World Class Photos

View the entire collection of winning images from the 55th World Press Photo Contest. The winners were selected from over 100,000 images submitted to the contest

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Infinite Forest

NYC's West Village AIDS Memorial Park competition

Brooklyn architecture firm Studio a+i has nabbed the top prize in a design competition for a public park and memorial on a wedge of land in New York City's West Village.

Called Infinite Forest, it is devoid of statues, sculptures or plaques. Instead, the architects have proposed three separate, 3.6-metre-tall facing mirror walls that frame – and reflect – 20 white birch trees and delineate the triangular block from the surrounding neighbourhood. For the wall's street-facing sides, the design proposes a chalkboard finish that welcomes impromtu chalk-written messages from visitors and passersby.

The site was initially occupied by St. Vincent's Hospital, a facility that once housed the globe's most advanced HIV treatment programs. Below the park, the firm has proposed a wedge-shaped, learning centre, equipped to host exhibitions and performances and accessed by stairs and ramps and lit via skylights. 

"The image is just so captivating. It succeeds as an urban space that is both a neighbourhood park and a memorial. I didn’t see it as an either/or," says Michael Arad, jury chair and designer of the National September 11 Memorial.

See v Observe

Sherlock Holmes isn’t what you’d call a traditional psychologist. In fact, he isn’t even real (despite the letters that to this day arrive at 221B Baker Street). But we’d be well advised, as decision makers who want to gain better insight into our minds and the processes that lie behind our choices, to take a few pages from the playbook of Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation.

Sherlock Holmes teaches us to be constantly mindful of our surroundings

Shattering Secrets: Incest

Mackenzie Phillips' recent admission about her intimate relationship with her own father - John Phillips of the famous musical group The Mamas and The Papas - has prompted others to bring their own stories of incest to Oprah's TV show.

Learn more about their painful stories filled with confusing emotions.

Flash Memory

How old is YOUR brain?

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I'd recognize that ASS anywhere

Chimpanzees may not forget a familiar face — or a behind, a new study says.

In a recent experiment, captive primates were able to identify photos of their acquaintances' rears and match them with the right faces.

The ability suggests that the animals possess mental "whole body" representations of other chimps they know.

Each participating chimp was flashed a picture of another's bum, with visible genitals, then shown the face of the derriere's owner and another face of the same gender.

Both males and females were successful in this anatomical match game, pairing faces and posteriors with much greater frequency than chance alone—but only if the photos showed chimps they already knew.