Offbeat

Google is notorious for its ambitious projects, and its latest one falls nothing short. Capitalizing on its extremely powerful Google Earth engine, the company teamed up together with the US Geological Survey (USGS) and Time Magazine to release Timelapse – a visual representation of how the Earth has changed during the past 28 years. Carefully [...]

We’ve been used to seeing all kinds of wacky, dorky, crazy animals in the wild. Some are scary, some are plain, some are down right amazing. The sheepshead fish makes no exception boasting some incredible dentures that bears an uncanny resemblance to those of humans, including incisors and molars. The fish’s cousins are no less [...]

At a first glance, this tree seems like it was a victim of graffiti vandalism. But if you’ll look closer, you’ll see that it hasn’t been spray painted – the tree is coloured like this naturally. Eucalyptus deglupta is a tall tree, commonly known as the rainbow eucalyptus, Mindanao gum, or rainbow gum – it’s [...]

Braving the weather in rough conditions is standard biker procedure, but it’s always more fun when the weather is fine – and with spring on the way, we don’t have too long to wait. But before you renew your motorbike insurance and get back in the saddle, sit your ass back down and check out [...]

“If I could catch a rainbow, I would do it, just for you, And, share with you, its beauty, on the days you’re feeling blue.” The above lines are from a romantic poem by Sandra Lewis Pringle. For thousands of years, rainbows were an enigmatic phenomenon that was out of reach to humans – they disappeared [...]

The common caddisfly is, as the name calls it, common. They’re usually found near lakes, streams, ponds and rivers, and often used as a bait for trout fishermen. Their larva are aquatic and they create protective silk cases which incorporate bits of material from their surroundings, such as gravel, twigs or small pieces of shell. [...]

Birds may not be the smartest bunch out there, but man do they know how to navigate! Pigeons can get around towns and even  continents with stunning accuracy – except for a particular spot in New York. Whenever homing pigeons were launched from that particular spot, they would always get lost. They could easily go [...]

You may have heard a joke or two about police intelligence, but nothing goes even close to these guys in Nigeria. In 2009, Nigerian police held a goat for being an “armed robbery suspect”, as a spokesman eloquently explained. The goat was handed to them by a vigilante group which said the unfortunate animal was [...]

This is definitely not science material, but I for one welcome a little dose of funny randomness once in a while. What do you guys think?

As if the giant fires fueled by record high temperatures weren’t enough, Australia is also being hit by Narelle – a tropical cyclone of significant proportions. The eye-catching photographs accompanying this story were captured by Brett Martin just before sunset on Wednesday afternoon, about 40-50 km off shore; they depict a “tropical squall line” and [...]