When little Andrew Calabrese’s pancreas gave out at age three, leaving him with a lifelong diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, his parents Heidi and Jason wanted to do everything possible help him through the life altering disease. While Heidi set-up a support group to connect with other families battling the illness, Jason, a software engineer, devoted his time to building a device that could help regulate his son’s insulin levels.

He eventually succeeded in building an artificial pancreas system using OpenAPS (Open Artificial Pancreas System), a free online project that makes APS technology widely available to anyone who wants to save lives and reduce the burden of Type 1 diabetes. Developed by 27-year-old Type 1 diabetic Dana Lewis in December 2014, OpenAPS provides “a safety-focused reference design, a toolset, and an open source reference implementation that can be used by any individual – or any medical device manufacturer.”

Using these instructions, Jason spent two months learning how to hack an old insulin pump to automatically keep blood glucose (BG) levels in a safe range – both overnight and in between meals. He added a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) that would provide BG data to the pump, and command it to adjust the temporary basal rates accordingly. After ensuring the device’s safety, and getting their doctor’s approval, Andrew finally began using OpenAPS to keep his insulin levels in check. In fact, the third-grader even carries it to school in his backpack. “OpenAPS is there when I can’t be,” Jason said. “It’s cut the time Andrew spends below 80 mg/dL in half.”

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While most adults struggle to keep their bulging bellies under check, 10-year-old Kyleigh Bass, from Kansas City is putting grown men to shame with her rock solid abs – she recently broke the national record by completing a whopping 2,110 consecutive sit-ups in a mere 90 minutes.

Kyleigh had initially set herself a goal of 2,002 ab-crunches – one over the previous Project Fit America record of 2,001. It was no easy feat, and for a moment it even looked as though she was going to throw up, but she somehow worked through the nausea and surpassed her goal, breaking the record by no less than 109 sit-ups.

“I wanted to break this record because I am a very competitive person and I like to be at the top,” said Kyleigh, who was trained by her PE teacher Bill Lentz at Foxhill Elementary. She had worked hard all through the winter, focusing on strengthening her core muscles. But during the challenge on 7 May, she suffered severe stomach pain and nearly threw up. Her parents, who were taking turns to hold her feet the whole time, encouraged her to keep going.

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Just as a library responds to the reading needs of a community, a ‘tiebrary’ caters to people who are in dire need of a tie but can’t afford to buy one. Housed by the Paschalville Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the tiebrary stocks 48 pieces of neckwear in various colors and patterns, ranging from traditional ties to bright and trendy cravats. Anyone with a library card is welcome to checkout a tie for up to three weeks at a time.

The tie-lending initiative was started mainly to help out the vast population of unemployed men, particularly in southwest Philadelphia, where the Paschalville Branch is located. The neighborhood is marked by its high rates of poverty and unemployment, and is home to several immigrants and former inmates in dire need of a job. So this local library is trying to do its bit to help the community.

“It’s an illustration of libraries really responding to the needs of their communities,” said Nate Eddy, librarian and strategy coordinator for the Free Library of Philadelphia. “People still associate libraries with quiet places to check out a book, but we’re so much more than that.”

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23 years ago, Yue Jin lost both his legs and nine of his fingers in a freak accident. He thought his life was over, but somehow found the strength to start over and today he is one of the most sought-after bicycle repairmen in Jilin City, northern China.

In 1993, while he was cutting firewood in the mountains of Jilin province, Yue Jin accidentally fell into a deep valley and almost died. His injuries were so severe that doctors had to amputate both his legs and all but one of his ten fingers. For a man who made his living with his hands, it was almost a death sentence. And it was even more devastating considering Yue had also lost his wife just three days after childbirth, leaving him to take care of their daughter. After the accident, he couldn’t see any other way to do that than go out and beg for a few coins and some food, so he left his daughter in the care of some neighbors and ventured out on to the streets.

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It never ceases to amaze me the kind of amazing things talented people can create using only the simplest of materials. Case in point, artist Shinichi Furuya, who uses pencils and paper to make these stunningly-realistic portraits of Japanese celebrities.

