Meet Elliott, the Great Dane and Elliot the Dragon, who the doggo is named after. The first pic was taken when Elliott was about four weeks and the other a couple of months shy of 2 years.
As tall as 32 inches at the shoulder, Danes tower over most other dogs—and when standing on their hind legs, they are even taller than most humans. The American Kennel Club describes these majestic giants as the picture of elegance and balance, with the smooth and easy stride of born noblemen. 
Despite their gentle hearts, Danes are also good home guardians. And why wouldn't they be? Just the mere sight of these huge dogs is usually enough to make intruders think twice before attempting something stupid. Danes are very devoted to their families; patient with kids and natural people-pleasers, they can easily make friends.

Reddit user goldie0702 got Spokey from the local SPCA. "They didn't know much about her, besides the fact that they found her in rural West Virginia and she has had puppies in the past," they said. "She is very calm-tempered, but is both mesmerized and terrified of vehicles as they drive past her. We are having some trouble getting her to eat and drink, but we are told that can be normal with rescue pups."
goldie0702 fell in love with Spokey the minute they saw her, and returned to the SPCA every day until she was available for adoption.

Lawyer Afroz Shah, who spearheaded the beach clean-up project at Versova to become a UN Champion of the Earth in 2016, has been focusing on the Mithi river since November 2018. In an interview with the Indian Express, he sayid the biggest challenge to clean the 17.8 km-long (11 miles) river, which runs through the city, is to train a large number of people living along its banks to keep it clean.

It's not just facial features and character quirks that get passed down from generation to generation. Studies show that the same thing happens with values
In order for one generation to pass on its values to the next, two things are important. First of all, strong interactions between family members: the more time you spend with your family members, the more similar you will tend to be in your manner of thinking. The second important thing for "value transmission" was the social-cultural context. In other words, the type of society we live in tends to shape our beliefs.

This is Myrcella, a Ragdoll cat born on the 25th of August, 2015. It's easy to drown in the depths of a Ragdoll cat's glowing eyes, but their real enchantment is their silky coat. It's short on the face, blossoms around the neck, then shortens again on the shoulder blades, and, finally, lengthens toward the tail.
Ragdolls come in six different colors: red, seal, chocolate and the corresponding "dilutes", including blue, lilac, and cream. Naturally, they need regular grooming to keep their striking coat in good condition. Daily attention prevents a build-up of knots and the fight that comes with removing tangles and mats from a neglected coat. If you need any advice on that, ask Taylor Swift. Her third cat (Benjamin Button) is a ragdoll.

Blue whales are the biggest animals ever known to have lived on Earth. These humongous marine mammals rule the oceans at up to 100 feet (30.5 meters) long and upwards of 400,000 pounds (200 tons). To put things into perspective, their tongues alone can weigh as much as an elephant and their hearts, as much as an automobile.

When redditor Thermochopps shared the photo, they said that the older they get, the more important they feel it is to preserve our ancestors’ stories. "[My son's] great-grandmother was a farmer all her life and she lives with my mother-in-law on their small farm in rural Korea," they added. "Like many elderly Korean women who led physically hard lives, she's bent double like that permanently."

Hummingbirds are incredibly interesting (any some of us have loved them since we were kids!). There are over 330 species of hummingbirds, so they're very diverse. They also put most other birds to shame with how much they eat: they feed every 10 to 15 minutes and visit between a thousand and 2 thousand flowers each and every day. That sounds like a lot of work just to fill your belly! How hummingbirds find the time for leisure activities is beyond us.
But don't be deceived that hummingbirds only drink nectar. They also eat small insects, including ants, mosquitoes, wasps, and beetles.

Some very obvious physical features get passed down generation after generation. That's why when you look at family photos, you can see that you might have your aunt's eyebrows, your grandpa's nose, your great-uncle's elbows, or your greatgreatgreatgrandpa's charming smile.
Traits that get passed on nearly every generation (or resurface after skipping a generation or two) mean that they are most likely linked to dominant alleles, as opposed to recessive ones. An example of a dominant allele would be a widow's peak. So if you're worried about having one in the future, have a look at your family tree to spot where you're most likely headed.

