You see it come to life, as it were, in a few short moments Read More

Before the book, the Da Vinci Code, was first published in 2003, Rosslyn Chapel received between 5,000 and 5,500 visitors per year. After the release of the film of the same name in 2006, 17… Read More

Hacktivists in ball pools, teenagers riding unicorns and a world powered by actors on bikes … Chloe Lamford’s playful sets take audiences by surprise. She explains how she creat… Read More

Although the poodle sharks are fearsome fighters they tend to be rather delicate and discerning eaters, tearing off only as much flesh as they thought they could eat at any time. They took t… Read More

Toulouse is known as the “Pink City” because of the large number of buildings built from brick. These buildings include The Saint Sernin basilica, the Jacobins church and the mod… Read More

Many teas taste delicious with milk, particularly stronger teas such as Assam, where the milk tempers the strong flavour. Generally, the lighter the tea, the less likely it is that it needs… Read More

Wales has a glorious tradition of producing garments made from wool and the fur of other animals such as weasels and badgers. These animals became particularly important during the great she… Read More

At the point where Canongate becomes High Street there once stood the Netherbow Port, a fortified gateway between Edinburgh and the Canongate, which was removed in 1764 to improve traffic fl… Read More

“I can build a better stone wall than you can,” “My wall is straighter than yours,” and “My stone wall is longer than yours” were all familiar brags in fi… Read More

In 1736, Sir James Sinclair glazed the windows of the chapel for the first time as well as relaying the floor and repairing the roof. However, the chapel was still ruined and was visited in… Read More

The Causses are a group of limestone plateaux (700 – 1,200 metres above sea level) in the Massif Central of France. They are bordered to the north-west by the Limousin and the Pé… Read More

In the Orkney Islands, off the North-East coast of Scotland, there are found many well-known types of Skua, such as the Great Skua and the Arctic Skua. The Great Skua is known as the Bonxie… Read More

Scientists believe these rabbits were hunters, who searched for the vegetables of the interglacial periods and dug them up with their front paws. They would also have been able to strip bark… Read More

The Poodle Shark is so called because of the round knobs of cartilage that were found at the top and bottom of its tail, on the top of its dorsal fin, and on the ends of its pectoral fins. T… Read More

With their ability to walk and sprint after prey severely depleted the number of green foxes began to fall. As a result, the numbers of the prey typically caught by foxes, such as rabbits, s… Read More

Friedrich Engels spent two decades in Manchester. The horrific conditions he saw in the cradle of industrialism forged his great works. But the city has never commemorated him – until… Read More

The biggest truck-lift in Europe, built by Richard Rogers for the British Museum, is vying with a gloriously ungaudy pier and a Glasgow tower that thinks it’s a town. Read our critic&r… Read More

Ahead of recording his new soul album as Mr Jukes, Jack Steadman, frontman of Bombay Bicycle Club, made a global voyage of discovery from cargo ships to Japanese ‘kissas’. He sha… Read More

St Guilhem Le Desert is named after a grandson of Charles Martel who became one of the most trusted commanders of the Emperor Charlemagne. After an epic campaign against the Saracens, Guilhe… Read More

The sport of dyke leaping has been taking place in the Fens and Lincolnshire since the time of Hereward the Wake and his insurrection against the Norman invaders. Each village in the counti… Read More

The Green Fox lived in the lowlands of Scotland before the last ice age where its green coat allowed it to hunt freely in the fields and grasslands of the region. This natural camouflage mea… Read More

Tuvi Ornat goes out for a walk, ends up in a cave. Could it be Plato’s? | Short Story | Meta/ Phor(e) /Play Read More

Bliss shimmies to Buffalo Gals while Lyric’s routine is pure Austin Powers … Bego Antón photographs Americans who tango with their pooches in a bonding craze known as &ls… Read More

Transportation Imagery  Read More

There are guided tours of the inside of the buildings and there’s also a leaflet allowing people to take a self-guided tour of the exterior. Some of the features left me baffled at tim… Read More

It’s estimated Chameleon Fish spend about 80% of their time looking like other fish, a statistic which makes it difficult to know whether their numbers are in decline or not. Suffice t… Read More

The Royal Mile is the name given to a succession of streets forming the main thoroughfare of the Old Town. With all the historic buildings along this street, it came as a surprise to me to l… Read More

