The Goat Tower - A Caprine Condominium

What do you do when you own a group of Swiss Mountain Goats but there isn’t anywhere for them to climb? The answer that South African farmer Charles Back came up with was to create a domicile for his goats that would help keep them fit as well as giving them an altogether butter kind class of goat shed.

Image Credit Flickr User vilseskogen

The Animal That Wouldn't Die

You know that person, the one you don’t really like and you try to make your feelings as obvious as possible without being rude, yet they still come back to annoy you? Well, the hydra is the equivalent when it comes to death. Although it should have got the message that it will die, it doesn’t pay any attention. This animated short produced by Robert Krulwich and Adam Cole tells the story of this amazing animal.

An Injured Soldier Encounters a Magical Creature with Good but Misinformed Intentions

The allies are landing to liberate Europe but for one soldier, the Second World War is going to take a bizarre twist.  When his parachute lands him miles off course and injured he encounters a strange forest dweller.

Yet, despite the best intentions, when two very different worlds collide, the results are not always what we would prefer.  Murphy was created by students at Isart Digital.

If You Have Never Wanted to Visit Turkey, You Will After Watching This

Take a trip to Istanbul, passing the Black Sea Coast, to the vastness of Eastern Anatolia, then returning over otherworldly Cappadocia and enjoying the sun at the Turquoise Coast. It’s all here in this amazing video by Vincent Urban who should really be paid by the Turkish Tourist Board!  Three of our favorite Turkish destinations are here: Love Valley, Mount Nemrut and the unforgettable Pamukkale (follow the links to read our features on these amazing places).

It’s a Plastic World

It was hailed as the miracle material but plastic – and the places it ends up thanks to our inability to clean up after ourselves – is one of the biggest threats to life on the planet. It's a Plastic World, an animated short film lifts the lid on our consumption of plastic, shows various problems associated with plastic (including how sea mammals try to eat tons of it each year) and looks at possible solutions.

The Sedlec Ossuary - The Art of Human Remains

The suburb of Sedlec is a quiet, everyday place, just another part of the small but historic town of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic.  The town has never had a huge population – even today the number of souls there number just over twenty thousand.  Yet this calm suburb is home to the Sedlec Ossuary a place which could well send a shiver up your spine.  This small chapel under the Cemetery Church of All Saints houses the skeletons of around 70,000 people.  And they are not exactly tucked away in a crypt, either.

Image Credit Flickr User B10m

When a Cartoon is Called Kung-Fu Crab, You Just Know You Have to Watch It

I make no apologies – the minute I saw the title Kung-Fu Crab I knew it was pretty much inevitable that it would find its way on to Kuriositas.  This little crustacean believes that his owner is just about to make him in to crab cakes.  Cue a metamorphosis in to the new martial arts superhero – Kung-Fu Crab!  This entertaining animated short was created by Kim Newman at Ringling College of Art and design (yes, them again!).

Vienna Moves

This is Vienna in winter – perhaps not quite how you expected but captured by Alex Soloviev in a way that you will remember for quite a while.

Be an armchair tourist for a few minutes (although you will be in an armchair that moves around at some speed!) and take in the sights and sounds of this remarkable city.

Cautionary Tales

“If the wind changes direction your face will be stuck like that!”  I heard that warning many times from my grandmother when I was a child so I guess I must have taken heed (wish I had listened to her about the chewing gum though).  So, I was heartened to watch this short film which features a help group for people who just didn’t listen when the finger wagged and grandmother nagged. Created by Us Films, it centers around Aaron whose misfortune has left him without friends or, more importantly, love.  Altogether, now – say aw. Oh and watch the credits in case you didn't quite get one or more of the afflictions suffered by these poor folk...

If You Have Never Wanted to Visit Arizona, You Will After Watching This

This film by Mike Olbinski is something different and something quite special.  Potential visitors to Arizona might imagine it a dry and barren place – after all that is how we often see it in the media.  Yet there is a monsoon season and Mr Olbinski beautifully captures the majesty of the Arizona landscapes as the rains come down while still giving us the dust storms we might expect too. Some of these shots are staggering.

The Sand Dollar – the Animal that Can Clone Itself

This somewhat strange looking specimen is a Sand Dollar and it is featured today over at our sibling site, the Ark in Space. It is a sea urchin which burrows and comes from the order Clypeasteroida – and you can see why it gets its name, as it resembles a coin.  Some joke that it is the only stable dollar in the world at the moment.  Humor aside, it does have one trick up its sleeve that we can only wish would apply to real money.  It can clone itself – creating a perfect copy.  Read more about the how and why over at the Ark.

