A photo taken on January 1, 2016 shows rooftops covered with snow after a snowfall at the old city of Istanbul. (Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images) A heavy snowstorm in Turkey has already taken the lives of at least four people,left hundreds of villages without power, closed hundreds of roads and stranded thousands of airline passengers. Slick and snowy conditions on the roads have proved deadly for drivers. Today's Zaman reported that in Istanbul, a driver lost control and skidded into three...

Grand Prize and Nature Winner: 'Dirt' Jaw-dropping, rare anti-cyclonic tornado tracks in open farm land narrowly missing a home near Simla, Colorado. (James Smart / National Geographic 2015 Photo Contest) A stunning photo of a tornado in Colorado was chosen as the grand-prize winner of the . The photo, titled “DIRT,” was shot by of Melbourne, Australia. It was selected from more than 13,000 entries to the prestigious competition. Last spring, Smart spent 15 days chasing storms with his brother...

Christ The Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro. (Airpano/Caters News Agency) World wonders such as the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu in Peru, and the Taj Mahal in India have been captured in photographs many times, but none of them captures the splendor and grandeur of these spectacular sites like the Russian-based photography group 's drone images. The panoramic photos on the AirPano website , zooming in on specific elements of the landmarks, which were selected via a process that received...

The 'new lava' from the Eldfell eruption of 1973, seen in Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland, 2014. (Peter Holliday) It's covered in glaciers but as home to around 30 active volcanic systems, Iceland is a land where fire literally meets ice. Most people around the world remember the famous 2010 eruption ofEyjafjallajökull volcano, which spewed a cloud of ash that crept across the European continent, shutting down airports and stranding hundreds of thousands of travelers for days. But in 1973, a volcanic eruption...

In March 1868 a 29-year-old John Muir stopped a passerby in San Francisco to ask for directions out of town. “Where do you wish to go?” the startled man inquired. “Anywhere that is wild,” said Muir. His journey took him to the Yosemite Valley in California’s Sierra Nevada, which became the spiritual home of Muir’s conservation movement and, under his guidance, the country’s third national park. “John the Baptist,” he wrote, “was not more eager to get all his fellow...

Nikolai Bocharov, 77, a member of the Cryophile winter swimmers club, rubs snow on his body as he sits on a snowdrift after bathing in the icy water of the Yenisei River in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, Nov. 15, 2015. (Ilya Naymushin/Reuters) Some people brave icy waters once a year by taking part in a polar plunge, the famous . And then are some people, like the members of Cryophile swimming club in the Siberian city ofKrasnoyarsk, who...

From an open helicopter window, photographer Dito Tediashvili managed to capture stunning aerials of Tusheti, a historic region located on the Greater Caucasus Mountains of Eurasian country Georgia. (Dito Tediashvili) Flying high, with his camera held through a helicopter window, photographer Dito Tediashvili braved the winter cold to take stunning aerial landscape photographs of Tusheti. Located in the northeast region of Georgia on the Great Caucasus Mountains, Tusheti is a popular destination for mountain and horse-trekking in the summer and...

The Frying Pan Tower is a Coast Guard Light Station located 34 miles off the coast of North Carolina. It has been turned into a bed and breakfast. (Frying Pan Tower / fptower.com) Overwater bungalows have become the , but while the Frying Pan Tower, which is perched 85 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, doesn't have an infinity pool or luxury amenities of the resorts in the Maldives, it offers all the ocean views and solitude one would need. Plus,...

Located in White, Georgia, went from being a general store that sold auto parts to one of the largest classic car junkyards in the world. Over ,many of which have not moved for more than 30 or 40 years. Over the course of time, nature has taken a grip on the old vehicles: trees are growing through them, with some even being lifted off the ground. "The only thing I ever knew was cars and trucks," . "I don't know...

A view of the world's newest National Park, Sierra del Divisor National Park. Located in Peru, the park forms one of the largest contiguous blocks of protected land in Latin America, stretching deep into the Amazon rainforest and into the foothills of the Andes Mountain range. (archivo SERNANP) Stretching from deep in the Amazon rainforest into the foothills of the Andes Mountain range, the world's newest national park, , is a beautiful and impressive site, home to rugged landscapes and...

French photographer and freediver Alexandre Voyer has captured the stunning underwater life of Antarctica before, photographing a and up close. But on a recent trip to the bone-chilling, turquoise waters of Antarctica, where temperatures are 32 degrees F, the region's stunning ice caps and glaciers take the spotlight as the diver swims past the frozen wonders. Voyer, 37, and his diving partner, Gilles Rigaud, actually planned to dive for almost two hours, but were forced to jump out of the...

What if you were in a plane crash? According to Meteorologist Danielle Banks, a Ukrainian aviation engineer has come up with an airplane design that, he says, would greatly increase your odds of surviving. ...

Each passing year brings with it new reasons to celebrate, and 2016 is no different, with the year marking several important anniversaries. Here are 10 destinations you should visit in 2016 while they celebrate important milestone moments from their history. (MORE: ) 1. Argentina: 200 Years of Independence Argentina will be celebrating its 200th year of independence from Spanish rule this year because on July 9, 1816 the Argentine Declaration of Independence was signed at ). To mark the occasion,...