If you work in an office, you might’ve heard how important it is to stay active during the day. Remaining sedentary - whether it’s in a standing or sitting position - can be bad for your health. The Stir Kinetic Desk helps you get moving with a simple gesture. It adjusts itself up and down to shift between the two positions. You just tell the desk what portion of the day that you want to stand or sit, and it prompts you to do so. When you haven’t stood for a while, Stir will remind you by slightly moving the table up and down as you work.

Stir has a built-in touchscreen that allows you to look up statistics, set preferences, and tell it to move. This desk also learns more about you as time goes on. It recognizes your patterns and will prompt you to stand when you’re most likely to want to. An account that’s linked to your FitBit also keeps track of your preferences, which means that you can…

What does it look like in the coldest city in the world? Thanks to one New Zealand photographer named Amos Chapple, we won't just have to wonder. Oymyakon, Russia is the coldest place on earth where humans actually live. The small, rural town has brutal winters where temperatures can dip to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The area is six time zones away from Moscow. You wouldn't guess it but neighboring Yakutsk is an economically vibrant place, mostly due to the abundance of natural resources around it, like diamonds, oil and gas. That makes it an expensive place to live in, visit and sustain.

When Chapple arrived in Oymyakon, he was struck by the emptiness of the place. The population stands at about 500 permanent residents. As he told Smithsonian, "The streets…

Amy Lind’s figurative paintings offer beautiful representations of women dressed in captivating, feminine styles. The artist casts her subjects in soft colors and filtered light to showcase their gentle, realistic expressions. The styles exhibited by the subjects jump across decades to highlight the best of different beauty trends. Rosy cheeks and soft, voluminous hair popular at the turn of the century show up on some models. The sheath dresses and bobbed hair of the roaring ‘20s and more modern-looking styles with a classic twist (such as a tank top and flower crown) also make appearances. Flowers are a theme Lind gravitates towards, as many of her subjects are either wearing flowers or are surrounded by them.

The Savannah-based artist modifies her painting style depending on what era she wants to evoke. Some portraits feature clearer,…

Jenna Martin constructs alternate, dreamlike realities through her conceptual photography. Inspired by films and storytelling, the Montana-based creative takes advantage of her mountainous, serene surroundings to capture elaborate portraits that truly come to life after seamlessly blending different components together in post-processing.

In one spectacular image, dozens of flowers encased in bubbles gently drift around a young woman in an evocation of spring. Another photo depicts a figure dressed in white perched atop a half-sunken car, playing a serenade on her violin to an unseen audience. Both conceptual portraits encapsulate the signature elements of Martin's work—imaginative, solitary, and filled with a touch of surreal wonder that hints at a larger narrative.…

Glistening with rain or dew, these ladybugs look absolutely enchanting in these macro photos by Ireland-based photographer Tomasz Skoczen. For years now, he's been capturing these black and red winged insects as they're walking through grass or landing on flowers. Taken mostly in the garden of his backyard, he uses his Canon 5D Mark II and his macro lens to shoot these insects in their natural state.

Skoczen has learned a great deal about ladybugs, or ladybirds as they're often called. "They can be found all year round if you know where to look, and they can be very fast and therefore difficult to shoot. There are over five thousand species in the family in which the ladybird belongs. They are small, between .8 and 18 millimeters and they display a range of colors including red, orange, and yellow. Their covers are striped, spotted in black, or they can have no markings at…

In Bea Crespo and Andrea G. Portoles’ delightful “Brunchcity” series, paper dioramas form iconic skylines that pop out of foods for which major cities are famous. Crespo, an illustrator, created the charming drawings, selecting and sketching landmarks that represent each city. For example, the ruins of Athens' Parthenon rises out of a dish of Greek yogurt, Cuba's capital building and a mural of Che Guevera stand on a bedrock of beans and rice, and a paper Coliseum teeters on the side of an Italian ice cream cone. Portoles, a photographer, captured the pop-up-bookish displays against often-pastel backgrounds in artistic lighting to show off the details in each piece. The artists turned out a new photo every two weeks beginning in 2013, when they started the project.

They say the series was a fun way to combine their passions. “This…is the result of things we enjoy the most: food,…

While Ray Villafane is best known for his expertise in the art of food carving, he is also recognized for his magnificent, remarkably realistic sand sculptures. Using just sand and water, the artist sculpts incredibly detailed figures that tower above him as he works. Funny-faced people, nativity scenes, and hellish creatures from Dante's Inferno appear so lifelike that it's hard to believe they were formed from humble grains of sand.

