A Reddit user called shystone combined Google Street Views of London with famous 18th and 19th century paintings to create highly unique then-and-now images (via My Modern Met and/r/London).

Shystone layered the paintings on top of the Google Street View images, at times allowing modern cars, statues, and architecture to poke through the painting.

Take a look at how much London has changed below.

"Northumberland House" by Italian painter Canaletto (1752)

"On the South end of Trafalgar Square this huge townhouse stood from 1605 right up to 1874 when it was demolished after compulsorily purchase by Government to make way for a new road," shystone said. "There's a Waterstones on the corner now under an old hotel building."

"Blackman Street London" by British artist John Atkinson Grimshaw (1885)

"The church is St. George The Martyr," shystone said. "Today The Shard is the biggest spire you'll see looking North East up Borough Highstreet."

"The 9th of November, 1888" by English painter William Logsdail (1890)

"[The] Lord Mayor's Procession passing through Bank Junction," according to shystone. "To the left The Old Bank of England — somewhat underwhelmingly, the worlds eighth oldest bank — less than 50 years away from demolition. The Greatest Architectural Crime of the 20th Century in the City of London."

"View of The Grand Walk" by Italian painter Canaletto (1751)

"The Pleasure Gardens in Vauxhall were a big deal in the 1600s," shystone said. "There was music and live entertainment and hot air balloons! Picking up hookers and working boys too by the time this was painted. Better for gay clubbing these days if that's your bag."

"A View of Greenwich from the River" by Italian painter Canaletto (1750-2)

"Greenwich unchanged as ever, minus a few of the sail boats," according to shystone.

"Covent Garden Market" by English painter Balthazar Nebot (1737)

"When this square was originally built in the 1660s it was the first open piazza of its type in London," shystone said. "Pretty famous as a red light district by the time this was painted. Today this view east towards St. Pauls Church is taken up by the Market Hall that got built in 1830."

"St Martins in the Fields" by English painter William Logsdail (1888)

"On the other side of Trafalgar Square is St. Martin's in the Fields," according to shystone. "Not as old as Northumberland House but there's been a church on the site for at least 800 years. You see locals doing Tai Chi at lunchtime in the courtyard over the crypt when the weather is nice."

The River Thames with "St. Paul's Cathedral on Lord Mayor's Day" by Italian painter Canaletto (1746)

"The Millennium Bridge cuts across this patch of the river now," shystone explained. "You still get a great view of St. Pauls from the South side of the river, but in 1746 — only 40 years since they finished building it — it must have totally dominated London's skyline; It was our city's tallest building for over 300 years!"

Westminster Abbey with a "Procession of Knights of the Bath" by Italian painter Canaletto (1749)

"This view hints at the less developed (and less painted) riverfront behind the Abbey the Knights are heading down to," shystone said. "In 1749 Westminster Palace as we see it today wasn't built yet, No Big Ben keyring for Canaletto. Members of Parliament were still using the Abbey's Chapter House to have Commons meetings."

"The Strand Looking East from Exeter Exchange" by an unknown artist (1822)

"The Strand has changed massively since this painting of St. Mary Le Strand," according to shystone. "It was half demolished and widened in 1900 removing all the pokey alleyways and narrow residential roads to the North side. Even the church is a replacement for another one demolished to make way for Somerset House. In 1822 all the roads on the right would have still led right down into the Thames before the embankment was constructed.

"Most of those buildings are gone, but some of the roads remain and retain their slope down towards the old Thames riverbank. On Villers St., the riverbank came right up to where Gordon's Wine Bar is."

SEE ALSO: 20 Pictures Of London Street Life In The 1870s

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When Brooklyn-based filmmakers Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker first arrived in Leith, North Dakota to shoot their documentary "Leith, N.D.,""No Trespassing" signs had just popped up all around town.

"There were these 'No Trespassing' signs everywhere," Nichols told Business insider. "Chris and I were really nervous sometimes because we would be shooting B-roll, and we were worried we were inadvertently going to go on someone's property and not realize it because property there was so vast. Everyone in the town just wanted to be left alone, and they didn't want people snooping around or getting too close."

