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

Christophe Hamon spent a month in 2014 helping to make a documentary.  Like so many others before him he fell in love with this beautiful and enigmatic country, its sights, sounds and people.  He decided to edit together his spare footage and what we get is a wonderful glimpse in to the day to day lives of the people of the country – and the name he has given it is Children of Cambodia.

Rhyolite: A Ghost Town from the Air

Rhyolite is an abandoned mining town in Nevada and if you search for it online you will find no end of images.  Yet this is the first time I have seen this fascinating place from above.  Director and fIlmmaker Philp Bloom took his Phantom 3, the new DJI drone, for an hour’s spin over the town (and through it too).  The results are remarkable – the shots of the town are unlike any of those seen before.

These are Magpies? You’re Kidding, Right?

No, we’re not.  There are a number of magpie species which confound the notion that the whole lot of them are black and white.  They come in a number of different colors. Yet, despite this gorgeous plumage they still seem to be rather thuggish members of the bird world, robbing nests and eating chicks and so on.  Our sibling site , the Ark in Space, has the lowdown on these quite different (appearance wise at least) species of magpies.

The Richat Structure – Earth’s Bull's-Eye

Imagine if you were an alien species intent on conquering the earth by force.  Now, you might just appear over the various capital cities of the world and wait for your countdown to get to zero or you might, being a little timid of the explosive force that you are about to unleash, wish to do it from a safe distance.  What you would need to look for, then, is a handy bull's-eye – on the bull's-eye that is the Earth itself.

Image Credit Flickr User Trodel

Look no further, alien invader.  The Richat Structure in Mauritania provides the perfect target towards which you can aim your death ray, annihilation laser or whatever you call your extraterrestrial weapon of mass destruction.  It’s almost as if another species, in a previous visit, had chalked in a target already and then become bored and wandered back to Betelgeuse.

Torre Guinigi: The Tower with Oak Trees on the Top

The city of Lucca in Tuscany, Italy, is famous for its medieval architecture and intact city walls.  Yet among all of its exquisite buildings one stands out.  The Torre Guinigi or Guinigi Tower in English towers over the city.

At the top of the 44.5 meter high tower is something of a surprise – a garden containing, of all things, oak trees.

High above the city this small wood has provided a haven of peace for centuries.

Image Credit Flickr User AJansen

The tower was built in the fourteenth century when there were over 250 in the city. Although that number has, over the centuries, dramatically decreased, this one has survived.  It was built by the Guinigi, then the most powerful and influential family in the city. The tower represented the prestige of the family and was the largest in the city even when the economic boom of the late fourteenth century meant that towers were springing up all over Lucca.

Go Delhi Go: Hyperlapse

Delhi is a city with so much history that one might need a lifetime just to appreciate its many different aspects.  However (a reluctant one, but still) in lieu of time to spend doing just that, soak in Delhi in all its glory by watching this fantastic hyperlapse by Ayush Dinker of Etheral Colours. Over 5000 pictures went in to creating this hyperlapse – and please watch it in HD if your connection will allow!

The Last Hours of the Inca Ice Maiden

Over 500 years ago a girl was sacrificed to the gods in Southern Peru.  Her body was preserved by the elements and discovered centuries later in a state of preservation which astonished the world.  Yet what happened to her in the days and hours leading up to her sacrifice? This animation, made by Plazma for the Mummies Alive series, imagines her last journey up the side of the mountain to her fate.

Białowieża Forest – Remarkable Remnant of Europe’s Primeval Past

Straddling the border of Poland and Belarus, there is a reminder of what Europe used to look like before the arrival of man.  Białowieża Forest is the largest remaining part of a vast primeval forest that stretched for thousands of miles from corner to corner of the European plain. Something very large and very rare still stirs within the forest.

Image Credit Flickr User keko64

Although the forest is shared by Poland and Belarus, the border running directly through it, it is now a single UNESCO World Heritage Site.  As these photographs show, little has changed here for thousands of years. It is still home to Europe’s heaviest land mammal – the Wisent. Yet the area has been witness to tumultuous social and political changes, one of which was to see the wisent eradicated from the confines of the forest. Białowieża saw little peace in the twentieth century.