Villafane only began sand sculpting in 2008 after accepting a challenge in Jesolo, Italy. Despite not having any experience working with the medium, he wowed viewers with his exceptional craft, and since then has received invitations from all over…

Adventurous travelers can now direct their wanderlust towards Airbnb’s daring, redesigned cable car-turned-luxury accommodation. It’s suspended in midair above the Courcheval ski resort in the French Alps. But, before you book your plane ticket, know that it’s not available for just anyone to rent. The gorgeous room is actually a grand prize in the site’s latest competition.

This cable car hangs over 2,700 meters above sea level and is near the top of the Sommet de la Saulire, which is a mountain in the Massif de la Vanoise. Airbnb transformed it into a stunning one bedroom, two bed-apartment that can host up to four guests at a time.

The precarious setting is part of Airbnb’s “A Night At” initiative that awards 24-hour getaways to one-of-a-kind locations. Previous destinations included a commercial jet and an IKEA. Here, the winners will be chauffeured up to the…

This past November, nestled under London’s A13 highway, was an mysterious glowing orb that invited visitors to crawl inside and take a look. It was called Osmo and was designed by the London studio Loop.pH as part of the city’s annual Light Night Canning Town. The project featured a pneumatically-inflated cocoon fashioned from silver mylar, and its viewers could pass through the zip-up entrance and sit beneath the stars in a brilliant, all-encompassing setting.

Loop.pH projected the galaxy onto a 29-foot-high surface with lasers and based it on the actual night sky. They used this map from In the Sky, which charts 88 constellations onto a 2D rectangular map. So, the designers had the challenge of projecting something flat onto…

It was suppose to be the snow storm that paralyzed New York City, but it in the end it turned out to be a bust. Still, a few days ago, everyone cleared out, making it the perfect place to shoot a rarely ever empty New York City. Who else was there on hand but photographer Vivienne Gucwa, a native New Yorker who, for nearly a decade, has been capturing the energy of the city through her lens? She's behind the recently released NY Through the Lens, a 192 paperback book that Yahoo News described as "filled with beautiful images that capture the color, vibrancy, artistry and uniqueness of New York City."

We got in touch with Vivienne to ask her what it was like to shoot New York City during this snow storm. "What made this storm stand out versus other storms was that there was a ban…

In his macro photo series Amazing Worlds Within Our World, artist Pyanek demonstrates the enormous complexity of everyday objects. Through the modified Canon T3i lens, squiggly fibers in book pages come into sharp focus, dramatic pit marks on the tip of a matchstick become visible, and beautiful green and gold streaks in the metal of a common screw jump out. To produce the images, the artist took multiple exposures with different focus points and stacked the frames, editing them in Adobe Lightroom and Exposure 5.

Pyanek’s project calls attention to stunning details hidden on the surface of common items. It suggests beauty is hidden in the everyday, available to those who will take the time to look closely enough.

Above: Grain of White Sugar

Spanish artist Ignacio Canales Aracil uses the art of pressing flowers to craft spectacular sculptures that resemble hollow vessels. Starting with a large, cone-shaped mold, Aracil weaves hand-picked blooms into a flat, floral overlay that can take up to a month to dry. The pieces are sprayed with a light coating of varnish to protect them from moisture. The final products are incredibly delicate, yet rigid, works of art that glorify the beauty of spring and fresh life frozen in time.

"Ignacio presents an accesible and intimate work that celebrates spring and keeps it," the artist's press release reads. "His work explores the meanings of nature and flowers with shapes that capture their beauty in sculptures where life is held. His…

On Monday, the world held its breath as the news reported that New York City would be hit with one of the largest blizzards in the city's history. Forecasters predicted for up to 30 inches of snow. The city came to a standstill as thousands of flights were canceled, the subway system was shut down, and drivers were ordered off the road. The National Weather Service later said that the storm had moved farther east than predicated. Meteorologists downgraded the system from a blizzard to a winter storm. New York still ended up with about six inches of snow, a normal January snowfall.

A few New York City photographers like Vivienne Gucwa and Anthony Quintano (seen here) braved the blizzard warning and…

Before Stanley Kubrick rose to fame as the acclaimed director of films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and The Shining, he worked as a photographer for Look magazine at the young age of 17. After starting out doing freelance work, Kubrick joined the photographic department as the youngest staff member. With a keen eye for aesthetics and a natural sense for visual storytelling, he produced the highest number of published articles of any photographer for the magazine from 1945 to 1950.