Nichols and Walker flew to North Dakota after reading a New York Times article about the war brewing in Leith between the town residents and a man named Craig Cobb, who was inviting white supremacists from around the country to stay on his swastika flag-adorned properties.

"Cobb got to the town over a year before we arrived, and was undetected for about a year," Nichols explained. "He seemed like just a sort of peaceful, quite, kind of weird guy."

Most of the residents in the tiny town of 24 thought Cobb was strange. But since he kept to himself, so did they. The only waves Cobb made were whenever he went around town asking people if they had any land to sell — even properties without any working sewer.

Then in August 2013, town mayor Ryan Schock received a call from the Southern Poverty Law Center alerting him to who Cobb really was — a well-known white supremacist.

"Schock really had no idea what a white supremacist was, he was just kind of confused," Nichols said. "But once he found out about Cobb on the internet, he started going around and telling people in the town. There is one black resident that lives [in Leith] and Schock wanted everyone to feel safe."

A "Pioneer Little Europe"

Even after the town was aware of Cobb's beliefs, a majority of the residents didn't mind as long as he didn't stir up trouble.

But stirring up trouble was exactly Cobb's agenda — on his website, he had Google images of Leith charted off with descriptions of plans to create his personal Aryan settlement.

When the residents of Leith saw the website, they finally understood: Cobb was trying to take over and set up his own "Pioneer Little Europe,"as his supporters dubbed it.

Tensions came to a head on September 22nd, when Cobb held a rally in town with Jeff Schoep, the leader of the National Socialist Movement. "We have to start somewhere,"Schoep told Reuters at the time. "So if we start in small towns and spread out from there, it's sort of a test ground in that sense, where if we're able to get off the ground here, then we're able to get off the ground in other places." At the time of the protest, Cobb had already  purchased 13 lots, some for as little as $500.

Hundreds of demonstrators (many of them Native Americans from nearby reservations), along with activism group UnityND, descended upon Leith to protest the American Nazi group with signs that read, "No Hate In Our State" and "Don't let the door KKKick you on the way OUT!"

There were also around a dozen armed state troopers dressed in SWAT team gear, as well as a dozen neo-Nazis on Cobb's property with a banner that read, “Anti-racist is code for anti-white.”

The sleepy cattle-farming community was completely overrun. That's when the "No Trespassing" signs starting appearing on every property. Leith residents wanted their town back.

Leith Fights Back

By the time Nichols and Walker arrived in Leith to shoot their documentary, the residents were taking a stand.

Meanwhile, Cobb had invited dozens of white supremacists to squat on his land, with the hope that with their votes he could take over the city council, thus taking over Leith.

Outsiders thought that the town only had two options: let Cobb take over, or dissolve so there would be no city council and the town could be absorbed into the larger Grant County.

But the 24 Leith residents were not going to let that happen. The majority of them had been there all their lives, and did not want to see their town dissolved.

Instead, they created a brilliant legal strategy that would force Cobb and his sympathizers to lose their foothold.

"They hired this legal team that came up with a strategy that would force Cobb or any other people who were likely sympathizers to Cobb to have potable water on each of their properties," Nichols explained. "A lot of the white supremacists that were coming down were just sitting in Winnebagos on one of Cobb's properties. The ordinance said that Cobb had 30 days to get everything up to code, knowing that that would be a fairly expensive process. Right after that is when everything sort of fell apart for Cobb."

The Aftermath

On November 16th 2013, Cobb was taken to jail in handcuffs after allegedly "patrolling" around the town with rifles and threatening citizens, according to The Bismarck Tribune.

Cobb pleaded not guilty to the seven counts of felony terrorizing and remains in jail, facing up to 35 years in prison if convicted. "I'll be so glad to get out of the state. And I'll never come back to North Dakota,"if prosecutors dropped the charges, Cobb told the Associated Press.

Mayor Ryan Schock told the AP that people in Leith want Cobb to pay for the ordeal he has put the town through. Cobb has been selling off his property in Leith, including his house, though he still owns three other properties.

Nichols and Walker are currently finishing their documentary. They hope to complete it early this spring, and focus on the travails of the town as well as the aftermath.

"[Residents are] just totally fatigued, and they're upset that all of the press about their town is about neo-Nazis and white supremacy," Nichols said. "These are people that really don't want the attention, but they're happy to get it if it means that people will have an idea of what they're going through."