Sequoiadendron giganteum (giant sequoia; also known as giant redwood, Sierra redwood, Sierran redwood, Wellingtonia or simply big tree) is the sole living species in the genus Sequoiadendron. Giant sequoias are the most massive individual trees in the world and grow to an average height of 50–85 m (164–279 ft) with trunk diameters ranging from 6–8 m (20–26 ft).
Interestingly, the name Sequoia was coined by the Austrian botanist Stephan Endlicher in 1847. However, he didn't specify any reasons for choosing this particular name, and there is no record of anyone else speaking to him about it.

Mussel is the common name used for several families of bivalve mollusks, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. When sharing the picture, Redditor gangbangkang said that, "a single freshwater mussel can filter 5-10 gallons of water per day. By feeding on microscopic particles that cause turbidity, freshwater mussels remove vast quantities of algae, bacteria, nitrogen, phosphorus and other chemical compounds in the river. What they don’t use is repackaged into little organic baskets of food for organisms like aquatic insects, which are valuable food items for fish, or aquatic fungi that facilitate decomposition processes in the river."
"Mussels may not look very exciting, but they sure are important within certain ecosystems."

This big boy, also known as the King of Jungle, can grow up to 9-10 feet long and weigh around 550 pounds. When taking down prey, the muscled cat can run up to 50mph and leap as far as 36 feet, almost the length of a school bus. He is a pretty good singer, too—an adult male’s roar can be heard as far as 5 miles away.

The color and flavor of this natural delight depend on the nectar that bees extract from a variety of blossoms. There are more than 300 unique honey types in the US alone that come from different flowers and plants. According to the National Honey Board, “as a general rule, light-colored honey is milder in taste and dark-colored honey is stronger."

The second big challenge after losing a great amount of weight is keeping it off, and that requires healthy changes to your lifestyle and food choices. Apparently, mindful eating, which is all about being present in the moment while you’re eating, is one of the trending ways to keep yourself in shape.
Since our attention spans are narrowing at an alarming rate due to an excess of information, it may be hard to concentrate on chewing the food. Harvard Medical School suggests a couple of tricks: begin with a shopping list, eat when hungry, opt for a small portion, and take small bites. Most importantly, bring all your senses to the meal and enjoy every minute of it!

May 18, 1980, was a horrible day. An earthquake triggered the largest landslide ever recorded on Mount St. Helens in Washington State. It was followed by a volcanic eruption that took 57 lives.
US President Jimmy Carter surveyed the damage and said, "Someone said this area looked like a moonscape. But the moon looks more like a golf course compared to what's up there." The land resembled a scene from the apocalypse—hundreds of square miles were reduced to wasteland, and the damage was valued over a billion US dollars.

Blue whales are the largest animals ever to live on our planet, and they can reach mind-boggling dimensions. Some of these marine mammals can be up to 100 feet long and upwards of 200 tons. Their skeletons can weigh 18 tons, with their skull alone coming in at almost a fourth of the whole weight.
The Natural History Museum in London houses a proud specimen of a blue whale skeleton that spans 25 meters. How did conservators get the enormous skull through the Victorian doors? The team went on a mission to remove the front doors altogether. Head of Conservation Lorraine Cornish said that “everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief once it was safely delivered.”

Quetzalcoatlus northropi is a pterosaur known from the Late Cretaceous of North America (Maastrichtian stage) and one of the biggest known flying animals of all time. It gets its name comes from the Aztec feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl.
The very first Quetzalcoatlus fossils were discovered in Texas at Big Bend National Park (dated to around 68 million years ago) in 1971 by Douglas A. Lawson, a geology graduate student from the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin.
Recent estimates put the wingspan of Quetzalcoatlus between 33 and 36 feet (10 to 11 meters). It would have been at least 9.8 feet (3 meters) tall. Early on, scientists stated that its weight could have been as low 150 pounds (70 kilograms), but recent research shows that it probably weighed 440 to 550 pounds (200 to 250 kilograms).

Jozef Morgoš has photographed the same cherry tree in Žabokreky, Slovakia throughout the whole year. The changing seasons highlight its perseverance and the breathtaking beauty of the area. Žabokreky nad Nitrou is a village and municipality in Partizánske District in the Trenčín Region of western Slovakia and was first mentioned all the way back in 1291.

In 2019, the Australian government once again hiked tobacco excise, taking the average packet to a world record of $35. It expected to reach $40 sometime in 2020, and one health official reportedly said the habit will cost an average smoker about $10,000 a year. 
Are these measures effective? Well, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number of adults in Australia who smoke daily plunged from 23.8 percent in 1995 to 13.8 percent in 2017-18. 

