The Last One

Forty years in the future and humanity has succeeded in creating robots that look exactly as we do.  So similar yet so vastly different, conflict was inevitable.  A war began which had to, through sheer necessity, end in the extinction of one or the other.   Created by students at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, this is short, concise storytelling which immediately involves the audience in the plight of the last survivor of his race, the titular last one.

Kumbhalgarh – The Great Wall of India

Long overshadowed by its lengthier neighbor to the east, this is the second largest continuous wall on the planet. Some call it by the name of the fort it surrounds – Kumbhalgarh. Others simply refer to it as The Great Wall of India. Yet bewilderingly, it is still little known outside its own region.

Flowers Opening Timelapse

This three minute video took fourteen months and about 40,000 photographs to create and it’s worth every second.  Its creator, David de los Santos Gi, must be sick of the sight of any earthly flora by now. Or perhaps not, as this is his second foray in to the world of flower time-lapses.

It’s exquisite and that isn’t hyperbole for its own sake.  Go ahead – be entranced – and take a look at more of David’s work at his wonderful website.

Externsteine: The Star Stones of Lippe

A few kilometers from the north-western German city of Dermold in the Lippe region of the country, there is a highly unusual rock formation. In an area otherwise devoid of large rocks, the soaring, slender columns of Externsteine stand out as they rise sharply and with no little majesty from the surrounding landscape. Little wonder that the site has been attracting curious visitors for thousands of years.

Image Credit Flickr User Synaxonog

The five standing sandstone pillars have been ornamented over the millennia by human hand.  Although the name usually translates as stones of the ridge, many see these huge columns more romantically as star stones, a place resonant with ancient mysticism and ritual.  Yet the true origins of the star stones can be discovered through geology.