I’m sure we’ve all been tricked by optical illusions before. You know, images that tend to look different whenever you shift your perspective? Those are always real fun, even if they manage to trip you up occasionally. Some optical illusions rely on conflicting patterns that make you think a static image is actually moving. Others use repeating imagery to make it look as though two walls meeting are a corner or an edge.
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Optical illusions are able to trick us using deceptive colors, light and patterns which our brains naturally connect to one another. This gives us the unique feeling of seeing something that’s not actually there, because our brains sort of connect the dots for us. Our nervous systems are trying to process the world and get it to make sense.
moillusions.com
My personal favorites are those illustrations that make you look at something twice and you see different pictures depending on how you’re looking at it. Let’s take a look at a few of these. Now, what do you think this image resembles? Take a look and then think about it for a second. What image you see will tell you something about yourself.
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If you see a face here, it probably means that you’re worried you have issues with someone who’s important to you. My advice? Go work those bad boys out and everyone’ll be happy! If you see a pair of apple trees in a field, it means you’ve been really feeling yourself lately. Keep it up, that attitude pays off! If you see a person sitting that means that you fear something and you should face it head on
wikipedia.org
When you look at this guy, if you see a car it means you’re uncomfortable where you are and you wish you could change things around for yourself, which is always possible. If you see a man holding binoculars, it means you’ve been looking too much into other people’s business lately. Relax! You’re your own person!
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Keep reading to find out more about what your perception says about you!
Ultraviolet lights or black lights are often used to make some of the most interesting designs. Here’s how it all works: a black light looks dark purple, but that’s because it emits light in the ultraviolet range, rendering it invisible to the human eye. What actually determines if something will glow or not is whether or not they are phosphors.
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Phosphors are anything that absorbs energy and re-emits it in the form of visible light. This often occurs in white or light-colored materials, especially fabrics. That’s why bright shirts will glow when exposed to a UV light. Phosphors are also commonly found in teeth and fingernails, which are natural sources of the stuff. Laundry detergents contained phosphors that help to brighten your clothes.
Tattify
Our eyes can only see color in a spectrum ranging from red to orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. Ultraviolet light is the next step up from violet light and is found in very strong light sources like the sun. That’s kind of the reason we have to wear sunscreen. Still, though, we’re unable to see ultraviolet light, we just know how to detect it.
Tattoofanblog
Most black lights are made from simple flourescent lamps, which generate light by sending electric currents through a tube filled with gas and mercury. The atoms in the mercury create light photons, and it basically boils down to this: the outside of the tube is coated with phosphors. The phosphors help us to see the light by turning it into a visible form.
Pinterest
Many people like to make use of these phosphors in tattoos to get this sort of glow in the dark look going on. There are some really cool designs people get; tattoos are already a personal statement, and giving them an iridescent quality is a surefire way to make yours stand out from the rest. Some people get ultraviolet tattoos of the bones in their hands, giving the tattoos an x-ray aesthetic.
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But can these tattoos always be a good idea? We’ll explore the world of black light tattoos more coming up.
Birds are truly amazing animals. For a long time, us humans have watched birds as they’ve ruled the skies, wishing that we, too, could someday possess the powers of flight for ourselves. How exhilarating would it be to glide through the air without having to worry about coming back down? To be able to float around in the sky for hours and forget all the worries of the surface world?
Wikipedia
It would be fantastic, and birds are interesting for plenty more reasons than their flight capabilities. There are more than 9,000 recorded different species of birds in the world, and as we explore more uncharted regions that number only continues to rise. Birds can be found anywhere, inhabiting the snowy tundras of Antarctica as well as Africa’s barren deserts.
Wherever you go in the world, you’ll find different species of birds that vary in highly unique ways from each other. Some birds, like parrots, have the ability to talk, while owls and hawks make for excellent predators with their enhanced senses and arsenal of natural weapons. Birds are just plain cool looking, too, especially when they perform particularly exciting acrobatic feats.
Pixabay
Some birds, like cardinals, are beautiful and have coloration in their feathers that’s rarely found elsewhere in nature. Some birds are more suited to the water than the sky, swans swimming about gracefully while baby ducklings wobble about in a hilarious manner. Other birds call neither the skies nor the water home, such as the extinct dodo bird or the flamingo.
Pixabay
And have you ever seen a kiwi? Those things are crazy! They have this long, thin beak, sort of like a mosquito’s tail, but their bodies are round and odd-looking. And they’re called kiwis. How much more do you want out of your animal? Birds are also important to keeping natural cycles in balance by feeding on insects or other, larger critters to keep the ground-dwelling population free of pests.
Wikimedia Commons
Up next we’ll take a look at some cool facts about birds you definitely haven’t heard before.
People make art on the craziest surfaces. From drawing pictures on rice, to being able to carve pieces of linoleum to make stamps or prints, people have found a way to bring creativity to anything you can imagine. European and Asian countries especially have taken to carving images into fruits and vegetables, to amazing results.
Avocado Stone Faces
Some people choose to carve the outsides of watermelons, apples, strawberries, pineapples and cantaloupes. Others prefer to use the pits or seeds from produce as their medium. Chinese fruit carving usually depicts mythological creatures or real animals that have some significance. Fruit carvings of a divine or holy nature are often displayed at important ceremonies.
Avocado Stone Faces
The most popular fruit to be carved in China is the watermelon. First, the outside of the melon is carved and then the melon’s pulp is scraped out. The melon can then be used to hold food or flowers. I think it’s kind of neat that people use watermelons to hold other types of food; and you still get the delicious redness from the inside!
Avocado Stone Faces
In Europe, people like to carve oranges and other citrus fruits into animals like pigs, cows, dogs or cats. Fruit carving didn’t become popular in America, however, until several books were published in the 1980s. A lot of European fruit art is abstract, adorned patterns and lines that don’t spell anything out but still look beautiful.
Avocado Stone Faces
When carving a fruit, one usually marks the lines with pen. Fruits are very easy to slice through, so you have to be careful in order to avoid hurting yourself or cutting too deep and potentially ruining your whole sculpture. The best fruit moldings are those that are able to convey an impressive depth of texture; the fruit has actually been cut as a realistic portrayal of the object in question.
Avocado Stone Faces
But some creatives like to go above and beyond. Keep reading as we meet an artist who makes her work on the pits of avocados.
