Featured - Part 2

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2. November 2009

The Legacy of Saddam’s Architecture of Fear

Empires rise and fall, but the physical foundations they lay remain like ghosts. Fifty years ago Baghdad had just three public sculptures. During the revolution mobs destroyed two of them, leaving just one dedicated to an obscure prime minister. Today Iraq proliferates with imposing monuments and lavish palaces. But what has become of this architecture of fear since the fall of Saddam?

2. November 2009

3 Comments

Italy’s Drowned Village

Legend has it the bell can still be heard in the dead of winter, sounding out its knell despite the fact that it has long since been removed. The bell tower of the 14th century church that projects from Lake Reschen in the far north of Italy is all that is now visible of the once thriving village of Graun. In the middle of the last century, the town was drowned by the artificial lake that lies above it to this day.

30. October 2009

6 Comments

Bizarre Bubbles Invade the Ocean Floor

Bunches of grapes grown in a radioactive environment? The genetically modified eggs of some strange unidentified marine species? Or a fungal growth that would call for a hasty trip to the doctor? Nothing of the sort. It's stunningly beautiful bubble coral, and once we saw it we simply had to blog about it. Don your dark glasses; you're in for a feast for the eyes that might leave you dazzled.

29. October 2009

6 Comments

Manhattan of the Desert: Yemen’s Ancient Mud Skyscraper City

Some might assume it to be a mirage. Rising out of the desert in the South Arabian Peninsula, ancient high-rise apartment buildings made of mud meet the eye. Centuries before the modern age of skyscrapers dawned in Chicago and New York, the Middle East had its own skyscraper city – the oldest on earth. This is Shibam in Yemen, a place thought to have existed since the 2nd Century AD.

29. October 2009

1 Comment

Welcome to Deception Island

Deception Island. The name alone conjures intrigue, concealment and trickery. Upon approaching this remote Antarctic outcrop, a desolate and forbidding coastline looms – sheer, snow-capped rocky crags and barren volcanic slopes cloaked in a soup of swirling fog. Occupied sporadically for a century or more, ghost settlements are now all that remain of the island’s earlier human ventures. Several vicious volcanic eruptions have made sure of that.

28. October 2009

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10 Most Incredible Earth Scars

With explosions and massive machines scraping into the earth’s crust like a bad case of scabies, it's small wonder open cast mining has made what many see as an unpleasant impact on the planet’s surface. The face of the globe is beleaguered with giant scars, scoured out in our ongoing bid to the plunder the planet of its natural resources. We’ve selected 7 of the holes most needing a bit of environmental ointment – where rehabilitation of the land could take some time.

28. October 2009

2 Comments

Where Cargo Ships Go To Die

Deserts are not the places one would associate with shipwrecks. But ghostly remains of once proud schooners, cruise ships or freighters smack in the middle of a desert are not as rare as one might think. Deserts and accompanying dust storms steering unsuspecting ships off course are often the culprits but also advancing deserts and sadly, increasing desertification worldwide.

27. October 2009

11 Comments

Dead Flies Circus

Playing with dead insects is something we’d normally deem excusable in children but slightly weird in adults. Not necessarily so when you consider the work of Swedish photographer Magnus Muhr, who takes the carcasses of dead flies, lays them on paper and imbues them with new life through a few strokes of his pencil. Never has the gap between man and arthropod been smaller, as flies swap six limbs for four, and engage in all manner of human activities...

26. October 2009

3 Comments

Mexican Church Devoured by Lava

When the people of the small Mexican town of Paricutin heard rumbling and felt the earth shake on February 20, 1943, they thought of an earthquake. When they witnessed a mountain growing out of their cornfields, plus fissures in the earth that emitted sulphurous smells, many thought God had sent them a sign that the end was near. What they would witness was the birth of Paricutin, the youngest volcano of the western hemisphere.

23. October 2009

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7 Lamest Yet Widely Believed Cryptozoological Hoaxes

Are cryptozoological creatures bona fide beasties living on earth or do they only roam in the minds of fraudsters and their credulous believers? Despite what many might see as a weight of evidence against their existence, the jury is still out in some cases. Pity the same can’t be said for this bunch. Hoaxes to hang your gullible hats on one and all, these bizarre and unlikely cryptids are more likely to incite sniggers than any serious scientific enquiry.