As biologically diverse as the Amazon is, this peculiar creature would not appear to be a natural inhabitant of the Brazilian jungle or, indeed, Earth for that matter. Standing just a few feet from a mesmerising flashing light, this unidentified being could offer proof that we are not alone in the universe. The image comes from a video obtained by noted paranormal writer Michael Cohen and is claimed to have been filmed by two British tourists visiting the Mamaus region of the Amazon.

Check out these rare photographs of the Black Sea being flozen. It happens once in 30 years but is still considered a natural phenomenon.

The blacktip reef shark is a species of requiem shark, family Carcharhinidae, easily identified by the prominent black tips on its fins. Among the most abundant sharks inhabiting the tropical coral reefs of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, this species prefers shallow, inshore waters and its exposed first dorsal fin is a common sight in the region. Most blacktip reef sharks are found over reef ledges and sandy flats, though they have also been known to enter brackish and freshwater environments.

Sweepstakes was a Canadian schooner built in Burlington, Ontario in 1867. It was damaged off Cove Island then towed to Big Tub Harbour, where it sank in September 1885. The remains of Sweepstakes lie in Big Tub Harbour, located in the Fathom Five National Marine Park, in Tobermory, Ontario. This schooner is said to be one of the most popular wrecks in the park, where it is often visited by tour boat passengers, divers, and snorkelers. Sweepstakes is one of the several shipwrecks located in the Fathom Five National Marine Park.

A roll cloud is a low, horizontal, tube-shaped, and relatively rare type of arcus cloud. They differ from shelf clouds by being completely detached from other cloud features. Roll clouds usually appear to be “rolling” about a horizontal axis. They are a solitary wave called a soliton, which is a wave that has a single crest and moves without changing speed or shape. One of the most famous frequent occurrences is the Morning Glory cloud in Queensland,Australia. One of the main causes of the Morning Glory cloud is the mesoscale circulation associated with sea breezes that develop over the Cape Yorkpeninsula and the Gulf of Carpentaria. However, similar features can be created by downdrafts from thunderstorms and are not exclusively associated with coastal regions.

Big Miracle is an upcoming romantic drama film starring Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski. The film, directed by Ken Kwapis, is based on the 1989 book Freeing the Whales by Tom Rose, which covers Operation Breakthrough, the 1988 international effort to rescue gray whales from being trapped in ice near Point Barrow, Alaska. The film is scheduled to be released on February 3, 2012.

Unique emerald lake in the crater of an extinct volcano Ruapehu can be found in Tongariro National Park, New Zealand. Following Ruapehu’s eruptions in 1995, a layer of unconsolidated material called tephra formed a dam on the crater rim preventing the natural gradual flow of water out of the lake. The lake breached the dam in mid 2007 creating a lahar. The event was predicted, and well planned for, so there were no major consequences. In some years when the acicidy levels in the lake are low it is possible to “bath” in the crater lake. Though this is unadvisable as Mt Ruapehu is a active volcano which erupts on average every 10-20 years.

Mass death of herring in Kvænes, northern Norway, found on the morning of New Year’s Eve. Estimates say there’s 20 tons of dead fish. No one knows why they’re dead (or rather, why they’re beached), but possible causes include washing ashore during a recent storm, being chased by predatory pollock, or getting trapped by a current.

Nome, Alaska appeared on the map during one of the world’s great gold rushes at the end of the century. Located on the Seward Peninsula, by 1900 the town’s population had swelled to 20, 000 after gold was discovered on beaches along the Bearing Sea. By 1925, however, much of the gold was gone, and scarcely 1, 400 people were left in the remote nothern outpost. Nome was icebound seven months of the year and the nearest railroad was more than 650 miles away, in the town of Nenana.

Nome was able to communicate with the rest of the world via the radio telegraph, a relatively new invention in those days. And, although Alaska was still a U.S. Territory until 1959, the government maintained a route over which relays of dog teams carried mail from Anchorage to Nome. A one-way trip along this route, called the Iditerod Trail, took about a month and the “mushers” that traversed the trail were the best in Alaska.

Starfish or sea stars are echinoderms belonging to the class Asteroidea There are about 1,800 living species of starfish that occur in all the world’s oceans, including the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian as well as in the Arctic and the Southern Ocean regions. Starfish occur across a broad depth range from the intertidal to abyssal depths. The Asteroidea occupy several important roles throughout ecology and biology. Sea stars, such as the Ochre sea star have become widely known as the example of the keystone species concept in ecology. The tropical Crown of Thorns starfish are voracious predators of coral throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Other starfish, such as members of the Asterinidae, are frequently used in developmental biology.

The Battle of Thermopylae was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by King Leonidas of Sparta, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I over the course of three days, during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Artemisium, in August or September 480 BC, at the pass of Thermopylae. The Persian invasion was a delayed response to the defeat of the first Persian invasion of Greece, which had been ended by the Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. Xerxes had amassed a huge army and navy, and set out to conquer all of Greece. The Athenian general Themistocles had proposed that the allied Greeks block the advance of the Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae, and simultaneously block the Persian navy at the Straits of Artemisium. The movies The 300 Spartans and 300 were based on the events during and close to the time of the battle. 

When Harrison Ford finally found the Holy Grail inside the Khaznat al-Faron at Petra, at the climax of the film Indiana Jones and the last Crusade, a new myth was born. But Ford, and his scriptwriters, were only following in a long line of people who have contributed to the myths, misinformation and confusion surrounding the fabeled “rose-red city” of Petra - not only since its rediscovery in 1812 but as far back as the Middle Ages. The list of misconceptions with which Petra has been plagued over the centuries is almost overwhelming. Most are harmless errors in names, dates, attributions and the like, but, taken as a whole, they detract greatly from the reality of this important scenic and archeological site.

The lavenders are a genus of 39 species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. An Old World genus, distributed from Macaronesia across Africa, the Mediterranean, South-West Asia, Arabia, Western Iran and South-East India. It is thought the genus originated in Asia but is most diversified in its western distribution. The genus includes annuals, herbaceous plants, subshrubs, and small shrubs. The native range extends across the Canary Islands, North and East Africa, Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, Arabia and India. Because the cultivated forms are planted in gardens worldwide, they are occasionally found growing wild as garden escapes, well beyond their natural range. However, since lavender cross-pollinates easily, there are countless variations within the species. The color of the flowers of some forms has come to be called lavender.