Skull Fragments The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has nearly 50,000 Transportation Security Officers who screen more than 1.8 million passengers each day. Theystashed in passengers' bags or hidden in their clothing. But the TSA also finds more interesting prohibited objects, and they post weekly roundups of their discoveries on their. From live reptiles (snakes on a plane, anyone?) to a knife concealed in a can of potato chips, these are just some of the weird things people have tried to...

People admire the Luminarie illuminations as a part of the 19th Kobe Luminarie on Dec. 5, 2013 in Kobe, Japan. The annual illumination event began in 1995 to commemorate the victims of Hanshin Awaji Great Earthquake. (Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images) Though the brilliant display of lights looks as if it could be another Christmas celebration, the Kobe Luminarie in Japan has a more somber purpose at its heart - remembering the thousands of people who died in a 1995 earthquake. After...

White Island Mines, New Zealand Indigenous people have been living in Australia and New Zealand for thousands of years, but in more recent history colonists from Europe came to the island nations and began building homes, factories and industrial sites. With weather extremes that range from volcanic eruptions to wildfires to flooding, its no surprise some of these buildings have succumbed to decay or been toppled by natural disasters. In the following pages we explore some of the eerie sites...

A shack at Shanty Town on Nov. 15, 2013, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The town is a holiday spot where tourists can pay $82 a night to sleep in a shack. American satirist Stephen Colbert called the concept, 'At best insensitive and at worst poverty porn.' (Charl Devenish/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images) On first seeing the slum at Bloemfontein, something may seem amiss. The shacks aren't crowded together or dirty. A brick terrace is laid out around each shanty. Wild animals graze...

With its indigenous species of macaques flying through the forest, its snowy mountains and cedar forests, Yakushima island is like something out of a dream of Eden. The island is located a short distance from the southern tip of Japan and has a population of about 13,000 that's outnumbered by the deer and monkeys that live there. A fifth of the island is registered as a natural heritage site, and in 1993 the interior of the island was listed on...

Docastaway offers unique vacation experiences in remote islands, where travelers have the opportunity to live 'like castaways.' With the company's 'Adventure Mode' vacations, travelers have no guides, and need to fish for their food and build their own shelter. (Courtesy of Alvaro Cerezo/Docastaway) When a luxury resort is not enough to "get away from it all," a travel company is offering the ultimate vacation on a remote island with no hotels and no guides — and where you have to...

Isla Mujeres, Mexico, Jan. 2010. (Jeff Friesen) Canadian photographer Jeff Friesen had to battle the “unimaginable” environment of Nova Scotia to capture the beautiful seascapes that comprise his “Beyond Here” series. “The weather changes so frequently [in Nova Scotia], it’s often hard to tell what season it is,” Friesen told weather.com. “The good thing about the volatile weather is that the sky is always interesting… an unchanging clear blue day is almost unknown here.” In his “Beyond Here” series these...

A passenger uses his mobile phone before a check-in counter of Italian airline Alitalia at Narita International Airport, in suburban Tokyo on April 19, 2010. (YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON -- Just because it's safe to use cellphones on a plane, it doesn't mean that passengers should call just to say hello. That argument played out across Washington Thursday as one government agency moved a step closer to removing its prohibition of in-flight calls while another considered a new ban of...

This photo captures a breathtaking waterfall falling through crystal clear ice caves at the edge of Vatnajokulll National park in South-East Iceland, Oct. 31, 2013. (Alex Bradbury/Caters News Agency) When photographer Alex Bradbury walked over a glacier to reach a remote location in Southern Iceland he didn’t expect to discover a rarely-seen natural phenomenon hidden 30 feet under solid ice — crystal-clear caverns with a waterfall crashing through them. “The trek to reach the cave was very tiring and the...

GeoGuessr A geographer employed by the Farquhar company at Philadelphia at work on a four dimensional world, circa 1955. (Three Lions/Getty Images) With the world changing at a faster rate than ever, threatened by everything from climate change to political revolutions and terrorist attacks, understanding geography is critical to our future. Harm de Blij, a geographer and former editor of National Geographic, says geography is a distressingly underrepresented field of study and in misunderstanding it, we're prone to errors of...

This bathroom has been dubbed the most extreme toilet in the world perched on a cliff 8,530 feet above sea level in Siberia. (Alex Bradbury/Caters News Agency) Eight thousand five hundred and thirty feet above sea level in Siberia, perched on a cliff in the Altai Mountains, is a bathroom that has been dubbed the world’s most extreme toilet. So who exactly needs to use this toilet located in the middle of nowhere? The remote bathroom serves a team of...

Ground crew personnel service Delta planes at the Salt Lake City international Airport on November 27, 2013 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (George Frey/Getty Images) MINNEAPOLIS -- Delta Air Lines won't allow passengers to make voice calls from its planes. Right now, federal rules prohibit voice calls on planes. But the government is indicating that it might loosen those rules. If that happens, it could be up to airlines to set their own policies. On Wednesday, Delta went ahead and...