Koi
From humble origins, the koi has come to be the most precious of all fish, the most beautiful specimens selling for up to $2.2 million.
Klerksdorp sphere
Klerksdorp spheres are small objects, often spherical to disc-shaped, that have been collected by miners and rockhounds from 3-billion-year-old pyrophyllite deposits. Geologists agree that the Klerksdorp spheres originated as concretions, which formed in volcanic sediments, ash, or both, after they accumulated 3 billion years ago.
Harry Kessler
W.H. Auden called Harry Kessler the most cosmopolitan man who ever lived. Aesthete, patron, diplomat, diarist, peace campaigner, defender of the Weimar republic and exile from Nazism, this ultra-sophisticated German count belongs to a type that probably no longer exists: a moneyed and cultivated amateur whose brains and background brought him effortless access to politics, society and intellectual life in any capital where he set foot.
Kadupul flower
Kadupui is a flower that blooms at midnight and dies in the morning.
Karlheinz Weinberger
For decades the work of Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger was shrouded in obscurity. In the 1950s he published numerous homoerotic photographs under the pseudonym "Jim" in Der Kreis, the legendary international gay magazine that featured highly sophisticated photographs by, among others, George Platt Lynes and Herbert List. Weinberger was one of the first queer photographers to show his often working-class models posing in their everyday surroundings.
Kuru
Kuru is a very rare, incurable neurodegenerative disorder that was formerly common among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea. Kuru is also known as the "laughing sickness" due to the pathologic bursts of laughter which are a symptom of the disease. It is now widely accepted that kuru was transmitted among members of the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea via funerary cannibalism. Deceased family members were traditionally cooked and eaten, which was thought to help free the spirit of the dead. Women and children usually consumed the brain, the organ in which infectious prions were most concentrated, thus allowing for transmission of kuru. The disease was therefore more prevalent among women and children.
Kakapo
The Kakapo is a species of flightless nocturnal parrot endemic to New Zealand. Kakapo are critically endangered; as of April 2009, only 125.
Kray twins
The Kray twins were English gangsters who were foremost perpetrators of organized crime in London's East End during the 1950s and '60s. Ronald, commonly referred to as Ron or Ronnie, most likely suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. With their gang, The Firm, the Krays were involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, assaults, and the murders of Jack "The Hat" McVitie and George Cornell. As West End nightclub owners, they mixed with prominent entertainers including Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and with politicians. The Krays were much feared within their milieu, and in the '60s became celebrities in their own right, even being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television.
Konrad Lorenz
Konrad Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist and founder of modern ethology, the study of animal behaviour by means of comparative zoological methods.
Mitsuo Katsui
Mitsuo Katsui is a Japanese graphic designer.