Image Amanda Dague

The Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno

One of the largest cemeteries in Europe, the Cimitero monumentale di Staglieno in Genoa, Italy covers more than a square kilometer.  It opened in 1851 and since then has gained a reputation for its monuments to those buried there. And what monuments they are.  It is a place for contemplation, for reflection on human frailty and the short-lived nature of our time on earth. Today we will let the pictures speak for themselves...

Image Credit Flickr UserLatente

Vote for the National Animal of Wales

The status of national animal for Wales is currently shared by two animals – one real and one mythical. We have the red kite (in Welsh barcud or barcud coch), beautiful bird of prey common in the country. Then we have the red dragon (in Welsh, ddraig coch), awesome mystical creature from the depths of Welsh folklore. Yet if Wales could only have one, which would you vote for?

PS - It’s OK – you don’t have to be Welsh to have a say - this is just for fun!

Under the Rope

Under The Rope is a short documentary about inspirational female Muay Thai fighter Sylvie Von Duuglas-Ittu.

It is also the story of how a feminist from the USA fell in love with a foreign community that has gender inequality at the core of its values.

Under the Rope is a film by Simon Mulvaney.

Happiness

It is riven with his usual joie de mourir and I couldn’t take my eyes off it throughout – so how did I miss the new Steve Cutts animation by a month?  Perhaps I was going through my own particular version of this old metaphor given coruscating new life.  After all, I do refer to my real world job as akin to being a hamster on a wheel.  At least I haven’t ended up like the young every-rat featured here. Yet.

Nazi VR

Virtual Reality is a fairly new technology and the crimes committed by the Nazis in Europe are further in the past as each sun sets.  So how can the two possibly be connected?  , Germany deployed VR technology to re-create Auschwitz, and proved that an SS guard would have seen the atrocities taking place all around him.  

In what turned out to be (currently) the last ever World War Two nazi trial, virtual reality was pivotal in ensuring that some justice was victorious over one of the perpetrators of the greatest evil of the twentieth century.  This incredible short documentary was made by MEL Films.

The Golden Hour: Magical Photography

Have you ever taken a photograph that seems to have a magical quality to it, because of the way in which the light has been captured in the shot?  The chances are that you took the picture during the two times of day that photographers know as the golden hour.

Image Credit Flickr User Martin Sojka

Image Credit Flickr User Alessandra S Alba

The first hour of sunlight of the day makes the first golden hour.  As the sun rises the light is softer than later in the day when the full and harsh rays of the sun shine down upon us.  Likewise at the end of the day in the hour before sunset, the sun is close to the horizon again.  As in the morning, the light travel in an oblique manner and so, instead of hitting objects straight down, hits them at an angle.

What Are Those Things on Giraffes’ Heads?

Perhaps we spend so long looking at the main creature feature of giraffes – their elegant, incredibly extended necks – that we miss other interesting bits.  That may be the case with those things on the top of their heads (and we don’t mean their ears!).  So, what are they and what are they used for?  The Ark in Space, our sibling site, has a new feature on this most interesting anatomical oddity with a cool gallery of giraffes to boot. So, nudge nudge, wink wink, pop over and take a look!

They certainly have the most fascinating of faces…

First Image Credit Second Image Credit

If You Have Never Wanted to Visit New Zealand, You Will After You Watch This

New Zealand is an incredible place to visit and if you have five months, as Man and Drone did, then you will be able to take in a great deal of this fascinating country.  Here you have a combination of drone footage and timelapse which showcase the simply gobsmacking beauty of the place.  If you are planning a visit to New Zealand you  might want to read the accompanying article to this incredible piece of film.

Stephen King on Childhood

Many people think that something awful must have happened to Stephen King when he was a child, something that translates itself in to his work.

Here he explains in an interview why childhood is, to him, a different state of being, a culture of its own divorced from the realities of adult life.  This animated short was created by Patrick Smith as part of the PBS series Blank on Blank.

Aquatic Human

Put two athletes at the bottom of the sea and give them a seabob each and the likelihood is that you won’t end up with something like Aquatic Human. However, take a team like Behind the Mask and then it’s another story altogether. You will probably have to watch this a few times – I know I did – as it’s a pretty amazing piece of film – I’m not even going to start thinking about how some of the shots were done as it might make my head explode.