“These magnificent pictures beautifully capture the fast flowing waters of the Hukou Waterfalls in China slowly being enveloped by ice. A long winter in which the mercury rarely rose above freezing has tamed the usually roaring rapids of the largest waterfall on China’s Yellow River. Temperatures this week were a bone-chilling -10C across the Xijie County region, helping the steady march of the ice. But there was still enough force in the river to send a mist into the air and create a magical rainbow.” w/ photos

“Colombian dwarf actors and clowns acknowledge the audience before the start of their performance in a bullfight show at La Macarena bullring in Medellin, Antioquia department, Colombia on February 19, 2012. The artists are part of a troupe of dwarves and clowns which perform as bullfighters at fairs and patron-saint festivals throughout Colombia and some places of South America.” w/ photos

“They look like monsters from another planet. But far from inhabiting some alien world light-years from ours, these frightening looking creatures exist at the bottom of Earth’s deepest oceans. Astonishing new pictures of Polychaetes, or scale worms, show how they have evolved to survive the intense pressures more than 1,000 meters below the water’s surface, where the sun’s rays never penetrate. And it is hoped discoveries from this region could help shed light on the possibility of life existing on other planets.” w/ photos

“She describes that friends were convinced that she had a secret drug habit when they visited her house and saw every surface coated with a thin layer of white dust. Without her daily fix she states, ‘I wouldn’t be able to function.’ According to Jaye her addiction started when she accidentally spilled powder as a youngster and inhaled it by mistake. And over the past sixteen years her addiction has spiraled out of control. Now, not content with merely sniffing the powder, Jaye actually places the substance in her nostrils up to ten times a day using a tablespoon. She estimates that she has snorted 1,125 pounds – around half a ton – of powder since her obsession began.” w/ photos

“Bringing old homes up to scratch is nothing out of the ordinary for property renovators Andrew and George Hartley, But this professional couple nearly jumped out their skin when greeted by their most recent form of preservation – as a mummified cat fell on them. The couple got a face full of the ancient feline as they removed ceilings from an 18th century property in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. Mr Hartley was removing plasterwork and ceilings, to assess what work was needed, when the strange discovery fell from within the roof. He said ‘It is well preserved, and I think it has very likely been up there over 100 years at least.” w/ photos

“Scattered across fairs, markets and streets, mostly in southern India, are fortune-telling robots. They come in a range of shapes and sizes. These plastic and fiberglass fortune-tellers are studded with garish LEDs, usually an analog clock embedded in their crotch, and sometimes a pair of voltmeters or ammeters, one in each breast. On the waist or hips are multiple headphone sockets. For only 5 rupees (10 cents) are so, you can plug a pair of worn out headphones into its metallic underpants and listen as it tells your fortune from prerecorded tapes.” w/ photos

“Spain is steadily becoming a nation of ‘ghost towns’ – with empty apartment blocks, streets and weed-filled gardens where bustling communities were supposed to move. Entire housing estates built during the country’s boom years have been left abandoned, bricked up and now on sale for almost half their original price. One such settlement is Sesena, dubbed the Manhattan of Madrid for its towering apartments and proximity to the capital, where 30,000 people were due to live. Of the 13,000 homes due to be built, only 5,100 were completed – most of them now uninhabited and the Spaniards who bought them as investments now competing to offload them for huge losses.” w/ photos

“In the Appalachian Mountains rests a medical oddity so unusual that it at first seems a massive hoax. Dating back to the early 1800s, an isolated family in eastern Kentucky – who can trace their roots back to a French orphan – started producing children who were blue. As a result of a coincidental meeting of recessive genes, intermarriage and inbreeding, members of the Fugate family were born with a rare condition that made them visibly discolored. The mystery behind the astonishing picture of the Fugates, which has been baffling people for years, appears to have finally been solved.” w/ photos

“A Texas Longhorn bull that more than lives up to its name has smashed the record for the world’s longest horns. Seven-year-old JR has horns that measure an incredible 9ft 1ins – and they are likely to grow even bigger. But even though he has a name derived from a character in Dallas, the ultimate Texas television show, JR does not reside in the U.S. Instead, he is part of the largest herd of Texas Longhorns in Australia, roaming around the 1,100acre Leahton Park estate in Queensland. He has claimed the Guinness World Record from a bull in Ohio called Shadow Jubilee. But whereas that animal had horns that are 88ins long, JR’s measure a staggering 109ins from tip-to-tip.” w/ photos + video

“The Guinness World record was 250. Janine Keblish topped that by two pairs of underwear. Why? Keblish wanted to bring attention to a cause she’s involved with, Days for Girls. A few years ago Keblish and Celeste Mergens discovered a shameful secret on a trip to an orphanage in Kenya – a total lack of feminine hygiene products for young women. ‘Millions of women all over the world go without, resulting in infection and exploitation and even girls being sold into slavery. They also miss three months of education each year, just for lack of hygiene,’ says Mergens. ‘And you wonder, how could this be happening in this day and age? The truth is, it’s taboo to talk about.” w/ photos