For more information about donating to their "Leith, N.D." documentary, you can contact the filmmakers at noweatherproductions@gmail.com with inquiries. You can also visit their website and Facebook page for more details about the film.

SEE ALSO: Sriracha Fans Will Go Crazy For A New Documentary About The Beloved Condiment

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It's often hard to get attention as a young person in the advertising industry, but the field is nonetheless brimming with bright, young talent and exciting new ideas.

That's why Business Insider makes an annual call for nominations for the 30 most creative people in advertising under the age of 30. Our honorees represent the next generation of leaders. They might not be household names just yet, but they have done the sort of inspiring work that could very well get them there in the near future.

We constructed our list based on a combination of agency and peer nominations, and our own research into awards, campaigns, and innovative potential. Thanks to everyone who submitted a nominee, and congratulations to our winners.

30) Christie Marchese, Age 29: Founder and executive director at Picture Motion

Christie Marchese founded Picture Motion two years ago to help market movies focused on social issues, like 2013's Fruitvale Station, a film based on the racially-charged killing of a San Francisco man by a police officer.

Picture Motion partners with activist groups likely to see a given film and creates ways viewers can continue to interact with the relevant issues after the movie is over. For "Inequality for All," a recent documentary on income inequality, Picture Motion helped coordinate more than 700 home viewing parties for the film, after which participants were invited to a national conference call with economist Robert Reich and U.S. senator Elizabeth Warren to discuss ways to tackle the issue at hand.

Picture Motion coordinated with artists to paint this mural of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old whose murder was at the center of the film Fruitvale Station.

29) Marika Wiggan, Age 28: Strategist at Argonaut

Advertising attracts creative people from a diversity of liberal arts disciplines, but not all of the industry's history majors get to apply their expertise as directly as Argonaut's Marika Wiggan. While working at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Wiggan put her museum studies degree in action by doing an anthropological study of Chevrolet Camaro owners to determine how best to market to them.

Wiggan has also left her handprints on advertising's biggest showcase, helping Chevrolet plan an award-winning mobile app for the 2012 Super Bowl and working on Volkswagen's campaign for this year's game.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt thinks robots have their work cut out for them if they want to replace people.

"There's something about humans that technologists always forget," he said. "Humans are creative and unpredictable."

But futurists like Ray Kurzweil are quick to point to indicators that machine "existence" will one day supersede that of standard human existence.

Kurzweil's predictions have pegged such a time as still being many years away (our brains will supposedly be powered by computers in 2035), but already in the here and now, we have early examples of how robots will not only interact with humans, but may even one day replace humans in certain jobs.

Google's self-driving cars could replace cabs and truck drivers.

Google's self-driving cars are already street legal in certain states. As they continue to be perfected, it's reasonable to imagine them as mostly autonomous delivery vehicles or cabs.

Robots will soon fight alongside flesh-and-blood soldiers.

Unmanned military drones can already fly missions with or without a human behind the controls, and development of humanoid robots with arms and legs is getting so sufficiently advanced that they may end up "stealing" soldiers' jobs.

Amazon's drones could go a long way toward replacing the UPS.

Amazon teased its drone program and got everyone talking about automated delivery. The word is that Amazon will one day be able to dispatch your order to your home by way of GPS in 30 minutes or less if you live within 10 miles of a shipping hub.

As the technology improves and drones fly longer and faster, it's easy to imagine package delivery a la UPS becoming largely automated.

February had a slew of new apps arrive for iPhone and Android. 

Facebook launched a news reader at the beginning of the month that made reading important information on your phone easy while everyone was talking about Secret, the anonymous app Silicon Valley residents were using to bash each other.

The App Store updates with new additions but these are the 12 best apps you need to know for this month. 

12. Paper

At the beginning of the month, Facebook launched Paper. The app is intended as a phone-based equivalent of a newspaper or magazine. Paper pulls content from news stories that your friends share on their pages and lets you peruse through articles on topics like technology and entertainment from a number of publications that partnered with Facebook. All of this information can be read through a series of scrolling screens.

