Waardenburg Syndrome is a rare autosomal genetic disorder that has possible bright blue eyes as one of its qualifying criteria, along with possible deafness (common). Actually, the cause of the blue eyes is a form of albinism that may include patches of non-pigmented skin or forehead hair, regardless of ethnicity.

There are four types of Waardenburg Syndrome, with a mix of possible characteristics as the determinant. Medical challenges increase with type. The boy in the picture is displaying two major symptoms of type 1; bright blue eyes and dystopia canthorum, a condition where the inner corners of the eyes are set more widely apart, but with normally distanced eyes. ...

This is the fruit of the Halla tree (Pandanus tectorius). The tree grows to 4–14 m (13–46 ft) tall and is found from Port Macquarie in New South Wales to northern Queensland, Australia and Indonesia east through the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. The fruit can be eaten raw or cooked and is a major source of food in Micronesia.


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This is a remote forest in Western Poland, where 400 pine trees have grown with a curvature in their trunk structure and it turns out that no one really knows exactly what caused it. There are, however, a few theories:

1) The main theory seems to suggest that this is the result of human interference. It is believed that this is a tree farm and the trees were forced to grow horizontally in their youth to make a carpenters life easier. The curved shape can be induced by laying a heavy object over a young tree stem. Phototropism will cause the stem beyond the heavy object to grow toward the sky, while the growing stem beneath and behind the heavy object will develop what is called morphogenetic compression wood - which ultimately makes the curv ...

Belugas apparently fashion their own entertainment by creating bubble rings and then catching them. A beluga at Sea World Kamogawa, near Tokyo, was snapped in the act, and another at the Shimane Aquarium has been seen performing the trick.

The Monticello Dam holds back Lake Berryessa in Napa County, California, USA. The morning glory spillway associated with the dam is the largest in the world; it is a funnel-shaped outlet that allows water to bypass the Monticello Dam when it reaches capacity (1370 m³/s).

The Glory Hole is located about 61m from the dam; the distance from the funnel to the exit point - which is situated in the south side of the canyon - is about 213m. The outside diameter is 22m, slowly narrowing to 8.5m at the exit.

Water spills over the lip of the Glory Hole when the lake reaches 1,976,037,908 cubic metres (1,602,000 acre-feet). The spillway is designed to handle a maximum of 1,370,319 litres of water per second (362,000 gallons of water per second); this ha ...

Luxury hotels in Sydney are now producing their own honey by setting up bee colonies on their rooftops. The Shangri-La already has five rooftop beehives that have produced 14 kilograms of honey since late last year for use in the hotel’s restaurants and kitchens. Considering the amount of honey used in these big hotels, this is a pretty promising initiative!

Elafonisi Beach on the Greek island of Crete has pastel pink sand! That rosy hue is caused by tiny particles of pink shells and coral that have been ground down over many years of erosion.

Have you ever chillaxed (chilling and relaxing ) under the sun, cloud watching, and all of a sudden noticed transparent blobs floating around? Did you know what these things were? I know I didn't until I saw this:

The Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi), also known as the monkey-eating eagle, is found exclusively in the forests of the Philippines. It has brown- and white-coloured plumage, and a shaggy crest, and generally measures 86 to 102 cm (2.82 to 3.35 ft) in length, weighs 4.7 to 8.0 kg (10.4 to 17.6 lb), and has a 2 meter wingspan. It is considered the largest of the extant eagles in the world in terms of length and wing surface.

Among the rarest and most powerful birds in the world, it has been declared the Philippine national bird. Unfortunately, however, it is critically endangered, mainly due to massive loss of habitat resulting from deforestation in most of its range. Killing a Philippine eagle is punishable under Philippine law by 1 ...

A mountain in Kermânshâh, west Iran.

The bleeding tooth fungus grows in Europe and North America. While young, the fungus looks like it is oozing blood. The red liquid is actually an anticoagulant. It lives on the roots of conifer trees and exchanges nutrients in a mutually beneficial relationship.

And, if you're wondering, they are inedible.

Take a good look at this woman. She was created by a computer from a mix of several races. What you see is a remarkable preview of what the North American race will look like.

Varieties of the inky cap mushroom can be around the world. While they are edible, ingesting alcohol while eating the mushrooms increases symptoms of nausea and vomiting, and can even cause a heart attack.

After the mushroom has released its spores, the cap begins to liquefy. The thick black liquid that is seen dripping from the edges is how the inky cap got its name.

