It’s often hard to convince people that Olivo Barbieri’s aerial photographs are real. They look uncannily like hyperdetailed models, absent the imperfections of reality. [via]

Drawn mainly from the collections of the National Library of Medicine, Dream Anatomy shows off the anatomical imagination in some of its most astonishing incarnations, from 1500 to the present. [via]

To most Western eyes, traditional Japan is a serene veneer of stoic samurai, porcelain-skinned geisha, Mount Fuji and cherry blossoms. It seems like the last place you’d look for things bizarre, grotesque, and morbid. And yet the Japanese archipelago is home to as rich a tradition of goblins, ghouls, and monsters as you’ll find anywhere on Earth. A motley collection of animated objects, transformed animals, ogres, demons, and human freaks, these creatures are collectively known as youkai (yoh-kye), or bakemono (bah-keh-mo-no). They feature in countless folktales, prints, and paintings, often rendered with as much humor as horror, a troupe of beasts as charming as they are terrifying. [via]