Price: Free

Available:iOS

11. Secret

Anonymous messaging apps became very popular this month especially Secret. This app gained some infamy when Silicon Valley residents began using it to insult each other anonymously. Secret creates your network based on contacts in your phone book and posts will come from people in your contact lists and friends of friends. Users can post anything they want without revealing their name.

Price: Free

Available: iOS

10. Wickr

Wickr is a powerful messaging app that provides military-grade encryption of text, picture, audio and video messages. While similar to Snapchat, Wickr lets you set a countdown timer to set for a self-destructing messages. The length can last for six hours or up to a few seconds. 

Price:

Available: iOS and Android.

Why do good people do bad things?

It takes a much smarter person to answer that on an existential level, but when it comes to making movies, the answer is simple: A paycheck's a paycheck.

Before they were working with people like Martin Scorsese and David O. Russell, this year's crop of Academy Awards nominees were struggling actors, clawing their way to a big break and surviving by taking whatever roles came their way, even if they were embarrassing. 

Since you can't appreciate where you're going without remembering where you've been, we honor the starving artist days of this year's Oscar contenders with a look back at those cringe-worthy entries in their filmographies.

1. Amy Adams starred in the sequel to "Cruel Intentions."

Now: A Best Supporting Actress nominee for American Hustle

Then: Six years before she landed her first Oscar nomination, Amy Adams was seducing family members and saying no to the kind of thing that made Farrah Abraham famous in the straight-to-video sequel to Cruel Intentions. She's come a long way.

2. Matthew McConaughey played a name-less role on "Unsolved Mysteries."

Now: With critically acclaimed and complicated roles in things like Mud, Magic Mike, Killer Joe,and True Detective, the "McConaissance" is in full swing, and it might reach its peak if Dallas Buyers Club earns Mr. "Alright Alright Alright" his first Oscar.

Then: In the acting hierarchy, dramatic reenactments on daytime TV fall just above "extra" and just below "infomercial participant," but that didn't stop 1992 McConaughey from acting the hell out of an Unsolved Mysteries bit that required him to square off against a neighborhood pedophile (in short shorts no less).

3. Jennifer Lawrence appeared on an episode of "Monk."

Now: She could win Oscars in back-to-back years thanks to the nomination for her supporting role in American Hustle.

Then: Lawrence's first role ever was on an episode of Monk. While she had more than a minute of screen time, as "Mascot" her face was relegated to cameo status. Pestering Tony Shalhoub while dancing around in a full-body cougar costume was a baby step towards greatness.

Bonus: Lawrence's first major film role came with more lines and less mask-wearing, but was even more cringe-inducing. The Poker House was a bad look for everyone involved (especially Selma Blair, who should probably buy and burn every last DVD copy still in existence).

The world's most innovative and architecturally impressive university buildings can be found on campuses from Tokyo to upstate New York.

International building database Emporis has just released a list of the most spectacular university buildings around the globe.

From a campus building in Belgium dating back to 1928 to Turino's Luigi Einaudi center, completed last year, these university buildings are worth a tour.

Biblioteca Central, home to 400,000 books at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, opened its doors in April 1956. The outside is covered in a tiled mosaic painted by Juan O'Gorman. Each wall represents a part of Mexico's past: pre-Hispanic, colonial, contemporary and the university's place in modern Mexico.

Bradfield Hall at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., is almost entirely windowless to give it the feeling of a medieval fort. It's the tallest building on its campus and opened in 1969. The building houses departments for crop and soil science, Earth and atmospheric sciences, plant breeding, and genetics.

The brand-new Campus Luigi Einaudi at Universita Degli Studi Di Torino in northwestern Italy houses facilities for 5,000 law and political science students. The design represents a modern interpretation of the traditional cloistered quadrangle.

I've been in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress (MWC) since Saturday.

MWC is a trade show for the mobile industry. It's freaking gigantic. I've never been to MWC, or CES, so I've been overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the whole thing.

I spent two days taking photos of what it's like to walk around. Hopefully you get a sense of how big this whole event is. 

Start the day off hitting the streets of Barcelona.

Down the Barcelona metro, we go!

Hello, train.

When it first opened in 1977, White Flint Mall was pure glamor. Donna Karan attended one of two celebratory black-tie events. Elizabeth Taylor – Cleopatra herself, then on her sixth or seventh husband, Senator John Warner of Virginia – attended the other.

