Young Faces of the American Civil War

Somehow we expect their faces to be different, not so staggeringly modern looking.  Place them in contemporary clothing and all of these young men would not look out of place in a mall or a high school yearbook. Yet these extraordinary ambrotype and tintype photographs were taken during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Over 160 years separates their lives from our own yet their youthful faces retain a powerful resonance and an immediacy which brings that dreadful conflict feel strikingly close to us..

Who were these young men? What sort of lives did they live during and (one hopes) after the Civil War? The names of many of the young men pictured here are unknown; their fates a mystery. Yet despite the century and a half gap between their careful posing for the camera, some can still be identified. Astonishingly, names can still be discovered, as well as insight in to their character and personality.

The Gelada: Unique Primate on the Roof of Africa

High up in the Ethiopian mountains lives the Gelada. It lives nowhere else and, isolated in these remote Ethiopian Highlands, the primate has developed a way of life all of its own. To begin with there is that patch of red skin; one might guess something with which to attract the opposite sex, but why there? Moreover the gelada exhibits behavior that has led scientists to believe that deceit, crime and punishment are not simply human traits after all.

The Ark in Space has a photo-filled feature on this amazing primate in the wild.

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Pineapple Fields Forever

The pineapple: we eat them fresh, cooked, juiced, and preserved but probably with little thought about where they come from or how, in fact, they grow.  So, the often vast plantations on which the fruit is propagated can be something of a revelation. Welcome to the world of the pineapple.

Image Credit jpphoto

Pumpkin Spring – The Grand Canyon’s Arsenic Pool

Below the rim of the Grand Canyon runs the beautiful Colorado River.  Many take trips down its length but among the majestic scenery is something which they do not quite expect – a huge, enormous gourd-like squash. Jutting out from the canyon wall and perched above the river, this highly unusual formation is known as Pumpkin Spring.

Photograph by kind permission of Flickr user Roger Steeb

Jodhpur - India's Blue City

Image Credit Flickr User Johntrathome

Travellers journeying through the desolate landscape of the unforgiving Thar desert in the Indian state of Rajasthan would know when they had reached their destination.  The sky would fall to the ground and everything would become a single color – blue.  Jodhpur would lie before them, opening up like a blue treasure in the desert.

Image Credit Flickr User ciamabue

The Chiaroscuro and Rembrandt Lighting

In order to achieve the beautiful contrast between light and dark, known as chiaroscuro there is a method employed by photographers – Rembrandt Lighting. Here, with some beautiful examples, is how it is done. Image Credit Flickr User Mai En Hoa

Image Credit Flickr User 85mm.ch

The Great Wall of China – Diverse Perspectives

China’s Great Wall – created over centuries to protect the Chinese Empire from intrusion and invasion – is one of the world’s best know sights. Yet again and again we see the same stretch of wall, the same throngs of tourists, soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army and a stream of visiting politicians. Takes these elements away and there is a sublime change - a shift in perception. Here is the Great Wall of China from various diverse perspectives, some stretches of the wall you may not be familiar with and hardly a tourist or soldier in sight.  The Great Wall of China suddenly becomes a mystery again, inscrutable and elegant, unfathomable and incredible.

Frost on Glass: Ice Flower Art

When a pane of glass is exposed to very cold air on the outside while inside the air is reasonably moist, frost can form.  Known as ice flowers or fern frost, it is remarkable for the intricate patterns it creates.  The surface of the glass influences the way that the ice is formed so that the first process of crystallization, known as nucleation, is randomized.  The patterns, then, are almost infinite in variety.  Science aside, ice flowers are a source of wonder, things of elegance and beauty.  They are nature’s art at its most exquisite.

Image Credit Flickr User MarkyBon

Planet of the Lemurs: 10 Beautiful Little-Known Species

Image Credit Flickr User gripso banana prune

Most people have heard of the Ring-tailed Lemur and might suppose that it is the only species. However, there are many varieties of Lemur, a lot of which are beautiful and incredibly rare. The Ark in Space takes a look in to the planet of the lemurs and discovers the wonderful diversity of this lesser known family of animals.

The Stairs to Nowhere

Most people are familiar with the expression the road to nowhere, but the stairs?  It does not seem to have made it in to the vast panoply that is English idiom in quite the same way as its more metaphorically obvious relation. Yet perhaps we should make room among the myriad of English expressions for one more. After all, stairs to nowhere are more common than you might at first imagine.

Image Credit Sarairachel

Image Credit Stephen Bowler

Coulrophobia – Are You Afraid of Clowns?

Did you find Heath Ledger as The Joker scary? Then perhaps you suffer from coulrophobia, the abnormal fear of clowns. Join a self-confessed coulrophobic for a look at these guys and see if you are too- as if you don’t already know!