This is Migaloo, the albino white humpback whale. His name is derived from an Aboriginal word that means “white fella.” Migaloo is a favorite for whale watching enthusiasts. He is believed to be the only documented white humpback whale in the world.

He was discovered in 1991 and quickly became popular with tourists and locals alike. Since then, sightings have been rare. He migrates from Antarctica to Australia on a yearly basis, and some years he slips by undetected. Most of these photos were taken in 2012 on Migaloo’s return to Antarctica. ...

Did you know Australia was home to the world’s oldest flamingo?

Unfortunately 'Greater' has died at the grand old age of 83 at Adelaide Zoo in South Australia. Greater was almost blind, and quite an enigma - its sex and origin was a complete mystery.

Hacker and writer Joshua Klein is fascinated by crows. After a long amateur study of corvid behavior, he's come up with an elegant machine that may form a new bond between animal and human.

This is the Wilson's bird-of-paradise, found exclusively on the tiny islands of Waigeo and Batanta in the Raja Ampat archipelago of West Papua. That turquoise cap isn't made of feathers - it's actually a patch of very brightly coloured bald skin.

Here's a good reminder of how enormous elephants are - this one's using a Volkswagen as a scratching post. Photographed in South Africa, the elephant was in musth, which is a sexually aggressive period experienced by elephant bulls once a year.

Australian scientists are creating a new herpes-blocking drug using a protein found in the blood of abalones. If successful, it could prevent the virus from entering human cells, thereby prevent future outbreaks of cold sores.

JSJ is an ancient form of Japanese Touch Therapy believed to generate a sense of balance through the body.

Check the video and the link below to read more about this treatment. Would you be willing to try it?

Source: http://soulspottv.com/blog/this-5-minute-exercise-you-can-do-with-just-your-hands-will-boost-energy-balance-emotions/ ...

With a rare genetic condition called erythrism some insects, like this fluorescent pink katydid, develop an unusual reddish pigmentation. It's not enhanced in any way. The coloration (erythrism) is an adaptation sometimes found among katydids exposed to red or pink foliage, although this one was in the woods off the Appalachian Trail near Mount Peter, N.Y. ...

This is the pygmy marmoset (Cebuella pygmaea), the smallest known monkey in the world.

They are found in western Brazil, southeastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, and northern Bolivia and they typically live in the understory of the rain forest near rivers. Males weigh around 140 grams (4.9 oz), and females only 120 grams (4.2 oz).

Termites are pretty astonishing creatures by anyone's standards -- their queens are thirty times the size of soldiers and they produce an amazing thirty eggs per minute.

Relative to their size, termites build the largest structures in the animal kingdom. Their towers can reach an incredible 25ft (7.6m) high and 40ft across (12.1m) - and that's just above the ground! They can burrow as far as 225ft (68m) below the surface.

Researchers working to bring back animals like the passenger pigeon and woolly mammoth discuss the implications of their work.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

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Slot canyons are much deeper than they are wide, and are most commonly sandstone or limestone.

This is Antelope Canyon, located in Northern Arizona. There is enough room to move around comfortably at the bottom, but the opening on top is only 2-3 feet wide.

These are rainbow eucalyptus trees (Eucalyptus deglupta) and they hail from the Philippine Islands.

The trees get their name from the striking colours observed on their trunks and limbs. Although it may look like someone took a paintbrush to them, these colours are entirely natural. Unlike most trees, the rainbow eucalyptus does not have a thick, cork-like layer of bark on its trunk. The bark is smooth and as it grows it 'exfoliates' layers of spent tissue. This exfoliation technique occurs at different stages and in different zones of the tree.

Once a layer is shed, a new fresh green bark is exposed. As this new bark ages, we can see the tissue change colour to dark green followed by a bluish colour, then to purple and pink-orange and then f ...

Blue whales are not only the largest animal alive right now, but they are believed to be the largest animal that has ever lived.

They are listed as endangered by the IUCN, but a group of researchers hopes to designate 10% of the ocean as protected by 2020. Despite their slow reproduction times, researchers believe this will be enough to help rebound their number

Sloths have a commensal relationship with several insects. Their thick fur readily traps bacteria and algae, which makes a good home for many beetles. The beetles are able to lay their eggs in a place that is rich in nutrients upon hatching, and the sloths don’t care either way. One sloth was reported to have over 900 beetles living in its fur!

The velvety ladybird spider is a fascinating arachnid found in northern and central Europe. They live in burrows with silk trip-wires that help them catch large-sized prey. The males have bright red backs with four black spots and emerge only for a couple of weeks in May to breed. The male will only mate if he manages to avoid all trip wires—if he falls, he may become the meal.