Through the expansive glass roof, sunlight shone down on a central atrium featuring tropical vegetation, lush carpeting, and not one but two glass elevators that would have made Charlie Bucket blush. Mirror-lined escalators carried eager shoppers from floor to terrazzo floor. Smooth jazz played smoothly. Privileged denizens of Montgomery County promenaded leisurely from shop to shop to shop, down Italian lanes and cobblestoned streets, without a care in the world.

Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, the Roman forum of this leisure palace was the food court. Its emperor, Orange Julius. Its cuisine, that of Naples-born Gennaro Sbarro.

And then Vesuvius happened. Vesuvius, in this case, being a general and growing American discontent with the enclosed shopping malls that captivated the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in favor of the roofless “lifestyle center” of the 2000s and beyond. In 2011, the owners of White Flint Mall announced the structure would be closed down and demolished to make way for another lifestyle center.

So behold White Flint Mall’s dining establishments, after the volcano.

Mrs. Fields is put out to pasture. But that’s how the cookie crumbles.

Check Out: Ikea (Market) Hacking >

The eerie weirdness of the abandoned food court’s neon wonderland.

Lots of seating, but no one to sit there.

The most successful people in the world didn't make it on their own.

That's why LinkedIn asked over 90 leaders across a variety of industries to share the best advice they've ever received and continue using to this day.

Many recalled something that their parents, teachers, or career mentors taught them that has never left their hearts and minds.

These bits of wisdom inspired them to stay focused, compassionate, and driven, and continue to motivate them. 

Scroll down to read the most influential advice used by some of the business world's top minds.

Julia Boorstin was told to say "yes" to every job opportunity that came her way — and then put in the work to make sure it's done right.

The CNBC correspondent joined Fortune magazine straight out of college and was anxious about working on projects she considered beyond her skill set. Her editor Andy Serwer taught her to simply say "yes" to every opportunity that came her way and do whatever was necessary to get it done.

Richard Branson's father taught him to always protect the downside in business.

When Branson, founder of Virgin Group, was 15, he wanted to leave school to start a magazine. His father told him that he could not begin until he sold enough advertising to cover the printing and paper costs, so that a failure would not rid him of funds. Branson used that same strategy as head of Virgin Records when he was ready to start his own airline.

Deepak Chopra learned how to use his "complete brain."

Chopra, the renowned leadership guru, adopted a new worldview from psychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel. Siegel saw the brain as a tool that needs daily upkeep, and prescribed a "healthy mind platter" of sleep time, physical time, focus time, time in (self-reflection), down time, play time, and — most importantly — connecting time.

Beautiful sports photography is one of the best parts of every Olympics.

The photographers for Reuters did a series of awesome multi-exposure images that show athletes in every stage of their difficult maneuvers.

These photos are even more proof of the strength every Olympian needs to successfully compete.

This photo shows how close the skiers get in the women's freestyle skiing skicross.

U.S. cross country skier Sophie Caldwell works through one single step.

Silver medalist Yuna Kim works through a jump in practice.

Alberto Franco, emerging market expert and former hedge fund manager at Quantek Frontier, is selling his modern South Florida beach front home, the Wall Street Journal reports.

According to the listing, the 8,960 square foot residence offers an oversized dock with private boat slip — all for just a hair under a cool $13 million. 

The house is listed with Franco's real estate agent wife, Rossana Franco of Carrington Real Estate Services.

The home sits on approximately 100 feet of water frontage in the town of Golden Beach, Florida. Originally listed for $12 million, Mrs. Franco decided to raise the price this month to just under $13 million due to the strengthening local market, reports WSJ.

The owners bought the waterfront property for $3.4 million back in 2006. Both the front and back of the home features landscaped courtyard areas.

Inside, the living, dining and kitchen areas are combined in one large space with gray limestone flooring and stark white walls. The home has six bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

Here's a quick and fun way to enrich your business knowledge: streaming documentaries on Netflix.

The online movie and TV service has a vast cache of business and tech documentaries that anyone with a subscription can watch instantly. The topics range from profiles of great tech innovators like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk to deep dives into industrial design.