Among those published stories was Life and Love on the New York City Subway, a series of striking photos depicting passengers on their daily commutes in the lifeline of the city. Shot in 1946 over the course of two weeks,…

As massive amounts of snow have coated US cities like Boston and New York, there’s one sure-fire way to make the most of it - build a snow sculpture! Brendan Schaffer, of Schaffer Art Studio in Stillwater, New Jersey, constructed this fantastic, larger-than-life fire and marshmallow completely out of snow. He even used food coloring mixed with water to “spray paint” the roaring flames and logs. The marshmallow attached to the stick is also a fun, unexpected addition to this frigid kindling.

Schaffer works at Fairview Lake YMCA Camp, and he clambered to have some fun before the blizzard hit. His love of campfires with guests inspired this creation that took more than four hours to complete. We only hope that Schaffer enjoyed some hot cocoa and marshmallows indoors after he finished building!…

Product designer David Graas rethinks the standard light bulb with his dazzling, Art Deco-inspired creations. Called Stalaclights, they’re 3D-printed bulbshades featuring intricate details that are reminiscent of the first skyscrapers built in cities like New York and Chicago. Graas’ designs hang upside down and mimic the icicle-looking stalactites you’d see in a cave - hence the clever name.

Stalaclights take advantage of the fact that LED lighting emits little heat. It’s now possible to connect a shade to a bulb without it getting too hot, and this gives designers the license to come up with unique-looking lighting solutions. Here, Graas creates the illusion that the towers grow directly from the bulb.

Lovers of architecture and sculptural lighting can buy their own Stalaclights starting around $236 a piece.…

Travel writer Lauren Fern Watt had been through everything—college, her early 20s, boyfriends, moving to from Tennessee to NYC, and more—with her dog Gizelle at her side. The 160-pound English Mastiff was her best friend, roommate, confidant, and greatest joy. So when Gizelle was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer, Watt was absolutely devastated. Determined to stay strong for the sake of her dog, who didn't like to see her cry, Watt decided to make the most of the rest of their time together by embarking on an extraordinary bucket list adventure of everything they wanted to do before Gizelle died.

"It was my mission for us to indulge and explore life’s joys," Watt says. Together, the pair went on a journey that took them around New York City, across New England, and even to coastal Maine. They experienced new things side by side, like riding in a canoe and going…

Photographer Radu Zaciu illuminates fruits and vegetables from the inside out in his unique photo series, “The Light Inside.” The project was spawned when Zaciu began experimenting with lighting techniques and decided to try putting light bulbs inside hollowed-out edible items. The concept is similar to a Jack-o’-Lantern, except instead of cutting directly through the skins, Zaciu left thin layers of the external walls intact. This allows the light bulbs to illuminate the natural fibers of the skins, providing a new look at the makeup of the things we eat.

For his subjects, Zaciu chose a mix of popular and harder-to-recognize foods. Cauliflower, green and red cabbage and a sprouting potato appear alongside the more photogenic pear, strawberry and pineapple.…

Most people go to Starbucks to sip on brew and catch up on work. But one customer recently made his coffee cup his project, spending five hours at a Liverpool franchise penning a highly detailed map of Middle Earth on the cardboard cup. The artist, Liam Kenny, first stained the sides of the cup with a tea bag to achieve a mystical, well-traveled effect. Then he proceeded to hand-replicate a map of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved Lord of the Rings fantasy world. Mountain ranges, rivers and roads to Mordor and Rohan wrap around the green Starbucks medallion. The typography on the map is even consistent with the series’ flagship font.

When Kenny finished the impressive masterpiece, he handed it to the barista behind the counter without a word and walked out. The barista was so thrilled with the random artwork that she took it home, photographed it and posted it on Imgur. It’s…

The lion may be known as "the king of the jungle," but 11-year-old Zion is nothing but a loving sweetheart to his caretaker Frikkie Von Solms, a 69-year-old man who lives and cares for big cats in southern Africa. Born to a lioness named Simba, Zion was separated from his parents as a cub due to fears that his hostile father would kill him. Von Solms stepped in to raise the young lion, bottle-feeding him and letting him sleep in his bed. As a result, Zion grew into a gentle, friendly soul who is now too domesticated to be able to return to the wild.

While Von Solms has also cared for 19 other lions and leopards, his relationship with Zion is especially close and marked by mutual trust and affection. They spend their time driving together in the caretaker's truck, going on hunts, and spending hours walking side-by-side on dusty tracks together, Von Solms holding Zion's tail while…