10 Most Ugliest Dogs in the World

Dogs are wonderful, loving animals who don't care about superficial things like appearances... which is a very good thing because these pets are downright fugly!

Sam, Crypt-Keeper Dog
He looked like a cross between the Crypt-Keeper and a Gremlin, which made registered Chinese Crested dog Sam a shoo-in to win the "World's Ugliest Dog" competition at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in California in 2005. That was the third year in a row that Sam had won this dubious title.

Sadly, the 14-year-old Sam suffered from a myriad of health problems. He died of cancer in November of 2005.


Munchkin the Mystery Mutt
Munchkin is perhaps one of the most decorated ugly dogs in recent history, having won several competitions for Ugly Dogs/Mutts and been featured on television and print media outlets all over the world.

Her breed is completely indeterminable; her vet calls her a "Canardly," as in "Can hardly tell [what she is]." Munchkin snorts when she walks (waddles?) and has wiry gray hair around her neck that sticks out on its own without the use of any combing or hair products.


"Ug" No More
With a face that only a mother could love, this 2 year-old half-blind Pointer mix was abandoned in an animal shelter in England before finally getting lucky. When he was named Britain's Ugliest Dog in 2010, suddenly hundreds of people flooded the Mayflower Animal Shelter with inquiries about adopting him.

The lucky adoptive "parent" was April Parker, a 35 year-old mother of two. Upon adopting him, Parker's first order of business was to change his name from "Ug" to a slightly kinder moniker: "Doug."

The Infamous Miss Ellie
This Southern Belle won first prize at the World's Ugliest Dog competition at the Sonoma-Marin fair in 2009 at the age of 17. A Chinese Crested dog who was adopted when she was about seven, Miss Ellie's looks earned her worldwide media attention.

Miss Ellie was entered to compete again in the 2010 competition but sadly, fate had other plans. She died last November at her home in Tennessee. (Link | Photo)


Elwood: Don't Feed After Midnight
2007's World's Ugliest Dog competition introduced us to Elwood, a 2 year-old Chinese Crested/Chihuahua mix who won the blue ribbon that year. Elwood's owners were thrilled to win the competition (and the $1,000 prize money), especially because Elwood's breeder had planned to euthanize him when he was born because she deemed him "too ugly to sell."



Representing Great Britain: Hubble
Poor Hubble had no home when he won the title of Britain's Ugliest Dog. He was living in a shelter in Leeds, U.K. after being found stranded in the woods. He was estimated to be about eight years old when he beat out the competition thanks to his mouthful of rotting, twisted teeth and mangy, pseudo-Terrier coat.


Rascal: It's In The Genes
Rascal comes from a long line of ugly dogs: his mother, grandmother, and grandfather have all won Ugly Dog competitions. In fact, Rascal's grandfather "Chi-Chi" is in the Guinness Book of World Records for winning the most ugly dog competitions of all time.

Naturally hairless and covered with spots and warts, Rascal is a purebred Chinese Crested dog.


Gus's Last Stand
Gus had only three legs, one eye, and was riddled with cancer, but that didn't stop him from winning the 2008 title of World's Ugliest Dog.

This 9 year-old pedigreed Chinese Crested dog had been rescued from an abusive home before losing a leg to skin cancer and his left eye in a brawl with a cat. Poor Gus didn't live long enough to truly enjoy his reign as World's Ugliest Dog, however. He died just five months after winning the competition.


Pabst Wins Blue Ribbon
Pabst here is one of the few dogs who was able to beat out all of those scrawny Chinese Cresteds as the overall champion at the 2009 World's Ugliest Dog competition in California. In fact, he even beat Miss Ellie!

A boxer mix who was four years-old when he won the prize, Pabst was named after a cheap brand of beer due to what his owner calls his, "bitter beer face."