Each of these 12 documentaries offers an entertaining storyline, as well as valuable insights into business success. 

How to create a culture that fosters creativity and great ideas

"Inside: Pixar," a 2013 film by Bloomberg, takes viewers behind the scenes at Pixar to show the zany corporate campus and key personalities that drive this multi-billion-dollar business. Chronicling the animation company from the Steve Jobs days when it was trying to make a name for itself to the more recent integration with Disney, the film shows viewers how Pixar leaders cultivate creativity and maintain a fun-loving culture where great ideas can spark.

How to become a millionaire before turning 30

"Elon Musk: Bloomberg Risk Takers" brings the viewer back to Musk's childhood in South Africa and chronicles his journey to stunning entrepreneurial success. The serial entrepreneur sold his software company Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options at age 28. Now age 42, he's a co-founder of PayPal and the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors. 

How lifelong dedication and obsession with quality can pay off

"Jiro Dreams Of Sushi" profiles Jiro Ono, a Japanese sushi chef and restaurant owner who is widely revered for his skill and $300-a-plate dinners. It follows the 85-year-old master as he works with vendors to secure the finest ingredients, manages and mentors his staff, and prepares his son to succeed him when he retires. The movie brings viewers inside the dedication, obsession, and decades of hard work it takes to achieve perfection.

In a recent Gallup ranking of the happiest states in the U.S., North Dakota shot up the list from number 19 to number 1, ousting longtime frontrunner Hawaii.

It ranked as the top state in both work environment and physical health, and was ranked 2nd in emotional health and 4th in life evaluation.

A big reason for North Dakota's success on this year's list has been a boom in job growth. For the fifth year in a row, the Midwestern state was number 1 in employee perceptions of job creation at their workplaces in 2013, as measured by the Gallup Job Creation Index.

North Dakota has also benefitted from a surge in its oil industry (look no further than its boomtown of Williston), and has the sixth-highest per-capita personal income in America, according to a new payroll-to-population state ranking.

For the fifth year in a row, North Dakota has topped all other states with an unemployment rate below 3%, mainly due to a boom in the oil industry.

Source: United States Department of Labor

The economy there grew at five times the national average in 2012, and is grew nearly three times faster than the #2 state, Texas. A lot of workers are migrating to North Dakota looking for jobs.

Source: CNN Money

Which means home prices are insane right now due to the influx of people. According to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, North Dakota saw a 200% jump in homelessness last year, the biggest increase of any state.

The World Economic Forum, famous for its annual Davos convention in Switzerland, has put out a new report identifying the top technological trends for the coming year.

"Technology has become perhaps the greatest agent of change in the modern world," writes WEF's Noubar Afeyan. "While never without risk, positive technological breakthroughs promise innovative solutions to the most pressing global challenges of our time, from resource scarcity to global environmental change."

"By highlighting the most important technological breakthroughs, the Council aims to raise awareness of their potential and contribute to closing gaps in investment, regulation and public understanding," he writes.

From wearable electronics to brain-computer interfaces, here are the big technologies to look out for this year.

1. Body-adapted Wearable Electronics

"These virtually invisible devices include earbuds that monitor heart rate, sensors worn under clothes to track posture, a temporary tattoo that tracks health vitals and haptic shoe soles that communicate GPS directions through vibration alerts felt by the feet.

"The applications are many and varied: haptic shoes are currently proposed for helping blind people navigate, while Google Glass has already been worn by oncologists to assist in surgery via medical records and other visual information accessed by voice commands."

Source: WEF

2. Nanostructured Carbon Composites

"Emissions from the world’s rapidly-growing fleet of vehicles are an environmental concern, and raising the operating efficiency of transport is a promising way to reduce its overall impact.

"New techniques to nanostructure carbon fibers for novel composites are showing the potential in vehicle manufacture to reduce the weight of cars by 10% or more. Lighter cars need less fuel to operate, increasing the efficiency of moving people and goods and reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

Source: WEF

3. Mining Metals from Desalination Brine

As freshwater continues to dwindle, desalinating seawater has emerged as an option. "Desalination has serious drawbacks, however. In addition to high energy use, the process produces a reject-concentrated brine, which can have a serious impact on marine life when returned to the sea.

