of them worked. You don't need a formal education to remember that St. John's wort was good for inflammation, or that some plants had to be distilled to isolate the active ingredients. If it worked, you were a witch. If it didn't, well, then you were an evil witch. Read about some of those ancient potions and poisons that really did work as intended, and the people who managed to harness them at Chemistry World.  -via Strange Company 

The saying is that something is worth exactly what someone else is willing to pay for it. We know that from looking at real estate listings, where the list price is usually far more than what a home will eventually sell for. Nevertheless, we keep looking at those listings and dreaming. How good are you at guessing the asking price of a house? Find out in the game Curb Value, You'll be shown a picture, and the challenge is to guess the listing price within 5%. You get five guesses, and they will tell you if you should go higher or lower after each guess. I won the first three rounds, and one was exact in three guesses. I think they might round off the numbers a bit. I don't know how many houses are on the game each day, because I decided to quit while I was ahead. 

Anyway, you will think that the one picture doesn't have enough information. That's true, but click on the image to find it on Google Maps, with a Street View (that might be an interior) and the exact location. That should help- if you know where the houses cost too much. -via Nag on the Lake 

Wildlife trafficking a $20 billion per year global business. The US Fish and Wildlife service investigates an average of 30 cases a day. These smugglers are caught by customs agents, federal investigators, or even local police. They run the gamut from rare spiders to infant monkeys to alligators, and what are the cops supposed to do with them? Despite having no expertise, they used to take them home with them until they could talk a zoo or wildlife shelter into taking them in. Or they turned to euthanasia. Then in 2023, the Wildlife Confiscations Network was established by a partnership between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the  Association of Zoos and Aquariums. And Mandy Fischer became the go-to person for exotic animals stranded nationwide. 

Fischer only has jurisdiction in California, but she's assembled a nationwide network of experts, shelters, zoos, and volunteer organizations that can step in and rescue a wide variety of creatures and get them the care they need. It's a complicated setup. Fischer once had to deal with a duffel bag full of baby spider monkeys, which normally would go into quarantine, but needed round-the-clock care immediately. The closest facility that could handle them was hours away, but the infants were saved. Read more of Fischer's rescue stories at Smithsonian.    

(Image credit:  Elba Benabe-Carlo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) 

Tom BetGeorge's annual Halloween light show for 2025 features a medley from the Netflix musical KPop Demon Hunters. The songs are "How Its Done," "Golden," "Takedown," "Your Idol," and "What It Sounds Like." But this medley is just one song from the show. It also includes Alien Ant Farm's "Smooth Criminal, a remix of "Zombie" by Zombic & Felix Schorn, "The Kill" by Thirty Seconds to Mars, and "Defying Gravity" from the musical Wicked. If you want to see the full 23-minute show, continue reading.