The pounding rain, the stormy seas, and the lone sports car traveling on a narrow road - how exactly did the photographer take this amazing shot and survive the harrowing experience?

Let Indian photographer Vatsal Kataria explain in this interview with DIY Photography:

DIYP: How did you come up with the idea? What inspired you?

Vatsal: I am commercial still life photographer but one day I was in my studio without any projects. I saw a photo of a toy car near a waterfall so decided how I can do something like this but without going anywhere. So I started working on my first project.

DIYP:  How much time it usually takes to build a location for your miniature shots?

Vatsal: it depends on the project. Sometimes it takes me 1 day, or sometimes whole week for just one picture. So it totally depends on the complexity of the project.

DIYP: What materials do you mainly use?

Vatsal: I use lots of products. My main aim is to create everything with the cheapest way possible so that if anyone wants to do something they can. I use plaster of Paris, baking powder, pit sand and clay, and that’s it.

View the rest of the interview (and many more fantastic photos) over at DIY Photography.

Inspired by Charles Darwin's observation that plant roots don't just passively grow down, but actively navigate to seek moisture and nutrients, German-born artist Diana Scherer worked to manipulate plant roots into works of art.

Scherer grew oat and wheat, which fast growing root system, on special templates that mold and train the plants' root system into geometric patterns that look like woven textiles.

Ask a chemist for flowers, and he'll likely give you these wonderful crystal flowers!

Chemistry professor Dean Campbell of Bradley University and his team were trying to develop new catalysts by making a solution of copper acetylacetonate in tetrahydrofuran, then soaking slabs of polydimethylsiloxane in the jar. After the experiment, Campbell found wonderful crystals that look like wildflowers forming on the wall of the beaker.

Images: Shao Feng

Architect Li Xiang of XL Muse designed this amazing "Tunnel of Books" for the Yangzhou Zhongshuge bookstore in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, China.

The arched bookshelves and the reflective black mirror-finish floor give visitors a sense that they're walking through a tunnel of books into an otherworldly space that book lovers would enjoy.

Take a look:

Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Smog getting you down? Consider this: even Pluto has got that!

Scientists stitched together images from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft when it was about 120,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) away from Pluto. The resulting image of Pluto's receding crescent shows a spectacular blue "haze" in the dwarf planet's atmosphere:

Scientists believe the haze is a photochemical smog resulting from the action of sunlight on methane and other molecules in Pluto's atmosphere, producing a complex mixture of hydrocarbons such as acetylene and ethylene. These hydrocarbons accumulate into small haze particles, a fraction of a micrometer in size, which preferentially scatter blue sunlight – the same process that can make haze appear bluish on Earth.

As they settle down through the atmosphere, the haze particles form numerous intricate, horizontal layers, some extending for hundreds of miles around large portions of the limb of Pluto. The haze layers extend to altitudes of over 120 miles (200 kilometers). Pluto's circumference is 4,667 miles (7,466 kilometers).

Redditor Backforward24 created this neat "Literature of the World" - a map composed of books from/about each nation of the world.

The selection of what book should represent each country is subjective, of course - it's impossible to boil down the literary history of a country to a single book, but nonetheless the work is quite impressive. See if you agree with the book/country pairings:

The Americas

Canada - Anne of Green Gables
U.S.A - To Kill a MockingBird

Image: David Penning/Missouri Southern State University

It's a snake-eat-snake world out there.

Predators usually chase after smaller (and thus easier) prey, but king snakes "just don't seem to be abiding by that rule," said biologist David Penning of Missouri Southern State University to National Geographic. "When we pair a small king snake with a larger rat snake, they don't avoid it. They actively and directly will attack a larger individual.... "

Marcus Woo of National Geographic has the explanation of how the king snake is truly deserving of its name.

Finding a teacher in this school can be quite complicated - so complicated that one teacher named Mr. Heiss decided to make a handy flowchart to help his students locate his whereabouts.

Sometimes finding Mr. Heiss is pretty straightforward ...

Sometimes, it's very complicated ...

Sometimes, you can't find the man at all!

I have a feeling that after the writer of this Chinese menu from an unindentified Taiwanese restaurant failed to find the appropriate Google translation (but it's delicious!), he or she kind of gave up.

Ms. French fries sounds reasonable enough, but "McDonald's best friend"?

What time is it? Metal fans don't need this headbanging clock by Tiras Sin Sentido. They already know the answer.

If you love metal, you'll love the webcomic series Metal Life over at Tumblr.

March Madness: That time of the year when your head shape really works to your advantage! Spotted by Twitter user @TunaOfTheSky.

Got a messy roommate? Don't get mad - turn his mess into a "passive-aggressive art gallery" instead and gain Interweb fame.

Justin Cousson of Hollywood, California, converted over 30 instances of his roommate's messiness in the living room, kitchen, and laundry room into art pieces. Like this one above, titled "Cheese Knife".

"Knife left out on counter in striking distance of knife block, having been only used to remove seal of ice cream carton, which was also left on counter, leaving quite the sight as the last thing I saw before I gratefully leave town for two weeks." (mixed media 2017, $500).

"Sour cream covered spoon, left in sink before leaving town for four days"
(mixed media 2017, $3,400)

"Boxes left on couch because what even *is* breaking them down and recycling or leaving them not on the couch" (mixed media 2017, $6000)

Can you solve this Wheel of Fortune puzzle?

In Tuesday's Wheel of Fortune episode, a contestant named Kevin was one letter away from solving the puzzle and winning the game ... but his dirty mind proved to be his undoing (and his ticket to Internet infamy).

After Kevin called for a "K" (with confidence, no less) and lost the game to a fellow contestant, Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak joked, "... although you got the right answer, I'd rather see Kevin's play."

You can watch the now legendary game in this YouTube clip below:

Images: Takhini Hot Pools

This sure puts "chill" in "just chilling."

Every year since 2011, the Takhini Hot Pools, a hot springs resort in Yukon, Canada, has held The International Hair Freezing Contest (Previously on Neatorama). Contestants would soak in the hot springs, dip their heads in the hot springs and wet their hair, then mold their hair into the most creative 'dos and let the cold winter air freeze it.

Take a look at the photos of some of this year's participants:

Just how cold was it there? Take a look at the temperature shown on the thermometer below:

What a perfect birthday cake for a geologist! We don't know anything about the person who baked this "sedimentary layer cake", but we'd wager he or she's down to earth about the amount of time and labor it took. So let's not take it for granite. Plus, it sure builds my apatite! Yum!

(Image: Proteon/reddit)