The level of detail in Shinichi Furuya’s artworks is so breathtaking that it’s hard to believe they are only pencil drawing. But even more unbelievable is the fact that Furuya is just an amateur artist. He describes himself as a “middle-aged businessman who wasn’t able to become a professional illustrator” and says that creates these masterpieces in his free time. So this guy couldn’t find a job as an illustrator?!? There must be something very wrong with the world…

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The last ingredient you would expect to find in a delicious doughnut is bone marrow, but that’s apparently the secret behind this popular treat served at a New York doughnut shop.

The doughnut market has become very competitive in recent years, and businesses have to come up with something really special to get an edge. Some rely on crazy combinations to create hybrids like the popular Cronut, others cover their doughnuts with extravagant decorations like edible gold and sugar diamonds – see Donutopia, the $100 doughnut – and a few go the bizarre route. The treat we’re talking about today falls in the latter category.

The Doughnut Project, a fancy bakery in New York city, partnered with local butcher shop Hudson & Charles to create what we believe is the world’s first bone marrow doughnut. That sounds pretty disgusting, but the experienced bakers claim that bone marrow actually makes their hand-crafted, yeast-raised doughnuts more delicious. The chocolate pastry cream filling is whipped with roasted bone marrow that apparently enhances its richness and gives it a velvet-smooth texture. The unique treat is also glazed in clementine and sprinkled with orange-infused chocolate shavings.

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‘The Plastic Bottle Village’ is just the sort of innovative idea that might eventually save the Earth from drowning in plastic. It’s a planned 83-acre community in Panama that, as the name suggests, is going to be entirely built out of discarded plastic bottles.

Located on Isla Colón, in the Bocas del Toros province, The Plastic Bottle Village will include approximately 120 homes of varying sizes. The design process begins with building frames of rebar and steel mesh, which are then filled with used plastic bottles. Once this step is complete, and various electrical and plumbing lines are inserted, the plastic walls are covered by concrete – both inside and out.

So the finished homes look just like conventional ones, and no one will actually be able to tell that the walls are made of plastic. What’s more, the unusual choice of construction material will keep the house a considerable 17°C  cooler than the temperature outside. The homes also come equipped with a septic tank system, standard windows, doors, and an exterior sidewalk.

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Popping and sucking a candy balloon is probably a sight you’d expect to see at a kid’s party, but it’s what all the adults are doing at this Michelin three-star restaurant in Chicago. They come dressed in their finest for an evening of elegant dining, but once they arrive at ‘Alinea’, patrons are encouraged to embrace their inner child with their latest dessert offering – the Edible Helium Balloon.

The dish, created by head chef and Aliena co-owner Grant Achatz, is now being touted as one of the coolest desserts ever produced in the US. Achatz recently released a video on how the balloon is made – the process starts off with making a green apple taffy base, which is then blown up using a tube connected to a helium tank. The result is a transparent balloon that is tied with a ‘string’ made of dehydrated granny smith apple. The entire confection is then sprinkled with a dusting of green sugar.

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A tailor from Turkey is in the news for making the smallest machine-sewn pair of jeans in the world, measuring a mere 0.9 cm in length. Kasim Andaç, 34, is now hoping that his liliput jeans will earn him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Tailoring has been in Kasim’s family for generations, and he now manages the family business in Konya city, in Turkey’s Central Anatolia region. “I was bored by the profession at first, but after working on being a tailor with my father, I learned to love it and to love the opportunities for innovation and creativity,” Kasim said.

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In a disturbing new trend, teens across America are ditching common party drugs for easily accessible garden plant seeds like Hawaiian Baby Woodrose, Sleepy Grass, and Blue Morning Glory, which are believed to replicate the hallucinogenic effects of LSD. One of the main advantages of this move is that it’s very easy to get your hands on a packet of seeds from any garden store without raising suspicion.

Experts are now warning that the seeds mentioned contain LSA (lysergic acid amide), which is a hallucinogenic substance. They can easily put anyone on a high when swallowed whole or crushed and added to tea, affecting the user’s vision and sense of time. Extreme euphoria and extreme fatigue are the other symptoms involved. In extreme cases, consumption can also trigger flashbacks, psychotic episodes, vomiting, and overwhelming paranoia.

