National Geographic Traveler's Blog!

Hisashiburi! It's been quite awhile since my last post. So long, in fact, that I'd be suprised if anyone was still out there...

But just in case, I wanted to share what may have been one of the biggest thrills of my lifetime: Seeing the iconic National Geographic header topping a page with one of my photographs on it! I know it's just the NatGeo Traveler's Blog, but it still gave me chills!

You may remember the fine people at National Geographic choosing one of my images for the Global Eye feature.

Check it out, and don't forget to add yout two cents. Share your own experiences in Kyoto, or add your take on the effect globalization has on travel.

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3D Tattoos

Most Tattooed Man

He’s also in the Guinness Book of Records as the most tattooed man on the planet. He only has one tattoo (his own words) but it covers his entire body (including the inside of his mouth and ears) and it has multiple layers. He had thoughts about the most tattooed men and women ever since he was a child but he didn’t think about becoming one of them until he got his first tattoo, a small juggling club on his hip.

Lucky Diamond Rich was born in New Zealand but currently performs as a chainsaw juggling, sword swallowing entertainer in Australia. he has spent more than 1000 hours getting his body tattooed around the world, but he was not satisfied, so he opted for a black ink covering his entire body. He is now getting white designs on top of the black and colored designs on top of the white. I guess he really a work in progress, just like he says.

Living jewels

Phanaeus, a scarab beetle - considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians Eupholus, a weevil

A beetle from the Amarygminae family

The three-dimensional crystalline structures in the wing cases of pachyrrynchine weevils are arranged hexagonally, in a similar way to how crystals are arranged in opals.

Weevils (such as this Pachyrrynchus beetle) have a different method. The scale patches are made of photonic crystals, as seen in the next image...

This electron micrograph of the tiger beetle shows a reflector band (arrow) - where thin layers of tissue with different refractive indices have been laid on top of each other. The spacing of the layers causes different colours to be produced by constructive interference.

Close-up of tiger beetle "skin" - the surface of the wing case.

Beetles are sometimes called "living jewels" in reference to the diverse array of iridescent colours they display. The optical effects are produced by photonic crystals and sophisticated reflectance mechanisms, as these images show. (Images from Journal of the Royal Society Interface, DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2008.0354.focus; provided by Ainsley Seago)

This picture shows a predatory tiger beetle

nature images

wildlife control

Levi Van Veluw

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