THE MOST AMAZING SCIENCE IMAGES OF THE WEEK XXV

What Part Of This Scene Is Made Of Lego? And Other Amazing Images
By Shaunacy Ferro and Colin Lecher, Popular Science, 5 April 2013.

Plus a tower of humanity, a shape-shifting ballet school and more…

1. The Human Tower

Credit: David Oliete via Colossal

Every year in Spain, a competition called Concurs de Castells happens. Teams try to build the largest tower of people, climbing on each other's shoulders with the heavy ones at the bottom and the light ones (and kids) at the top. Photographer David Oliete documented the 2012 event in October, catching a series of shots like this. Even if he wasn't competing, it's a pretty stellar view. You can see more of the series over at Colossal or Oliete's Flickr page.

2. Retired Baseballs

Credit: Don Hamerman via NPR

Photographer Don Hamerman captures the unexpected beauty of baseballs that are well past their last innings. Hamerman picked up the vintage balls while walking his dog across an old diamond over the years (presumably a really old diamond). All of the balls have decayed differently, but we're particularly fond of this one. You can check out the others over at NPR.

3. Earth, Comet, Sun

Credit: NASA/GSFC/STEREO via Discover

We'd probably settle for any one of these things, but within this photo are the following: a) the Sun, b) a comet, and c) the Earth. The comet, PanSTARRS, is shooting through the middle, with Earth labelled to the right and the Sun peeking through on the left. The STEREO-B spacecraft captured this image as it was cruising 100 million miles away from Earth. Quite the group photo. [More at Discover]

4. A Bright Zebrafish's Tail

Credit: Pui-Ying Lam via Discovery

The University of Wisconsin-Madison just released the winners for its Cool Science Image contest. They are, in fact, really cool, especially this one, which shows a zebrafish embryo's fin at 40x magnification. A green molecule is lighting up its nerve network. [More at Discovery News]

5. Sea Dreams

Credit: Simon McCheung via Photojojo

We don't know too much about this photo, other than that it comes from the very cool, very surreal Flickr of photographer Simon McCheung. Wouldn't usually pick a night's sleep in a lake over a nap on a beach, but this makes it seem so relaxing.

6. Spot The Legos!

Credit: Nathan Sawaya/Dean West via designboom

A couple things in this photo are made from Legos. Yeah. No kidding. Can you guess what they are? Guess! Okay, they are: the towel that's hanging in the background and the shoes on the ground. Sculptor Nathan Sawaya and photographer Dean West teamed up to create images like this for a series called "In Pieces." Get it? [More at designboom]

7. Tex Mex

Credit: Jeanette Muranyi via American Photo

American-born Jeanette Muranyi grew up in Juarez, Mexico, and has wanted to explore the city's poorest areas for a while now. But the border town is on the front lines of Mexico's drug war, and cartel violence made it too dangerous for her to visit. Instead, she shot the city from El Paso, Texas using a telescope attached to a DSLR. You can read more about her process here.

8. Star Warp

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Kepler space telescope observed Einstein's theory of relativity in action recently as a white dwarf (a dense, burnt-out star) passed in front of a less massive (but larger) red dwarf star. As it did so, astronomers could see the "gravitational lensing" that bends the starlight. You can watch an animated version of this artist's concept on NASA's website.

9. Shape-Shifting Ballet

Credit: Alice Labourel via Dezeen

This concept by Parisian architecture grad student Alice Labourel envisions a ballet school perched above a river in Los Angeles, where it would be subject to flood and the passage of roaring trains. The building is designed to move in reaction to these factors, as well as in response to the motions of the students themselves. Because ballet on its own wasn't hard enough - it needed to add a moving building. [More at Dezeen]

10. Best Big Mac Ever

Credit: Giorgi Khmaladze via designboom

Proving that McDonald's is infinitely better abroad, architect Giorgi Khamaladze has designed an indoor garden for this strangely elegant burger joint/gas station in a city near the Black Sea in Georgia. Could we Super Size that? [More at designboom]

[Source: Popular Science. Edited.]