April 2013: 10 Most Popular Posts.

1.-  The amazing images of the Maracana Stadium reopening.
maracana15The Maracana reopened after nearly three years of renovation on Saturday, with construction workers getting the first glimpse of the iconic Rio de Janeiro stadium which will host the 2014 World Cup final and the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Olympics.
The new stadium's first match was an exhibition between Friends of Ronaldo and Friends of Bebeto, former Brazil teammates.
"It looks amazing," said former Brazil star striker Ronaldo. "I'm happy to see the stadium ready again. The Maracana is a symbol of this country."
The workers who helped renovate the famed venue and their families were invited to witness the first test event at the new Maracana, which will be home to three Confederations Cup matches in June, including the final.

2.-  Camouflage Photography in the Animal World: 50 Astonishing Photos.
Some animals have sharp teeth, some have fragile wings, some are predators, some chew on grass, but they all need to survive. Even if harder to believe, some carnivores can be extinct pretty fast, if they don’t find an “intelligent” method of hunting.
On the other hand, small animals with poor defense mechanisms need to find a smart way of surviving and hiding. Nature has found the solution to all these and it is called “camouflage”. That’s the ability of transforming yourself or adapting to the environment you live in, in such a way that you become a contained part of it, that others barely notice you. In one way of another, most of the animals have developed such a skill and they easily trick the eye.

3.-  Giant George, The World’s Largest Dog.
Meet George. Giant George, that is. This blue Great Dane is, quite possibly, the largest dog in the world. Yes, even larger than Boomer the Molosser, the previous largest dog in the world.
This big beast is 7 feet, 3 inches long, 43 inches tall at the shoulder, and weighs an impressive 245 pounds! Every month, owners David and Christine Nasser feed George 110 pounds of dog food, and he sleeps in his very own Queen-sized bed. The couple have had George since he was 7 weeks old, and he’s definitely eating them out of house and home!
Some friends of mine have a Great Dane they’ve named Pennyroyal, and it’s the smartest, quietest, most gentle-natured dog I’ve ever had any dealings with. Great Danes are absolutely beautiful dogs, and that blue color is just gorgeous. I have no doubt that George is just as sweet as their dog, even if he does make Pen look like a puppy!

4.-  Blender Art Gallery.

Black Night Spider
J.Uhlik
Indigo Render
MetalPhoenix
Jan Kurka
Blender Render
Torn Desire
teyrak
Blender Render
N#66
Adam Rakowski
Blender Render
5.-  Mimic Octopus, this fascinating creature was discovered in 1998 off the coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia.
The Mimic Octopus, Thaumoctopus mimicus, is a species of octopus that has a strong ability to mimic other creatures. It grows up to 60 cm (2 feet) in length. Its normal colouring consists of brown and white stripes or spots.
Living in the tropical seas of South East Asia, it was not discovered officially until 1998, off the coast of Sulawesi. The octopus mimics the physical likeness and movements of more than fifteen different species, including sea snakes, lionfish, flatfish, brittle stars, giant crabs, sea shells, stingrays, flounders, jellyfish, sea anemones, and mantis shrimp. It accomplishes this by contorting its body and arms, and changing colour.
Based on observation, the mimic octopus may decide which animal to impersonate depending on local predators. For example, when the octopus was being attacked by damselfish, it was observed that the octopus appeared as a banded sea snake, a damselfish predator. The octopus impersonates the snake by turning black and yellow, burying six of its arms, and waving its other two arms in opposite directions.
 
6.-  Animals tattoo.
Fire_and_water_back_tattooA tattoo is a form of body modification, made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment.
The first written reference to the word, "tattoo" (or Samoan "Tatau") appears in the journal of Joseph Banks, the naturalist aboard Captain Cook's ship the HMS Endeavour: "I shall now mention the way they mark themselves indelibly, each of them is so marked by their humor or disposition".
The word "tattoo" was brought to Europe by the explorer James Cook, when he returned in 1771 from his first voyage to Tahiti and New Zealand. In his narrative of the voyage, he refers to an operation called "tattaw". Before this it had been described as scarring, painting, or staining.

7.-  Laogai, it is estimated that in the last fifty years more than 50 million people have been sent to laogai camps.

Laogai, which means "reform through labor," is a slogan of the Chinese criminal justice system and has been used to refer to the use of prison labor and prison farms in the People's Republic of China (PRC).
It is estimated that in the last fifty years more than 50 million people have been sent to laogai camps. Laogai is distinguished from laojiao, or re-education through labor, which is an administrative detention for a person who is not a criminal but has committed minor offenses, and is intended to reform offenders into law-abiding citizens.
Persons detained under laojiao are detained in facilities which are separate from the general prison system of laogai. Both systems, however, involve penal labor.
In 1990 China abandoned the term laogai and started labelling the facilities as "prisons" instead.[why?]China's 1997 revised Criminal Procedure Law brought an end to official laogai policy, but some prisons in the Tibet Autonomous Region and in Qinghai still practice forced labor and amount to a continuation of laogai.

8.-  The illusion of Food Art, artistic expression through food and edible.

James Parker of Veggy Art creates some of the most incredible fruit and vegetable sculptures, and has been featured repeatedly on the Food Network, including a Fantasy Fruit Sculpture challenge (for which he won the gold metal in a rematch).
Fruit and vegetable carving has been popular for food garnishing in Asia since ancient times and has evolved into works of art that outshine the food itself.

9.-  Comics in real life by Gaikuo-Captain.
gaikuo captainGaikuo-Captain is a Chinese Chemical Engineering student with a passion for comic books and a talent for drawing.
He creates life-sized illustrations of super heroes and comic book characters.
After that, he photographs himself interacting with the illustrations in a totally seamless manner.
With the rise of social media, profile pictures have become a pretty important way to represent yourself.
Between all the flattering selfies and beloved cartoon characters, there's a lot of variety out there.
Still, they can be pretty boring. Fortunately, there are people like Gaikuo-Captain out there making things a little more exciting.

10.-  The GNOME art team needs your help with icons, visual design on the desktop and websites for GNOME projects.
Hi everyone, this is my wallpaper collection that I made. These are nowhere else on the web, for I made them myself and haven't shared them yet.
In the coming days, I plan to make more and add them to the list. If you have any suggestions or comments good or bad let me know!
GNOME (abbreviation of GNU Network Object Model Environment) is a desktop environment—a graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system—composed entirely of free and open source software.
 
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