Sans-Souci – Carefree Palace of a Self-Made Monarch

The Haitian Revolution (1791 – 1804) had left Haiti independent from its old colonial master, France which itself had only recently felt the convulsions of civil insurgency itself. Yet it also left the country divided in to north and south. In the north, a remarkable yet despotic man came to be known as Henry I, King of Haiti (left) and held sway for a number of years. He decreed that a palace be constructed to be the centerpiece of his power. Sans-Souci, as it was named, was to be his Versailles.

This was a palace meant to display power, wealth and prestige – a slap in the face to the old colonial overlords. It was propaganda in the form of bricks and mortar. In modern day terms, you could even call it something of a spin palace.

Image Credit Flickr User AmbaFranceht

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Summer Fun on Days Long Gone

Have you ever felt that dread when, on their return from some far flung place, your friend threatens to show you their summer holiday photos? You may have to sit through that particular agony.  In the meantime, here is a collection of photographs spanning the first seven decades of the twentieth century which show summer in all its glory.  Times and social mores may have changed, but these may still be the type of pictures you wish your friend had taken.

Image Credit Florida Memory
A group of young women make fun of a sign demanding that they wear full bathing costumes while on Florida’s Miami beach.  Come on, this is 1934, after all!  Sure enough, there were a number of women arrested that year for wearing two piece bathing suits.

Image Credit Florida Memory

You can be fairly certain the young women above didn't stay here.

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

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

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

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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

What do You Have to do to Get a Drink Around Here?

Image Credit Flickr User Wildxplorer

From the largest mammal to the tiniest insect we all have to drink. If we don’t we die. Over at the Ark in Space they are focusing on the little guys, the ones which you can hardly imagine need much water. Indeed, sometimes they can be in danger of being carried away in their enthusiasm to sate their thirst. Thanks to some wonderfully macrophotography we get to see this most vital of functions being carried out – with some gusto – by a host of insects. Drink up!

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

The Amazing Gecko: 20 Interesting Facts about the World’s Most Species-Rich Lizard

The gecko is an extraordinary lizard, a triumph of both adaptation and diversity. Out of the 5,600 species of lizard on the planet, over 1,500 belong to the gecko infraorder called Gekkota. So, what is so interesting about a line of lizards which is, apparently, so ubiquitous? The Ark in Space today has 20 interesting facts about the gecko, as well as some amazing pictures of 30 gecko species that you may not have come across before.

The pictures are not as frivolous as the one above, but they shed light on gecko species I had never heard of, some of which have marvelous names.  Gold Dust Day Gecko anyone? No? Then what about the Satanic Leaf-tailed Gecko? More over at the Ark in Space.

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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.

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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.

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.

Spring!

Image Credit Flickr User Philipp Hilpert

It's spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!  ~Mark Twain

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Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day.  ~W. Earl Hall

Bastei: Amazing Bridged Bastion of Saxony

Bastei in German translates as bastion and you can easily see why this name was chosen for this towering rock formation, situated on the River Elbe near Dresden in the German Free State of Saxony.  Towering almost 200 meters over the river below, Bastei was formed by water erosion over a million years ago. In recent times it has become such an object of fascination that a bridge linking a number of the rocks was constructed, and is itself something of a marvel of Victorian age engineering.

Image Credit Flickr User Hawk Eyes

Although the bridge is a destination in its own right, when you are on it you realize just how high it soars above the Elbe.

Winter!

Image Credit Flickr User Andy Won

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.  Anne Bradstreet

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Now that’s what I Call a Halloween Costume

Image Credit Flickr User Michael Lehet

What makes a great Halloween costume? Money? Certainly the more you spend the more likely your costume is going to be realistic and scary. Time? Perhaps – the more elaborate a costume is then the longer it will take to prepare. Energy? Perhaps, but the single most vital element that makes for a great Halloween costume is thought (and perhaps a permutation or combination of the above too). Here are some of the best Halloween costumes we found.

Image Credit Flickr User Zombieite

Something unusual that others may not have considered can do the trick nicely.  Not many people would have considered making a costume based on the front cover of Seth Grahame-Smith's 2009 mashup novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  However, it works beautifully on two levels.  First and foremost, those in the know will just worship your creation.  Secondly, even if people are unaware of the novel they will still think that you have made a brilliant effort - and it is certainly a twist on the zombie hosts we see every year.