This is the Giant Leopard Moth, a strictly nocturnal species native to parts of North America and Mexico. These moths start life as an incredibly black and bristly caterpillar, and once they grow into adulthood, they never eat, and instead focus on mating and passing their genes onto several clutches of eggs. ...

Eresus is a genus of velvet spiders comprising several species, including Eresus cinnaberinus and Eresus sandaliatus, both of which are sometimes known as the "Ladybird spider".

Wombat droppings are cube-shaped. This prevents them from rolling away when marking their territory. These cube-shaped poop looks like, but doesn't taste like chocolate brownies.

Mount Etna is blowing smoke rings! The volcano on the coast of Sicily, Italy, is emitting steam rings around 100 metres in diameter.

A volcano in Indonesia produces lava that looks BLUE!

Though the molten sulfur looks red in daylight, during the night, the blue flames that reach heights of 5 meters (16 feet) are highly visible. The sulfur, which is right around its melting point at 115°C (240 °F), is pumped away from the volcano so it can cool and be collected by miners for 680 rupiahs per kilogram (about 2.5 cents per pound).

China's world famous landmarks like the Great Wall and army of terracotta soldiers draw millions of visitors a year but the Middle Kingdom has another drawcard that is equally breath-taking despite being largely unknown.

This bizarre little beetle is a species of pill bug from the Monteverde cloud forest of Costa Rica. Just 5 mm long, it can shrink itself even smaller when threatened by curling itself up into a perfect ball.

What's worse than a tornado in your front yard? A firenado.

A woman in the US captured this incredible photo of a natural phenomenon known as a firewhirl. First documented by Australian scientists in 2003, firewhirls can grow to 30 metres tall.

This double red rainbow was photographed over a Greek sunset by Manolis Thravalos. The optical phenomena is a result of Rayleigh scattering, which is the scattering of light by tiny particles in the atmosphere. This scattering is what causes the Sun to appear yellow and the sky to appear blue, and also results in red sunsets where the atmosphere is thicker around the horizon.

The three-metre-tall titan arum is one of the world’s stinkiest flowers. It smells like rotting flesh to attract flies and other insects which get stuck at the base and digested. It also only blooms for a few hours to a few days, so is often only seen in bloom in gardens rather than in the wild.

Some species of bamboo can grow as fast as 3 feet a day. Also those type of bamboo were used to kill. By staking victim over sharpen bamboo tops as the bamboo grew. It went slowly through the victim.

Here's how 9,000 years of selective breeding has changed corn from a wild grass - that required a hammer to peel - to the juicy yellow ears of deliciousness we know today.

I'd like to share this mind-opening video. Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" This is his answer. By far, one of the best...

This lion, named Will, spent his life with a traveling circus in Brazil. "For 13 long years, the lion had been confined to a cramped cage and denied any semblance of a normal existence," the Sao Paulo sanctuary wrote.

Found in the deserts of Morocco, the cartwheeling spider (cebrennus rechenbergi) uses all eight of its legs to cartwheel and roll away from predators. Using forward or backward flips, this movement effectively doubles its normal walking speed similar to acrobatic flic-flac movements used by gymnasts. Interestingly, C. rechenbergi is the only spider known to use this unique form of rolling locomotion!

Our perception has heavily depended on how well we can accurately describe our surroundings. And this description relies on our language. Our ancestors apparently were not capable of perceiving the color blue. If they did, they were not capable of noticing it, simply because there was no term in language for blue. The first civilization to document and affirm the color blue was the Ancient Egyptian Civilization. In fact, the Ancient Egyptians were the only ancestors that were able to produce blue dyes! Moreover, philologists have compared Hindu, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew and many more languages only to find no mention of the color blue. However, just because the term for blue did not exist, does not mean our ancestors did not perceive blue.

T ...

What can we learn from chimps swinging their hips? In this Nature Video, the walking style of our primate cousins are investigated, and we see what they can teach us about our ambling ancestors.

The magic number is 42 m/s (94 mph). Using mathematical data and physical experiments, scientists say they have found the law that governs the resistance of wooden beams under stress. According to the study (link), researchers hung weights from wooden rods and pieces of pencil lead to record the amount of force needed to snap the cylinder. As one might sense, they found that for a fixed length, increasing the diameter made the rods stronger: They could bend more before breaking. This would make tall skinny trees most vulnerable, but, as the team points out, trees don’t grow taller without getting disproportionately thicker as well. By incorporating established laws of tree allometry - which explain the relationship of tree size parameters ...