He retreated to a cabin by a pond and wrote Walden, the most influential guide to happy living ever. As his devotees (modestly) celebrate his bicentennial, our writer follows in the footstep… Read More

From a Hokusai-inspired wave resembling Donald Trump’s comb-over to a philosophical picture book for children, the World Illustration awards exhibition recognises the bold and colourfu… Read More

The most famous features of the chapel are the two pillars carved by the master mason and an apprentice mason. The story goes that the master mason carved his rather simple column and then w… Read More

This voluntary society goes around collecting used bubble-wrap from large firms, cutting it into strips two feet in height, and then taping it to lamp-posts in areas where there is a high nu… Read More

By behaving this way, the chameleon fish can assume the colour and size of about 50 other species of fish in the surrounding seas, all of them much larger and more imposing than the Chameleo… Read More

Visual poetry/commentary/sociology/whatever it is to you. Nex(+)us by Michael Dickel on Meta/Phor(e)/Play Read More

Nimes is famous for its Roman sights including the Amphitheatre and the Maison Carree. There are others too in the Jardin de la Fontaine including The Temple of Diana and the symbol of Nimes… Read More

Further up, High Street meets North Bridge which runs north over Waverley station to Princes Street, and South Bridge, which spans the Cowgate to the south. Further up on the right is Parlia… Read More

There are depictions of Trillium, Indian Corn, and Aloe Vera indicating the sculptors of the chapel were familiar with these plants, even though Western Explorers weren’t supposed to h… Read More

Indian wrestlers grappled with futuristic pool players to scoop the top prizes at the 2017 Magnum and LensCulture photography awards Read More

Five poems from By a Lake Near a Moon: Fishing with the Chinese Masters—Adaptations from Kenneth Rexroth’s 100 Poems from the Chinese Read More

On Canongate on the right, the People’s Story Museum is a museum housed in the historic Canongate Tolbooth. Their collection tells the story of the people of Edinburgh from the late 18… Read More

Pezenas is a wonderful old town in the Languedoc. The town has been in existence since Roman times and became wealthy due to the sale of woollen cloth. In 1456 the States General of Languedo… Read More

Nests built by Lesser Great Skuas use sticks from many different trees and the bird creates wonderfully colourful nests as a result. The bird uses its strong beak to weave sticks together an… Read More

On Easter Sunday, 2009, in the Perigord region of France a local landowner, Eustace Levond, made a fascinating discovery. He was out looking for truffles in the forest when his pig, Emile, d… Read More

Ferrets are regarded as fierce creatures whose demeanour indicates a pent-up aggression towards everything, most of all towards their prey. Whilst this is true of almost all ferrets, there i… Read More

As the Lake District enjoys its newly awarded Unesco world heritage status, take a look at some of the views that illustrate the magic and beauty of Wordsworth Country Read More

The High Art of Riding Low, an exhibition at Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, examines the lowrider as an artistic catalyst and cultural icon. The range of work on display –… Read More

The Dosseroo was an Australian marsupial that became extinct in the 1970s after a series of bushfires in the Australian outback killed them all in one short week. The animals were unable to… Read More

Before the days of casinos and one-armed bandits in pubs people found many different ways to gamble. People would sometimes bet on two flies crawling up a wall; if someone’s wall was m… Read More

A selection of photo highlights from around the world, including the Mitama Matsuri festival at the Yasukuni shrine, and Jeremy Corbyn in Brussels Read More

Once the snake was caught, the hawk would grip the reptile by the tail and swing the snake against either a tree or a rock and knock it unconscious before taking its prey back to the nest. T… Read More

In the seas around Indonesia lives an unusual fish, the Great Sunda Chameleon Fish. The fish is named after the Great Sunda islands, which include Borneo, Sumatra, and Java. As the reader ca… Read More

The problems would usually start when the joey came back and tried to enter the pouch. Some mothers would shoo the joey away as they’d feel the dosseroo in the pouch and assume it was… Read More

Robert Garnham: Insomnia is awful. But on the plus side – only three more sleeps till Christmas. Dan Antopolski: Centaurs shop at Topman. And Bottomhorse. Paul Savage:&nb… Read More

Liverpool’s mercantile grandeur endures – but its architectural history is littered with compromised visions, botched projects and grand designs never realised Read More

