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.'

Other great stories
FROZEN WATERFALL

A DARING duo take their chances and scale this spectacular 82ft frozen waterfall before it collapses .

BOY, 15, CAN ONLY EAT FRY UPS DUE TO ONE-IN-14M CONDITION

A schoolboy is the envy of his friends due to a one in 14-million condition which means he can only eat FRY-UPS to survive .

BIRD FISHING

DIVING down at a speed of 75mph, this is the moment a hungry osprey caught his prey .

GRAVEYARDS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

From the tails of fighter planes to black and white checked buildings, graveyards take different and unusual forms around the world .

LIFE-LIKE PENCIL DRAWINGS

AT first glance these images could easily be mistaken for photographs, but they are in-fact real life drawings created using nothing but coloured pencils .

STRANDED MOOSE RESCUED FROM FROZEN LAKE

A terrified moose, trapped in a frozen lake, bobs her head above the icey water and awaits her rescue .

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 .

CROHN'S SUFFERER 'ACCUSED OF BEING ANOREXIC' AFTER LOSING 10ST

A Crohn's sufferer has slammed doctors who allegedly accused her of being anorexic after she lost 10st in just three months .

HEAVY RAIN AND WILD WEATHER FOR SOUTHERN ENGLAND AND WALES

Southern England, the south-west and west Wales have been warned to expect more wild weather, with heavy rain and high tides possibly leading to coastal flooding and travel disruption over the weekend .

CHERNOBYL - 28 YEARS ON

TOMORROW (Saturday) marks the 28th anniversary of the nuclear disaster that left the city of Chernobyl devastated .

OPEN WIDE! MONKEY GIVES FRIEND AN UNEXPECTED DENTAL CHECK-UP

This cheeky macaque gets up close and personal as he examines the dental hygiene of his fellow primate .

HUBBY DRUGGED THEN RAPED ME FROM AGED 15 AND I GOT JUSTICE 30 YEARS LATER

Tina O’Brien, 54, from East Midlands, met Frederick Allchorne, now 62, when she was 15 .