The latest imagery update has now arrived on Google Maps, and with it comes this rather sad image of a beached Sperm Whale on the island of Hjelmsøya, which is off the coast of the extreme north of Norway.

According to gyrrus, who found the image of the whale:

it probably drifted onshore already dead … and was removed by the Norwegian Coast Guard a week or two after this image was taken.

This isn’t the only example of a dead whale found in Google’s imagery – all the way back in February 2006 we posted this image of a bleeding whale on a beach in South Africa.

We also previously featured a couple of pods of very-much-alive whales, as well as a roundup of some of the best fake whales across the globe.

Thanks to gyrrus.

Our friends over at Virtual Globetrotting are currently running a Street View scavenger hunt to find interesting words in the imagery.

Prizes for the top 5 competitors in the scavenger hunt is a copy of the 5 star rated classic Off the Map, the US edition of the Google Sightseeing Book.

Rules of the Scavenger Hunt are available on Virtual Globetrotting or, if your not so good at hunting, the book is still available for purchase on Amazon UK and US.

Earlier this month the still-incomplete Burj Dubai building in Dubai officially surpassed the height of all other buildings, towers and masts worldwide, making it the tallest man-made structure on the planet.

Currently standing at a staggering 688 m, construction of Burj Dubai is set to continue for another year, and the final height will not be announced until the building opens in September 2009.

As you can see, the Google Earth image was taken while the building was still just a toddler, but you can get an idea of how it might look with a 3D model.

Before the Burj Dubai came along the process for deciding on the world’s tallest building was strangely complex – there’s actually 4 possible categories to consider – and there were separate records for supported masts.

Burj Dubai simplified the debate by taking the top spot in all possible categories, but it gives us an opportunity to revisit all the previous record holders, many of which have been updated since we previously looked at tall buildings and the world’s tallest towers.

Taipei 101 in Taiwan once held the “tallest building” record in 3 of the 4 possible categories with its architectural height of 508 m, highest occupied floor of 438 m and roof height of 448 m.

For the moment at least, Taipei 101 retains the title of largest completed building, but after the completion of Burj Dubai it will have to settle for being the location of the world’s fastest ascending elevator, which can get you up to the 101st floor at a gut-wrenching 37.7 mph!

Chicago’s Sears Tower was once the holder of all tall building records. Taipei 101 failed to conquer its record of “height with antenna”, at 529 m, but Burj Dubai has easily cleared that without the need of extra-reaching aerials.

Lastly, the rope-supported KVLY-TV mast in Blanchard, North Dakota, was officially the tallest man-made structure on the planet at a height of 629 m. The fact that Burj Dubai already tops this height without any external supports is testament to just how amazing an engineering feat it really is.

Further reading at the Wikipedia pages for Burj Dubai, Taipei 101, Sears tower and KVLY-TV mast.

Here at Google Sightseeing we love to explore abandoned, off-limits places, much as the rest of the Internet does – from a safe distance. In the past we’ve featured abandoned towns, cities, mines and even whole abandoned islands, but we’ve never yet featured an abandoned experimental pond.

While not normally the subject of much experimentation (after all, ponds are already very good at being ponds), this particular pond was built in the early 1960s by the Nippon Steel Corporation as part of an investigation into the osmotic pressure produced between fresh and sea water.

As it turned out, the sea water was deemed “too salty”, and just like that, Nippon Steel gave up on the whole idea.

Today the pond, known as ‘Shintou Jikken Ike’, is instead the cosy home to a colony of happy cormorants – which just goes to show you that sometimes a pond is just a pond.

Here’s some ground level photos of the pond as discovered by a wandering Japanese photographer.

Thanks to Hide.

The Danish town of Fredericia is under attack!

A 35 metre tall giant is (admittedly very slowly), clawing his way out of the earth to wreak havoc upon the defenceless surface-dwelling Danes. So far the terrifying creature has only managed to completely free his hands, but he’s threatening to break the rest of himself through at any moment.

Which means that we have the unique opportunity to present a very special award; this is, without doubt, quite probably the world’s largest arse!

While we’re unclear whether or not visitors may take a picnic onto the grass, we’re sure that the giant’s giant-butt-crack would afford a reasonable amount of shelter from the wind if someone chose to attempt such a thing…

This isn’t the only example of giants breaking free from their underground lairs – over in Washington D.C. another giant is clawing his way out of the ground, watched by a crowd of onlookers (Wikipedia).

Given that he’s managed to expose a little more of himself, perhaps we should be grateful that he chose to emerge face first…

Thanks to bjarnebf, Simon and Jimbo.