Artistically, of course! I really like this clip, and how amazing you’ll find it really depends on how familiar you are with the Blue Man group. It’s pretty amazing if you’re not!

According to scientists, we have some stormy solar weather ahead of us in the next couple of years. Here’s a video showing just how volatile our sun can be -

My kids were excited to see the title, but really, this isn’t about some setup mock “fight” between man and reptile. Instead, it’s an interesting National Georgraphic clip showing scientists at work, capturing a 12 ft long anaconda snake.

There’s yet another amazing tidbit here – this guy is riding a cow instead of a horse…

This summer, I went on a tour of Seattle’s underground streets. These old streets have been abandoned for over a century. The tour took us through dimly lit underground alleys, where we could see what was left of historic shops and homes, covered in cobweb. It was the perfect setting for ghost spotting, and indeed the guide told us quite a few people have reported “seeing something” either during the tour or in pictures taken there.

My 8 year old son was fascinated. He spent most of the tour taking pictures and checking them on the digital camera’s miniature screen. It didn’t take long before he spotted something. Indeed, there on the screen was a distinct human shape glowing in an shimmering whitish glare. The tour guide was pretty impressed and said this was one of the best “ghost pictures” he’s seen. Everyone else in the group came to see the picture, and it generated a lot of excitement. My son was torn between joy over “proving” to me that there really were ghosts and fear over the very same reason.

When we got back to the hotel room that evening and downloaded the images to the laptop, we had a closer look. On the larger screen it was easy to see that our ghost had in face been the white teeshirt of one of the people on the group, caught on the image as he was walking between a couple of structural elements, which created the illusion of a full human shape hovering above the ground.

I am certain that most, and perhaps all, ghost pictures can be explained like that. In the collection of ghost pictures I’m sharing here today, some are very obviously blurred images of people, taken at an age where the static surroundings would come out sharp while a slightly-moving person would come out blurry. Others are like the “face on Mars “- just our brain’s tendency to look for human facial features in random “visual noise”. And of course, some would just be hoaxes. Which is which, and are there any “real” ghostly images? You tell me!

This artist creates an amazingly detailed image of the Joker using just salt on a black background! I hope he doesn’t suffer from high blood pressure.

How can a rodent behave just like a sheepdog? Makes you wonder just how smart animals can be, with learned behaviors that are so far more complex than anything they are “programmed” to display. The video is a bit long, but it’s worth watching. Just watch the first couple of minutes and you get the picture.

Sharing a video with a nice mix of optical illusions. Some are made by manipulating perspectives, others seem to be tricks of the camera and some, I really have no idea how they were made. Either way, these are fun to watch -

If you’re from the UK, you’ve probably seen this one already, but no matter where you are, if you haven’t seen the Diversity Dance Group – you need to watch this video. Feel free to switch if off once the dance is over – the judging part isn’t that amazing, after all.

This should be in time for the last day of Hannuka!

I love seeing cool animations by ordinary people. Computers allow us all to be directors. Imagination seems to be the only thing limiting us. That, and hard work! Look at this amazing video, where two weeks of hard work were needed to create this candles animation:

Here’s a gorgeous bird, full of handsome plumage and possessing a pretty amazing vocal range which he uses to lure in his potential female companions. He illustrates his wide experience with the world as his sounds go from great and pretty mimes of the local birds to the sound of camera shutters being clicked to those – and I’m serious – of chain saws.

The Lyre Bird – quite a bird hunk!