The More-Spotted Sooty Owl lives in South Wales and is pitch black with a prevalence of white spots covering the feathers. The winter plumage contains more spots than the summer plumage. The… Read More

Scargill’s Gannet has been extinct for about three hundred years. Whereas the seabird called the gannet has numerous colonies around the British coast, the numbers of Scargill’s… Read More

Opposite St Giles is the building that was used as The Royal Exchange before becoming the City Chambers in 1811. It’s hard to believe now, but part of the building was built over the s… Read More

Legend has it that St Patrick removed all the snakes from Ireland. This theory has no real basis in fact. What’s more likely is that snakes were hunted to extinction by the highly effi… Read More

The owl uses its claws to walk up the trunks of trees, so as not to cause any noise by the flapping of its wings. This cunning creature will also keep its presence unknown by walking up the… Read More

These non-threatening movements calmed the rabbit or rat and they became entranced by the rhythmic flow of the ferret’s limbs. Sadly, for the prey, they rarely saw the Andalusian ferre… Read More

In the interglacial periods of the last 2.5 million years, strange animals lived for short periods of time, before dying out when the next glacial period, or Ice Age, occurred. These animals… Read More

Continue away from The Royal Mile to find the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, with its shiny nose polished by good luck seekers, commemorating the Skye Terrier who may, or may not, depending on… Read More

A selection of the best photographs from around the world, including Boris Johnson in New Zealand and a first world war commemoration Read More

Ganjoji Yakushido temple in the central Japanese city of Nagoya is used by sumo wrestlers belonging to the Tomozuna stable as a temporary base for the Nagoya grand sumo tournament Read More

It’s a little-known fact that every turtle that swims up the River Thames past Tower Bridge into the Pool of London becomes the property and responsibility of the monarch. This rule is… Read More

Dosseroos were believed to be modest creatures and would only try and mate if a male and female dosseroo accidentally climbed into a pouch at the same time. Any young dosseroos would inevita… Read More

Modern life in Iran, from comedic hot baths on the beach to the long shadows cast by war in Iraq Read More

Evolution has been kind to the duck family. Ducks are viewed as benign creatures, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. However, don’t be fooled by the ducks that have survived throug… Read More

The Via Domitia was constructed in 118 BC around the same time the first Roman colony in Gaul, Colonia Narbo Martius (Narbonne) was founded. The Via Domitia connected Italy and modern day Sp… Read More

Gordes looks spectacular as it tumbles down the hillside towards the Luberon Valley. The houses and hotels appear well-kept and largely unspoilt with clumps of trees and the occasional swimm… Read More

Orange is justly famous for its Roman Arena, known as the Theatre Antique, and the Arc de Triomphe on the opposite side of the town. The Romans first arrived in 35BC and soon provided Aurisi… Read More

Andy Serkis, the actor who played Gollum in the Lord of The Rings trilogy, brings his character back to life to read Donald Trump’s tweets on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Read More

Two hundred years after her death, readers are still enchanted by her novels. Adam Frost, Jim Kynvin and Amy Watt do the maths on her enduring appeal Read More

Other features worth finding are the angel with bagpipes, in the Lady Chapel near the Mason’s Pillar, the Fallen Angel on the eastern wall of the Lady Chapel, and the Lamb of God on th… Read More

The 1930s were a time of rapid modernisation in Australia, with construction and engineering feats, such as fast rail and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, butting up against the political and soci… Read More

An adult Scargill’s Gannet would be roughly two feet high with a sharp beak and light-brown plumage. It’s thought they built their nests in tall trees overlooking grasslands, all… Read More

To the south the view is of Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags where energetic lunch-time athletes go running. Between the Parliament and the crags is Our Dynamic Earth, a visitor attra… Read More

The other tactic used by the waterboarding duck was to force other ducks to dabble by grabbing their throat and forcing their head under water. The duck would by nature try and feed and then… Read More

What have the Romans ever done for us? Well, in the city of Arles there’s both a Roman Arena and a Roman theatre for tourists to see. The Arena was the largest Roman building in the wh… Read More

According to the Lindisfarne Chronicles, “Walking the ways all” was an annual tradition in all Anglo-Saxon towns. The third Thursday in July was set aside for the townsfolk to wa… Read More