Sporting three hearts, nine brains and no bones, octopuses are the closest thing we have on Earth to aliens. Researchers aren't even sure how smart they are, and octopuses have been known to regularly escape their enclosures thanks to independent thought and memory possessed by each tentacle, and the ability to breathe both in and out of water.
In one photo here, an octopus decides to grab a shark on the sea floor, holding it in place... for fun? I guess if humans can catch and release fish, so can an octopus.
See that photo and plenty more in this collection of fascinating photos that are fries for your Friday.
1
The highest altitude toilet in Slovakia sports this view.
2
Elephants' feet have a thick, sponge-like padding that absorbs shock, and enables near silent movement.
3
Japan’s iSpace HAKUTO-R lander captured this photo from the Moon while a solar eclipse was occurring.
4
Sea turtle taking a nap on an algae pillow. Sleeping sea turtles can stay underwater for 4–7 hours.
5
Standing on clear ice makes you look like you’re floating.
7
Ants’ attraction to real vs artificial sugar.
8
Planet Earth, seen from 36,000 kilometers, 22,000 miles away, by the satellite Himawari-8.
9
“Rescue masks" for firefighters from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
10
This is Trinitite, a type of glass formed after the first nuclear tests from the sand surrounding the test area.
11
Divers off the coast of Vava'u, Tonga, spot a very rare baby Migaloo; albino humpback whale.
12
Child safety seat, 1940s.
13
Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.
14
A mysterious postcard that was delivered 121 years late. The handwritten note, which bears a 1903 postmark, recently arrived at a building society in Wales.
16
By digging pits like these, people in Arusha, Tanzania, have managed to transform a desert area into a grassland.
18
A photo of La Marquise which as of 2011 is the world's oldest running car, having first been built and used in 1884.
20
Visualization of the quarks and antiquarks Inside of the proton.
21
Octopus grabbing a shark, apparently for fun.
22
Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, India, is home to over 20 African cheetahs. Asiatic cheetahs went locally extinct in India in the 1950s, and this is part of an effort to restore India’s cheetah population.