Cactuses, a member of the Cactaceae family with 1750 different species, are known to be one of the most resilient plants that can easily outlive humans. Two of the longest-living species are the Saguaro, at 200 years, and the Mexican Giant Cardon, at 300 years. The Saguaro can reach up to 60 feet and weigh anything from 3200 to 4800 pounds when fully hydrated. Meanwhile, the tallest Cardon recorded in the Guinness World Records was 63 feet.

U.K.-based American artist William Utermohlen was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1995. This is a difficult diagnosis and illness for anyone, but before his death in 2007, Utermohlen created a heart-wrenching final series of self-portraits over the stages of Alzheimer’s, which lasted roughly 5 years. Documenting the gradual decay of his mind, he created incredibly stark drawings, which were even displayed to medical students as learning material.

A forest fire isn't the end of the forest. In fact, it's a brand new beginning and a chance for new vegetation and greenery to spread in the blackened areas.
For instance, there are many seeds stored in the forest floor and they germinate after a fire. While new branches sprout from the basal buds of dead trees.
What's more, some plant species actually need blazes in order to grow. For example, the seeds of plants like jack pines and lodgepole pines are sealed tightly with a resin that can only be broken at very high temperatures. 

This so-called paparazzi scarf has been taking the celebrity world by storm. Hollywood heavyweights like Paris Hilton, Cameron Diaz, and Nick Jonas were all spotted wearing one. It turns out that the ISHU scarf is infused with thousands of nano-spherical crystals that reflect the light from a camera's flash back into the camera. As a result, the wearer is turned into a shadow while the scarf quite literally takes the spotlight!

Considering that the school year in the American public school system runs from around the end of August or early September, through to the end of May or early June, this kid will probably get used to his new everyday life. And holiday breaks are there to help him to adapt. Don't worry, he'll be fine!

Beauty and gorgeous hair don't come without a price. Peruvian guinea pigs look absolutely stunning thanks to their shiny coats which can grow to be 2 feet long. However, they are some high maintenance pets, so you ought to make sure you've got serious reserves of patience before getting one these animals as a pet.
You need to maintain a Peruvian guinea pig's coat every single day, making sure it's tangle-free and clean. That also involves trimming the coat so that your cutie pie doesn't carry around every bit of dust of trash it runs into! Sure, we can enjoy brushing a guinea pig for a few days in a row, but how many of us can keep it up for several years?

Reddit user u/vpsj, who is pictured in the image, said in a r/space thread: “I had never actually seen the Milky Way with my own eyes, living in central India all my life in a very light-polluted city of over 2 million people.” As a result, “one night I took my camera out to the roof, clicked 120+ shots, and this was the result.”

Everyone's beautiful as they are. However, we all want to get the most out of life. And certain behaviors like moving lots and eating well allow us to experience a higher quality of life than if we're always ill and have serious health issues.
If you're thinking of losing weight, it's very important that you talk to your doctor beforehand because losing too much weight too quickly can be dangerous for your health. Your doctor will help you come up with a program and tell you how to avoid major pitfalls.
Losing weight provides numerous health benefits, including lower blood pressure, decreased joint pain, better mobility, improved blood sugar levels, and reduced back pain. What's more, if you lose weight, you have a decreased chance of contracting diabetes, getting heart disease and certain types of cancer.

The idea that cars take up way too much space compared to bicycles and public transport is nothing new. A similar bus promotion poster circulated in London in the 1960s.
What's more, somebody created a chart to help you better visualize just how much space is saved when you go on foot or choose a bus over a car. According to the data, a cyclist uses just 7% of the space that a car owner does. While someone going on foot uses only 2% of the space a car takes up.

If you think starfish with 4 or 6 arms are weird, wait til you realize that there are species with 10, 20 and even 40 arms! Out of the 2k starfish species, the most common variety is the one with 5 arms. Which is why they're what you most often see in cartoons (remember Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants?), drawings, movies, and photos.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, some scientists are pushing to rename starfish as sea stars because they're, well, not fish!

