Tianjin Binhai Library. China’s Futuristic and Controversial New Library

Tianjin Binhai Library, located just outside Beijing, features a luminous spherical atrium with bookshelves lining the walls, from floor to ceiling. What looks to be a book lover's ultimate fantasy could ultimately house 1.2 millions tomes.

Text description provided by the architects. MVRDV in collaboration with local architects TUPDI has completed the library, a 33,700m2 cultural centre featuring a luminous spherical auditorium around which floor-to-ceiling bookcases cascade. The undulating bookshelf is the building’s main spatial device, and is used both to frame the space and to create stairs, seating, the layered ceiling and even louvres on the façade. Tianjin Binhai Library was designed and built in a record-breaking time of only three years due to a tight schedule imposed by the local municipality. Next to many media rooms it offers space for 1,2 million books.

"Salvator Mundi". Leonardo da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3 Million

Leonardo da Vinci‘s Salvator Mundi (circa 1500), billed as the last known painting by the Renaissance master in private hands, sold at Christie’s for $450.3 million. It is, by far, the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction. In fact, the price is more than double the next most expensive work ever sold, Picasso’s Les femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’), which fetched $179.4 million in 2015.

The work went to an anonymous client of Alex Rotter, Christie’s global co-head of contemporary art. Before a packed salesroom and scores of camera phones held aloft, bidding opened at $70 million. At $190 million, five bidders—four on the phones and one in the room—were still chasing the painting.

The 19-minute contest eventually came down to Rotter and Francois De Poortere, the head of Christie’s Old Master painting department in New York.

At $352 million, auctioneer Jussi Pylkkanen produced a glass of ice water from behind the rostrum and took a sip.

How Soviet Artists Imagined Communist Life in Space

Artists from the Soviet Union didn't just imagine a worker's Utopia on Earth. They also thought that the great communist experiment would eventually reach other worlds, too. Here are some incredible works of art and conceptual design that put the Soviet Union in space.

Testicular cancer: 5 things every man needs to know

Cancer isn’t something anyone wants to spend a lot of time thinking about, yet knowledge is power. When it comes to testicular cancer, acting early has huge implications.

Here are five things every man needs to know:

Testicular cancer is very curable. While a cancer diagnosis is always serious, the good news about testicular cancer is that it is treated successfully in 95 percent of cases. If treated early, that number rises to 98 percent. Although a man’s risk of getting it is 1 in 263, his chance of dying from the disease is only about 1 in 5,000.

Early detection is especially important. Say you have a stage 1 seminoma — a tumor that grows slowly and stays within the testicle — our standard management is observing it with serial exams, blood work, chest X-rays and CT scans. The likelihood of a cure in this circumstance? Virtually 100 percent. Even metastatic testicular cancer is highly curable, typically with a combination of chemotherapy and surgery.

5 interesting facts about the human body

Your body is many things: a mechanical device, a walking chemistry set, a sustainable life form, and an ever-changing biological phenomenon. There's a lot to know about the body. Were you aware of these amazing facts?

1. For every pound of fat gained, you add seven miles of new blood vessels.

New tissue needs blood supply, so your vascular system expands to accommodate it. This also means your heart must work harder to pump blood through the new network, which may reduce oxygenation and nutrient replenishment in other tissues. Lose a pound? Your body will break down and reabsorb the unneeded blood vessels from the previous tissue.

2. You are taller in the morning than in the evening.

Temple of Artemis, Sardis

The Temple of Artemis in Sardis was the fourth largest Ionic temple in the world. Originally built in 300 BC by the ancient Greeks, the temple was renovated by the Romans in the 2nd century AD. During the Roman period it served also as a temple of the imperial cult.

Just outside the entrance was an altar of Artemis much older than the temple, from as early as the 6th century BC. In the Hellenistic period the altar was incorporated into a large stepped platform that still exists.

Immortality is impossible, say scientists studying the mathematics of aging

While healthcare has dramatically extended our lifespans by preventing certain causes of death, aging still inevitably takes its fatal toll. And, as scientists report in a new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study, that’s not going to change: Whether it’s by cancer or run-of-the-mill cell destruction, aging and death is mathematically inescapable.

In the paper published Monday, Joanna Masel, Ph.D., and Paul Nelson, Ph.D., both of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, provide mathematical evidence that aging and eventual death must happen, no matter how we intervene in the aging process.

They explain that every cell in the body is tasked with two opposing missions: ensuring its own survival and supporting the organism it’s a part of. Masel and Nelson reason that this endless push and pull between those missions means that aging is unstoppable.