Amazing Events In Pictures

This is the jaw-dropping moment a daredevil kayaker paddled down a waterfall almost 100ft high. Jesse Coombs took kayaking to the extreme when he became the first person to successfully kayak down Abiqua Falls in Oregan, US.

A quintet of Saturn's moons come together in the Cassini spacecraft's field of view. Janus (179 km, or 111 miles across) is on the far left. Pandora (81 km, or 50 miles across) orbits between the A ring and the thin F ring near the middle of the image.

A space fan has given his late grandmother the ultimate send-off - by scattering her ashes in the stratosphere. Chester Mojay-Sinclare, 22, placed Pat Sinclare's remains into a mini urn and attached it to a meteorological balloon which he floated 100,000ft above East Anglia. A mechanism then released the ashes into the stratosphere - where they instantly dissipated into the jet stream...

...Now the enterprising youngster has taken his idea to market - offering the experience to likeminded individuals for £5,000. He has now launched a business - www.stardustashes.com - offering the service for human and pet ashes. Chester's inspiration came from a project last year where he launched a potato dressed as Father Christmas into the stratosphere using the specialist balloon. The spaceship, named Spudnik, reached 90,000ft before the balloon burst and the shuttle floated back down to earth on a parachute. He said: "Gran saw the press cuttings. A family member mentioned it off the cuff that you could send ashes into space and my gran said it would be a great idea."

This was the potato dressed as a Santa is seen against the curvature of the earth after it was launched into space by school children from Devon.

A wacky range of iPhone cases has been designed to help disguise the fact you are chatting on your mobile. The £13 EARonic cases feature realistic images of ears so it doesn't look as if you have a handset pressed to the side of your head. Designed by Daniela Gilsanz, a design student at RISD (The Rhode Island School of Design), they can be bought online from www.collabcubedshop.com...

...You can choose from a range of styles: Finley (plain white ear); Luna (female multi-pierced ear); Razor (male multi-pierced ear); Dylan (plain black ear); and Nick (blue-tooth on ear). 

Danish company Aesir have collaborated with American designer, Yves Behar, to create the Æ+Y, an 18-carat-gold mobile phone. The £37,000 handset isn't even a smartphone - it only allows you to call and send texts (using its staggered Qwerty keyboard). If your budget doesn't quite stretch to the gold phone, there's also a stainless steel version for £6,300. 

A custom Tata Motors Nano, adorned with gold, silver and gemstones, is unveiled in Mumbai. The car contains 80 kilograms of 22-carat gold, 15 kilograms of silver, and numerous gemstones.

This is the world's smallest digital camera, measuring just over one inch in all dimensions and weighing only half an ounce. The camera provides automatic focus and has a 2 MP image sensor that captures crisp JPEG photographs at 1600 x 1200 resolution and AVI video at 30 frames per second at 640 x 480 resolution. It is available from Hammacher Schlemmer for $99.95 or £63.79. 

Visitors experience a 360-degree holographic deep sea movie in Yantai, Shandong Province, China. The film uses 3D simulation technology combined with LED light dot matrix and digital holographic sound system.

Underwater photographer Fiona Ayerst captures pictures of bull sharks off the coast of Mozambique, southern Africa

A humpback whale breaches near a paddle surfer in Nuqui, Colombia. Dan Merkel from Santa Barbara, California, had travelled to Nuqui on the west coast of Colombia when he spotted the encounter. Each year from July to October about 2,000 humpback whales are known to swim to the warm waters off the coast of Colombia to breed and feed their calves.

Welcome to Cat House On The Kings in Parlier, California, the world's largest cage-free cat sanctuary and home to over 1,000 rescued felines. The gated property supports eight specialised cat homes and boasts cats of all breeds and sizes. They call her the 'crazy cat lady', but Lynea Lattanzio begs to disagree:"I'm not crazy, but what I do is crazy". 

The world's shortest living woman Bridgette Jordan, 22, from Sandoval, Illinois, works at a computer. She stands 2ft 3in (69cm) tall. Ms Jordan likes to stay active and often spends time dancing and cheerleading. On her record-breaking achievement Ms Jordan said: "It feels awesome. It's great to be small. I believe that everyone should be confident in themselves."

Fernando Cruz Vega, a three-year-old boy who was born without arms, draws in a room at the shanty town of Libertad in Comas, Lima, Peru. Deysi Vega, Fernando's mother, has travelled from Mollobamba in the jungles of Peru to Lima to seek medical help and rehabilitation therapies for her son.

Surging waves hit against the breakwater in Udono in a port town of Kiho, Mie Prefecture, Japan. A powerful typhoon was bearing down on Japan's tsunami-ravaged northeastern coast on Wednesday, approaching a nuclear power plant crippled in that disaster and prompting calls for the evacuation of more than a million people