"Perhaps the most promising approach to solving this problem is to see the brine from desalination not as waste, but as a resource to be harvested for valuable materials. These include lithium, magnesium and uranium, as well as the more common sodium, calcium and potassium elements." 

Source: WEF

The Agence France-Presse recently tweeted a couple of photos of what can only be described as excruciating displays of strength and focus by Belarus Interior Ministry special forces.

Belarus, sometimes referred to as the last dictatorship of Europe, has firmly resisted attempts to modernize from the Soviet period. Instead, the country remains fiercely militaristic, hearkening back to the days of Stalin. It is in Moscow's sphere of influence and shares a border with Ukraine. 

The Interior Ministry of Belarus oversees the country's security forces. Soldiers of the ministry often go through incredible training to prove their worth as they attempt to achieve the rank of Red Beret.

These photos give you an idea of the punishing practices Belarusian special forces go through:

Soldiers must pass a series of grueling physical tests if they wish to become a Red Beret, such as live fight tests.

Training for the Red Beret also requires the completion of multiple obstacle courses in adverse conditions.

Generally, tests are done without any safety measures in place. Here, a soldier jumps over a burning tire.

The obstacle courses are just as much about endurance as agility. Here, soldiers pop in and out of smoking concrete craters.

Orthodox Christianity plays a major role for the Belarusian army. Here, a trainee marks the Epiphany by jumping into a freezing lake east of Minsk.

Soldiers often take part in religious observances during training and drills. Here, they kiss an Orthodox icon.

Although most soldiers are deeply Orthodox, the pagan holiday Maslenitsa also plays a prominent role in the military.

Feats of strength are a primary component of Maslenitsa.

Interior Ministry soldiers in the  put on shows to display their physical prowess.

Aside from tests of strength, soldiers also take part in agility demonstrations.

Here, soldiers display their endurance and tenacity by holding formation in the freezing weather for Maslenitsa.

In Soviet style, Defender of the Fatherland Day is also a major event in Belarus. Here, a soldier throws a log as part of a competition.

As part of the celebrations for Defender of the Fatherland Day, a soldier breaks a concrete slab balanced on a recruit's chest with a sledgehammer.

The work pays off. Aside from military duties, soldiers of the interior ministry routinely help bring in the harvest at state collective farms, and receive part of the harvest in turn.

SEE ALSO: Here's the intense training that U.S. soldiers go through

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When Ruben Plasencia Caninobegan brainstorming a new photo project about prejudice, it didn't take him long to decide on a subject — the blind.

Blind people, he felt, are unique because they are subject to prejudices, but can't see other people to form their own, at least visually.

With his show "Obscure," Plasencia wanted to force viewers to look directly into the eyes of people who can't see. 

In a recent interview with Business Insider, Plasencia said he wants the photos to force viewers to confront the "incessant prejudices and stereotypes" that we project onto other people everyday.

While 39 million people in the world are blind, many of us never consider what it's like to live without sight. 

“In our society, just a small minority take the trouble to put themselves in the place of a blind person,” Plasencia told Slate. 

To begin the project, Plasencia worked with ONCE, Spain's national organization for the blind. After spending two months photographing the blind, Plasencia found himself moved by the experience, which he says, "opened my eyes, and my heart, to a whole new world of sensations.”

Plasencia shared some of the striking photos with us below, but you can see the rest (and some of his other projects)at his website.

SEE ALSO: An Artist Made These Incredible Portraits Out Of Packing Tape

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Prices for homes in Northern California are notoriously steep, with tech money contributing to a somewhat inflated real estate market. 

According to a recent report by real estate information service DataQuick, luxury home sales in the area continue to grow, with 2,604 homes selling for more than $2 million last year. This was a 28% jump from 2012 and the highest number ever recorded. 

The team at Point2Homes helped us gather data on the most expensive homes for sale in eight Silicon Valley cities: Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Campbell, Monte Sereno, Los Altos, San Jose, and Mountain View. 

Palo Alto — home to tech giants Tim Cook, Marissa Mayer, and Mark Zuckerberg — completely dominated the list with 7 of the 15 priciest homes on the market.

You may be surprised to see how much these homes really cost. 

This house makes for a great hilltop hideaway.

