NATURE'S MOST STUNNING SHAPES AND PATTERNS

FROM ICE bubbles to boiling lava, these photographs highlight the stunning shapes and patterns found in nature. The series of extraordinary images were taken by German software engineer Thorsten Scheuermann after he decided to examine his surroundings. A trip to the city of Kalapana in Hawaii, home to the Kilauea Volcano, provided Thorsten with the setting for his lava picture, while a visit to the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon offered him the opportunity to photograph ice bubbles up-close. The 37-year-old, now of Washington, USA, said: 'These are sights that can gain greater significance and have their beauty exposed when excluding everything else around them.'

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MESMERISING FIELD PATTERNS

FULL OF STUNNING colours and swirling shapes, the furrows on these fields create a mix of mesmerising patterns .

CUTE MINI LION

MEET the little lion of suburbia with a mane that makes him look like a mini-king of the jungle .

MAKING A SPLASH - GORILLA GOES APE IN WATER

While often referred to as the kings of the jungle, gorillas - for all their might - are notorious hydrophobes .

MINI BONZAI MODELS - TREE-MENDOUS

These are the fascinating pictures of miniature table sculptures molded around bonsai trees that take up to a painstaking 18 months to create .

TEST COULD HAVE SAVED ME FROM CERVICAL CANCER AT 20

A young woman has told how she has been robbed of her fertility and now faces an uncertain future after she was diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of just 22 .

DERELICT MANSION

With an abandoned tricycle sitting in an empty corridor, this derelict but once grand mansion could be the setting for The Shining .

HYPER-REALISTIC DINNER IS ACTUALLY DESSERT

From a platter of finger licking chicken wings to a bowl of Chinese noodle soup, these foodie snaps are enough to make your savoury saliva glands drool .

THE WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE BABY COT

A LUXURY baby cot has hit the shelves with a price tag just shy of 10 MILLION POUNDS .

SLAM DUNK DA FISH

THIS is the incredible moment a pelican throws a fish into the air and SLAM DUNKS it into its enormous throat sack .

TRAPPED IN THE BODY OF A 10 YR OLD: TEENAGE GIRL BORN WITHOUT HORMONES

She is about to start driving and soon will be able to legally buy alcohol and get married, but Poppy Webb-Jones still looks and thinks like a ten-year-old girl .

REAL LIFE ANIME GIRL

Meet the real life anime girl who looks like a living cartoon character despite never going under the knife .

BEAR CUBS AND DOTING MUM

A little brown bear cub shows his doting mum that she is always on parent duty as he uses her as a scratching post .