If you're thinking of visiting Seattle, there are a few things you should keep in mind concerning the weather. The summers in the city are short, warm, and dry, while the winters are very cold, wet, and cloudly. According to Weather Spark, the best time to visit Seattle if you're a tourist is from early July to late August.
We hope that you enjoy rain (like we do) because rain falls throughout the year in Seattle. You can expect the most rainfall during the 31 days centered around November 21; while the least rain falls around July 29. So pack a jacket and an umbrella. Just in case.

Reddit user u/phelyan shared the images and noted that they depict the city of Porvoo in southern Finland. Apparently, Porvoo is the second-oldest city in the country, with its origins dating back to a solid 800 years ago. For centuries, the city has been a source of inspiration for many Finish artists. The red shore houses visible in the painting above were used to store merchandise from exotic countries, and today are one of the city's main tourist attractions.

This purse seems to be made similarly to anti-paparazzi clothing that uses retro-reflective materials. These are textiles, plastics, or metal that reflect light back to its source. If you've ever driven a car and seen your headlights light up road signs that are very far away, then you've encountered retro-reflective materials.
Reflective materials reflect a lot more light back at the camera than your everyday fabrics. To get a bit technical, this tricks the camera, which sends out a "pre-flash" before the main flash, into thinking the scene's bright than it is, making it reduce the flash output. The camera exposes "correctly" for the reflective material, but "incorrectly" for everything else that you're taking a picture of.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is known for the iconic photo called the “Pillars of Creation” taken in 1995. NASA has stated that this mind-blowing infrared image shows “the very ends of the pillars that are dense knots of dust and gas” that were found in a cluster of young, yet massive stars in an area of the Eagle Nebula.
According to Felicia Chou, the Public Affairs Officer for Astrophysics, “NASA seeks to unravel the secrets of our universe, its origins, evolution, and search for life among the stars.” What if Bowie was right about “a starman waiting in the sky” who’s reluctant to meet us because he’d blow our minds?

The Australian state of New South Wales was ravaged by bushfires for more than 240 days in a row in 2019/2020.
The fires affected every state in the country, destroyed 3,000 homes, killed at least 28 people, and affected up to a billion animals. New South Wales was hit the hardest.
The bushfires in New South Wales were officially contained on 13 February 2020, in part due to the torrential rains that flooded the affected areas.

If you're on the lookout for counterfeit bills, there are several things that you can do to spot them.
First of all, you ought to feel the texture of the bill. Even if you're not a cashier or a banker, you should be able to feel that something's different from good ol' regular bills.
Secondly, feel the ink on the bill and look at the quality of the printing. Genuine currency has slightly raised ink, while the printing quality is very high.
Third of all, compare the bill that you suspect to be counterfeit to another one of the same denomination, in the same series or date. That should give you clues as to what might be off.
You should also look closely at the serial numbers on the bill and check if you see red and blue fibers embedded in the paper, as well.

It’s not the first time that nature has served as a source of inspiration for human inventions. High-speed trains are said to be designed with the kingfisher’s beak structure in mind in order to avoid the loud noise of early bullet trains. Meanwhile, it’s been speculated that geckos' unique ability to stick to surfaces might be related to the invention of Scotch tape in 1992. What’s more, some believe that LED light bulbs could have been based on fireflies. According to Business Insider, these tiny insects “had a unique exoskeleton that prevented reflection and let most of the light out.”

Landscapes as an art form started gaining popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe as they were increasingly embraced by Romantic painters. They saw landscapes as allegories full of "mythic significance" and as a reaction to the scientific advances of the era.
Meanwhile, in the United States, landscapes gained popularity in the early part of the 19th century. They represented idealized versions of unspoiled nature and embodied the belief that America was full of opportunities and prospects.

Corn, also known as maize, was domesticated from the plant teosinte in Central America as early as 9,000 years ago! There are two main theories as to how this happened. The first one states that maize is a genetic mutation from teosinte and occurred in the lowlands of Guatemala. The second theory argues that corn originated in the Mexican highlands as a hybrid of teosinte and early-stage domesticated maize.
Some scientists believe that maize could have been domesticated by hunter-gatherers thousands of years before it became a staple food in people's diets. 
It's thought that maize (aka corn) spread out from Mexico via trade networks. It was used as a staple food in what's now the southwestern United States around 3,200 years ago and appeared in the eastern US around 2,100 years ago.
There are six types of corn: dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn (yes, that's what it's called), flour corn, and sweet corn.