Address: 13220 Peacock Court, Cupertino

Price: $3.99 million

Situated on 6.5 acres of property, the home has a huge pool, sport court, putting green, and easy access to miles of hiking trails. 

This 13,100-square-foot home is located in a private gated community.

Address: Silver Creek, San Jose

Price: $4 million

The San Jose home boasts 8 bedrooms, full gym, bowling alley, dance studio, and parking for 7 cars.  

This Los Altos home is great for young families.

Address: 1131 Hillslope Place, Los Altos

Price: $4.298 million

The house's five bedrooms include one on the lower level that would be ideal for an au pair, according to the listing. 

Oscar nominations are based on the performances of the actors and actresses, but Hollywood is a bottom-line business, so we checked up on how this year’s stars have done at the box office as the races wind down to the March 2nd Academy Awards.

There are some numbers that will probably surprise you, because most of these actors and actresses cut their biggest box-office swaths with films other than the ones that earned them their nominations.

Also read: Ranking Oscar Best Picture Nominees as Investments: Which Film Made Back the Most Money?

This list is very unscientific, because it has to be. How, for example, can you really compare the career of Bruce Dern, who has been in at least 85 movies, with that of fellow Best Supporting Actor nominee Barkhad Abdi, who made his film debut in “Captain Phillips”?

The cumulative totals are based on numbers from Box Office Mojo. There’s no accounting for inflation unless mentioned, however. That means that some of the films listed as a performer’s “lowest grossing wide release” — we didn’t count limited release films — may well have been hits in their day.

Oscar nom's grosses, ranked >

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett ("Blue Jasmine")

Her turns as Lady Galadriel in the hugely successful “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” movies make Blanchett by far the queen of the box office among this year’s Best Actress Oscar nominees. Outside of Middle Earth, her biggest payday was 2008’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” The 1998 drama “Elizabeth” is her top grossing film as a leading lady.

No. of movies: 33

Top grossing: “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” ($1.1 billion) 2003

Lowest grossing wide release: “Elizabeth the Golden Age” ($74 million) 2007

Cumulative: $5.8 billion

Power Grid score: 88

Best Actress: Judi Dench ("Philomena")

Like Blanchett, it’s her recurring roles in a blockbuster franchise – Dench has played “M” in seven James Bond movies – that make the venerable British actress a very heavy box-office hitter. Her biggest hit when not in Her Majesty’s Secret Service was 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love,” for which she won the Supporting Actress Oscar. This year’s “Philomena” – which is at $78 million globally and counting – is her biggest score in a leading role.

No. of movies: 30

Top grossing: “Skyfall” ($1.1 billion) 2012

Lowest grossing: “J. Edgar” ($84 million) 2011

Cumulative: $5 billion

Power Grid score: 88

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock (“Gravity”)

Her career got a big boost with “The Blind Slide,” the 2009 football movie for which she won the Best Actress Oscar that went on to make $309 million worldwide. Since then she’s starred in “The Heat” with Melissa McCarthy ($229 million worldwide) and “Gravity” ($700 million). She’s been a box office force since “Speed” took in $350 million in 1994 and her breakout role as a top banana came in 2000’s “Miss Congeniality.”

No. of movies: 33

Top grossing: “Gravity” ($700 million worldwide), 2013

Lowest grossing wide release: “All About Steve” ($40 million), 2009

Cumulative: $3.8 billion

Power Grid score: 86

There's no magic bullet to living beyond the age of 100. But some places are on the right track. 

National Geographic writer Dan Buettner seeks out "Blue Zones," a few pockets around the world where a higher number of people live for a remarkably long time.

The remote island of Ikaria in Greece is one hotspot of exceptional human longevity. Here, there are more healthy people over 90 than any other place on the planet.

Buettner and his team spent 15 months studying the centenarians of Ikaria. The trip was documented in a series of videos, in which the researchers identified eight major secrets to reaching a record-setting age.  

First, some geography. Ikaria is an isolated Greek island in the Aegean Sea.

Watch the videos > 

Amid the lush green forests and beautiful waters, you'll find people who live longer than anywhere else on Earth.

Watch the videos > 

Buettner says only about 20% of how long we live is dictated by genes; the rest is lifestyle.

Watch the videos >