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Creepy? Yes. Beautiful, too. These underwater statues may help save our coral reefs.

Behold, the artistry created by man and the sea in tandem!

English-Guyanese artist Jason deCaires Taylor is doing his part to save the reefs with these incredible underwater sculptures.

The Phoenix. Image via "The Underwater Museum" by Jason deCaires Taylor/Chronicle Books, used with permission.

Due to climate change and overfishing, 20% of coral reefs worldwide have disappeared in the last 30 years. An estimated 75% of what's left of them is endangered. It's a scary thought, especially considering that marine and human life rely on these reefs that are home to over 1 million aquatic species, help protect our coasts from storm damage, and sustain millions of jobs around the world.


Luckily, there are a lot of smart people like Taylor who are working on ways to reverse the damage.

Anthropocene. Sculpture by Jason deCaires Taylor; image via Museo Subacuático de Arte.

Taylor's creations are specifically textured to encourage coral growth and help it breathe.

The sculpture's texture can even influence the coral's direction, Taylor explained to The Guardian. For example, a smooth part of a sculpture means "you’ll get coral spawning [...] It’s a bit like our own lives — part of it is what flows in your direction, what nutrients come your way, and part of it is random experience."

The Gardener. Image via "The Underwater Museum" by Jason deCaires Taylor/Chronicle Books, used with permission.

Taylor, who has over 20 years of deep-sea diving under his belt and spent much of his childhood exploring coral reefs in Malaysia, uses the ocean floor as his canvas.

The Silent Revolution. Image via "The Underwater Museum" by Jason deCaires Taylor/Chronicle Books, used with permission.

After he casts the sculptures, he sinks them and lets the ocean do the rest.

The Holy Man. Image via "The Underwater Museum" by Jason deCaires Taylor/Chronicle Books, used with permission.

The resulting art really and truly is alive — constantly growing and changing from moment to moment.

The Silent Revolution II. Image via "The Underwater Museum" by Jason deCaires Taylor/Chronicle Books, used with permission.

"Humans only have empathy when they see something of themselves," he told The Guardian of his decision to give the sculptures human forms.

"I intentionally made [the figures] very everyday; they all have clothes on — it’s us," he said.

Inertia. Sculpture by Jason deCaires Taylor; image via Museo Subacuático de Arte.

It's no surprise, then, that these strange — yet beautiful — undersea sculptures attract human visitors too. And that's the point.

They're directing much needed attention to coral reefs and their desperate need for conservation.

Silent Evolution. Sculptures by Jason deCaires Taylor; image via Museo Subacuático de Arte.

Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA), an underwater sculpture museum that features Taylor's work off the coast of Cancun in Mexico, offers glass-bottom-boat, snorkeling, and scuba-diving tours so visitors can get an up-close look — under close supervision of course.

"[The] sculptures are as vulnerable as the natural reef," writes Karla Munguia Colmenero, PR coordinator for MUSA, in an email. "They need care, they need to be taken seriously."

In 2006, Taylor created the world's first underwater sculpture park off the coast of Grenada, which National Geographic named one of the 25 Wonders of the World.

Vicissitudes. Image via "The Underwater Museum" by Jason deCaires Taylor/Chronicle Books, used with permission.

Taylor's work can be seen a number of places around the world, both above and below the water, including Greece, London, and Canterbury.

Lately, Taylor has been installing works at the newer Museo Atlántico in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands — the first underwater park in Europe.

One artist alone can't save all the coral reefs worldwide, but Taylor's innovative solution that brings people and marine life together underwater is helping inspire the kind of social change that could curtail their total destruction.

The raft of lampedusa #cactlanzarote #jasondecairestaylor #raftoflampedusa #underwatermuseum #underwaterworld

A photo posted by Jason Decaires Taylor (@jason_decaires_taylor) on

We're all in the same boat heading toward an unpredictable environmental future together. It behooves us to treat our oceans and what lies beneath with care, as we would no doubt be sunk without it.

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Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

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Pop Culture

Daughter shares incredible 3D optical illusions painted by her father, who has aphasia

David Hollowell suffered from a traumatic brain injury in 2021, losing his ability to speak. Remarkably, he is still able to express himself through art.

@david.hollowell/TikTok

David Hollowell pictured with his 3D art

For a little over three decades, David Hollowell’s professional life had been dedicated to art. In addition to working as an art professor, his highly acclaimed 3D illusion paintings were shown in prestigious exhibits. In 2018, the 71-year-old began taking his talents to a larger scale, turning his family barn into an immersive mural.

Then, in May of 2021, Hollowell fell off the roof of his home, resulting in a traumatic brain injury leading to aphasia, a disorder that affects a person’s ability to communicate through speech or written language.

Though Hollowell couldn’t access words the way he used to, his ability to paint detailed, mesmerizing images remained remarkably intact. And his daughter-slash-self-appointed-TikTok manager, Adrienne, is determined to share his work and his journey with as many people as possible.

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via YouTube

These days, we could all use something to smile about, and few things do a better job at it than watching actor Christopher Walken dance.

A few years back, some genius at HuffPo Entertainment put together a clip featuring Walken dancing in 50 of his films, and it was taken down. But it re-emerged in 2014 and the world has been a better place for it.

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An Australian woman thinks it's rude that Americans don't say, "You're welcome."

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Recently, Australian TikTok user Tilly Hokianga vented her frustrations with Americans in a viral post entitled, “Things That Send Me as an Australian Living in the US.” A lot of the points she made were pretty typical for someone visiting the United States, such as there's too much sugar in the bread and too many options for cereal.

However, she also noted that Americans have difficulty saying, “You’re welcome.”

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Meteorologist Matt Laubham prays for the people in the path of a deadly tornado.

Broadcasters who have to report on tragedies as they are happening have a tough job. On the one hand, they have to maintain their professionalism and inform the public of what's happening in a factual way. On the other hand, they're still human and sometimes humanity trumps the traditional perception of what's "professional."

Such was the case for WTVA meteorologist Matt Laubhan, who found himself live on the air staring at a radar scan of a deadly tornado as it moved towards the small town of Amory, Mississippi. He, more than anyone, understood the severity of the situation, and he did his best to convey that to his viewers.

"This is a strong, life-threatening tornado that's going to move either extremely close to Amory or in through the northern part of the city of Amory."

He added, "Y'all trust me too much," explaining that people sometimes take his predictions of where the tornado will go as hard fact, but the reality is that tornados can change directions at any time. "So Amory, we need to be in our tornado safe place," he said.

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Rick Astley rocking his Foo Fighters 'Everlong' cover.

Rick Astley has to be the luckiest '80s musician on the planet. The whole "Rickrolling" phenomenon has given his hit song "Never Gonna Give You Up" a reach far beyond its natural life span, and kept the guy a household name far longer than he probably would have been.

(For those who are unfamiliar, Rickrolling is when you make someone think they're being sent to a website, but the link goes to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" video instead as a joke. It's a silly viral bait-and-switch gag that's been going since 2006.)

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