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12 Wonderful Practical Tattoos

This would be great for the ophthalmologists who work in the countryside, a portable eyesight checker.
This woodworker-graphic designer uses a tape measure or ruler almost every day. He decided to have one tattooed so he would have a ruler always within his arm's reach. He uses it for his work, but also for playing. He measured some trout for length with it on a fishing trip to Mount Hood, for example.
Don't ever worry about being in jail again. This datestamp will assure you the girl isn't underage.
Subway map tattoo.
Erik Burke got himself a very useful tattoo to write down his to-do lists.
Medical alert tattoo.
Although there are only temporary, these tattoos can be very handy. Especially for those crowded days at the mall.
Avoid those moments of boredom with a “connect the dots” tattoo.
A very good reminder, a Pi tattoo up to 80 digits.
This tattoo also works as a ruler but with a much vainer purpose.
If you can't afford a pair of glasses or always forget to use yours, this could be your solution. MatthewG15 decided to get a pair of glasses tattooed to his face.



Get an instant moustache anytime you want to by tattooing one in your finger.

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10 Wonderful Microscopic Images from the Natural World

The Wellcome Trust awarded prizes for the top scientific images of the year and these 10 winners from the Wellcome Image Awards. These aren't your run-of-the-mill x-rays or pictures of bacteria in a petri dish; they are detailed, incredible images that would make any photographer proud. They stand on their own aesthetically while also standing for their importance in science.

10. Mouse Embryo Kidney
Whoever expected to call a mouse kidney beautiful turns out to be right! In the image above, the green is the embryonic connective tissue while the red is the embryonic ductwork developing. The 3D-image was taken with something called optical projection tomography (OPT), so no Nikons for these scientists!

9. Crochet of hooks at the base of a caterpillar's proleg
Caterpillars can be creepy crawlies at the best of times, but one thing most people don't know is that they have prolegs. These are short, stubby little protuberances from the bottom of their tummies, and each one has a series of hooks, like velcro hooks, that are used to grip and help them travel vertically. As per Wellcome's specifications, the "brilliant colours seen in this image were created using a technique called differential interference contrast illumination."

8. Cavefish embryo
This eerie-looking image is of a cavefish embryo, a fish that is found in dark caves and is generally white in color. The green stain is an antibody that detects specific neuronal processes (e.g. nerve systems) as well as the larger number of taste buds around the mouth and its body - the green dots.

7. Ergot fungus growing on wheat
Ergot is a fungus that grows on wheat and is highly, highly toxic. The light pink is the ergot while the blue is the wheat. Back in the Middle Aages, ergot poisoning was often the reason for supposed "bewitchment", and monks in the order of St. Anthony became famous for treating the illness that then became known as St. Anthony's fire. The symptoms are brutal: spasms, hallucinations, psychosis, intense itching and gangrene.

6. Honeybee
For some, this will be a nightmare image, but the close-up of the honey bee is spectacular in its detail. Each pair of legs has three segments and also a different "tool" than the others to help pick up and transport pollen. Honey bees are vital to plants, and the more science learns about them, the better off we will be.

5. Cell division and gene expression in plant cells
Here's a "confocal micrograph showing the expression of different fluorescent proteins in the stem of a thale cress seedling (Arabidopsis thaliana). Arabidopsis was the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced."

4. Peridontal bacteria
You have all heard of plaque, the nasty stuff that forms a film on your teeth, but I bet you never knew it looked like this! A photomicrograph of colonies of the bacteria that form, it was taken as they grew in an agar dish.

3. Moth scales
Did you know that butterflies and moths get their color from scales? They do, and these are the scales of the endangered Madagascan moon moth. Scanning electron micrographs are black and white and then colored. Here, the color is light green, which is the natural color of the moth.

2. Sunrise in the eye: zebrafish etina
This incredible image is unbelievably the retina of a 3-day-old zebrafish, looking straight on to it and taking in the whole eye. The scientists managed this by reflecting half the image so that it mimicked the symmetry in a fish.

1. Suckers on joint of foreleg of a male diving beetle.
A glorious photograph of an inglorious subject, the great diving beetle. It actually shows the row of suckers on the male beetle's front legs that females don't have. The suckers are used to grip on to the female when mating. Spike Walker used a technique called Rheinberg illumination to get these colors; it passes light through colored filters.

The actual subjects may not be as exciting as their images but all are of importance to science. The ability to take clearer and more detailed images has allowed science to really see what is going on in certain processes. From micrographs to scanning microscopes to 3D-imagery, science is light years ahead of where it was just 30 years ago.

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