Image Credit Flickr User SilentMind8

Center Pivot Irrigation: The Real Crop Circles

If you have been in a plane over a large agricultural hub you may have casually glanced out of your window. And then you may have performed a very, very quick double take. What on earth are those circular shapes below? They are not the alien crop circles of infamy that’s for sure – in fact whole fields seem to be circular in shape. There are way too many of them, too, to have been done as some sort of practical joke. So, what are they? Welcome to the world of center pivot irrigation.

Image Credit Flickr User Tresijas

Helping to End Oppressive Child Labor in the US – The Photography of Lewis Hine

The 1900 United States Census showed the population of America growing by over 20% since the previous census ten years before. Good news for a still expanding, young country. Yet there was another astonishing figure which appalled many. One in six children aged between five and ten were recorded as being in gainful employment.

May 1910: Bundle boy. St. Louis, Missouri.

Yet there was worse. This number, shocking in itself, represented a massive increase of 50% over a twenty year period in the number of children in this age group who worked, often in appalling conditions. America’s children were working in greater numbers than ever before - 1,752,187 of them all told between the ages of five and ten. With the country seemingly going backwards in its treatment of its children from poorer backgrounds, a group of people decided that something had to be done.

The Abnormal, Gruesome Gall – Alien Invader in Your Yard

They appear as if from nowhere.  A previously healthy looking plant suddenly has an abnormal growth protruding from it.  Some are hideous and some strangely beautiful but they leave the plant looking as if it has been invaded by miniature aliens.  And in a way that’s exactly what has happened.  Take a look at the weirdness of the plant gall.

Image Credit Flickr User Curtzsi

Image Credit Flickr User Otolithe

The Katskhi Pillar

Deep in the Caucasus region, where Western Asia and Eastern Europe meet, the small country of Georgia has a number of surprises. Not least is the Katskhi Pillar, a 130 feet high limestone monolith. Even more surprising than the monolith itself, however, is the fact that there is a church on its apex.

It is not a large church by any means – space alone demands its diminutive size. The top of monolith, known locally as the Pillar of Life, has an area of just 150 m2. The church – or more likely a hermitage – was made in the ninth or tenth century and lay abandoned from the thirteenth century onwards. Surprisingly, there are no records (official ones at least) of the monolith being climbed after it was deserted until as late as 1944.

The Prandtl–Glauert Singularity – Amazing Jet Plane Shock Collar

It’s an amazing site – a cone of vapor appearing around an aircraft which is travelling at transonic speed.  Known as the Prandtl–Glauert Singularity this astonishing effect simultaneously widens the eyes and drops the jaw. Yet how does it occur?

Image Credit Wikimedia

Iguazu Falls – Big Water of the Borders

In the local Tupi language, the word means big water.  One look at the staggering Iguazu Falls, located on the border of the Brazilian State of Paraná and the Argentine Province of Misiones and you realise that this is no exaggeration.

Image Credit Flickr User ametxa

The Mystery of Resin

No one knows for absolute sure why some trees secrete resin. However, with the aid of some marvelous macrophotography, although the mystery surrounding this subject cannot be solved for certain, its beauty – at times deadly – becomes evident.

Image Credit Flickr User Paul Garlan

Resin is a chemical that oozes out of various trees. It is known as a secretion rather than an excretion. Excretions are purely waste products whereas, although the reasons behind resin are still a little obscure, most scientists believe that it has some sort of purpose or function. It is probably not simply to trap insects, although there is something almost morbidly satisfying about the sight of an insect being ‘consumed’ by resin. Perhaps it is the fact we have watched Jurassic Park too many times and take some satisfaction in imagining a scientist in the year ten thousand working out the DNA of an amber trapped insect. Most probably it is the wonder of seeing something trapped in time as perfectly preserved as it was on the day it died.

Star Wars Day – May the Fourth be with You

It may be a phrase so full of cheesy humor that it elicits an inevitable groan. Yet since the London Evening News published an advert which used the phrase “May the fourth Be with you” – ironically to congratulate Margaret Thatcher’s ascension to Prime Minister in 1979, the phrase took hold. It has stayed with us ever since and is used by countless people on the day after 3 May.

Image Credit Flickr User Stefan

However, it wasn’t until 2011 that the first organized Star Wars Day celebration took place in Toronto, Canada. More of a convention than anything else, the event featured a showing of episodes V to VI, game shows, parodies and of course the inescapable costume competition.

Avalanche Fences Exposed!

For months of the year they lie beneath deep snow, trapping it so that avalanches can be circumvented.  But when the snow melts, what is beneath is exposed to the world.  In the summer months many visitors scratch their heads at the sight of avalanche fences and wonder what form of sheep or goat they might be designed to contain.

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Their real purpose is often lost to the casual observer: to help keep roads, railways and towns – not to mention the people therein - safe from a sudden, often deadly avalanche.  In places like the Swiss and French Alps, where locals have had to live alongside the threat of avalanches for thousands of years, intricate systems of artificial structures have mitigated the risk of avalanches for almost as long.