Fire Devil

Filmmaker Chris Tangey shot this incredible footage of a ‘fire devil’ near Alice Springs, Australia on September 11th. In the unedited, raw footage recently provided by Tangey you can watch as the tornado—which is technically more of a dust devil—towers over 100 feet (30 meters) high.

Like the dust devils that spring up on clear, sunny days in the deserts of the Southwest, a fire devil is birthed when a disproportionately hot patch of ground sends up a plume of heated air. But while dust devils find their heat source in the sun, fire devils arise from hot spots in preexisting wildfires.

These plumes form in a very small region over the land. They start to rise very rapidly, and as things start to rise, they suck the surrounding air in like a vacuum. Then you get this twisting that begins to resemble a vortex.

As the vortex rises and sucks the blaze up with it, its diameter begins to shrink and, like an ice skater pulling in her limbs to gather speed in a spin, its rotation accelerates.

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Switching Light Sculptures

 

What happens when an analytic mind gets creative? For Australian engineer and artist Ian Burns, it’s an amazing set of switching light installations. By using magnifying glasses to focus the filaments of lightbulbs onto a wall, he has created intricate sets of switches that project words that morph before your eyes.

In his interview for ‘Inside Art’ by The Stock Rooms, Burns said:

I think a lot of engineers are frustrated artists and a lot of artists are frustrated engineers… [What I do] is complicated, but it’s no more complicated than your iPhone and yet we just take that for granted. At the basest of levels it’s the same technology. It’s just switches.

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London 2012: The Opening Ceremony by Pictures

2012 Summer Olympics kicked off with a huge Opening Ceremony in London’s new Olympic Stadium, an event watched on television by an estimated 1 billion viewers. Performances paid tribute to British heritage and culture, from agrarian beginnings through pop culture successes like the Beatles and J.K. Rowling. Contingents from more than 200 nations marched in the athletes parade, and the evening was capped off by the lighting of the Olympic Cauldron, a performance by Paul McCartney, and a huge fireworks display. Collected below is just a glimpse ceremony, as the 2012 Olympics are now underway.

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Blooming into gold

In south-west China’s Yunnan province it produced a stunning vista as rock hillocks peep from a carpet of neon yellow by contrast to the bright blue sky.

It’s a stunning transformation that take place every year – the landscape becomes a sea of gold as kilometres of oil crops reach full bloom. Rapeseed bursts into brighty coloured flowers in early spring.

Rapeseed is the seed of the rape or rapeseed plant, a member of the mustard family. Unfortunate associations with the name of this plant aside, rapeseed is actually a major crop in many nations of the world, with the seeds being one of the principal components of the crop, although some cultures also eat the stalks, leaves, and flowers of rapeseed. For those who find the common name “rape” a bit offputting, this plant is also known as oilseed, rapa, rapaseed, or Brassica napus, more formally.

As the name “oilseed” suggests, the seeds of this plant are very high in oil. They can be ground into nutritious meal used in animal fodder, or pressed for the oil, which can be used for human food or in the production of biodiesel. Rapeseed greens are also popular in Asia, where they are eaten like other members of the Brassica genus, in a variety of dishes. Like other Brassicas, the greens have a slightly peppery bite.

The United States, Canada, India, Australia, and European Union also grow rapeseed.

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