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The world’s most brilliant minds might have missed it, but this 15-year-old Canadian kid has managed to accurately locate a previously unknown ancient Mayan city, hidden deep in the Yucatan jungle of southeastern Mexico, without having to leave his house. William Gadoury, a high-school student from Quebec, has now named his discovery ‘K’aak Chi’, which means ‘Mouth of Fire’.

It all started three years ago, when William read about the Mayan calendar predicting the end of the world in 2012. That obviously didn’t happen, but his interest in the subject didn’t wane and he soon realised that the ancient Mayan people always built their cities far away from rivers, in inhospitable mountain ranges. Wanting to find the reason behind this, he looked up to the sky for answers, because he knew that the Mayans had worshipped stars. And it wasn’t long before he recognised a pattern – all their cities were built to line up with star constellations.

By analysing 23 Mayan star constellations, William figured out that when connected, the 142 stars indeed corresponded to the locations of 177 Mayan cities. No one had pieced together such information before. But he was stuck on the 23rd constellation because he could only find two cities to match its three stars. That’s when he realised that there had to be a Mayan city that had not yet been discovered. His research now had a new mission – to find that lost city.

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$10,000 for a pot of tea sounds excessive, but that’s the kind of price that wealthy tea-collectors are willing pay for a few sips of original Da Hong Pao, perhaps the world’s rarest tea. With a single gram priced at a whopping $1,400, this famously pricey tea is actually worth over 30 times its weight in gold!

So what make Da Hong Pao tea so valuable? According to Chinese tea master Xiangning Wu, it’s mainly its rarity. There are hardly any original Da Hong Pao trees left, and the antique varieties that grow in Wuyi mountains, China’s Fujian Province, are so rare that they’re considered almost priceless. In fact, generations-old tea makers have a special yearly ritual to  Da Hong Pao – they go into the mountains every spring to pray to tea god Lu Yu for new shoots. Some reports suggest that the leaves are wiped with goat’s milk as they grow, and after harvest, they’re baked and then left to gain flavor for up to 80 years.

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Quitting cold turkey is one of the toughest things to do, which is why this homeless shelter in Ottawa is helping chronic alcoholics by handing out measured quantities of alcohol by the hour. Miraculously, the Managed Alcohol Program (MAP) has not only improved the overall health of its participants, but also reduced their average alcohol intake and helped them refrain from criminal activity.

The existence of the MAP is a miracle in itself, given that most other homeless shelters have a strict no-alcohol policy. But at the Oaks shelter for the homeless, five ounces of white wine are handed out in coffee cups every hour between 7.30 am and 9.30 pm, seven days a week. That’s a calculated amount, just enough for each resident to be able to shake off the symptoms of alcohol deprivation. No alcohol is handed out to anyone who comes in intoxicated. The routine began in the early 2000s, and continues to this day, with several residents lining up every single day for their share.

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If the loudest, most annoying alarm clocks have failed to separate you from your beloved bed, ‘Shock Clock Wake Up Trainer’ might be just the thing for you. This wearable alarm clock will literally shock you awake every morning, if beeps and vibrations don’t do the trick.

Pavlok, the company behind Shock Clock, is a wearable-device startup founded by entrepreneur Maneesh Sethi, who first rose to internet fame after hiring a woman to slap him every time he opened Facebook. Having had previous success with his ‘Pavlok Breaks Bad Habits’ device that helped people quit bad habits like nail biting and smoking, Sethi based the new Shock Clock on the popular concept of classical conditioning that Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov used to train dogs to respond to a stimulus. He claims that the device’s ‘sensory inputs’ have the potential to create permanent behavioral changes. It is apparently world’s first device that “uses effective, tested sensory inputs to wake you up and keep you alert.”

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Three Thai students caught cheating during a medical college entrance exams made headlines this week for their elaborate high-tech cheating equipment. Supervisors discovered wireless cameras embedded in the frames of the students’ glasses which were connected to smartwatches on their wrists. They used the cameras to send images of questions to an external group, who then replied with the answers via the smartwatches.

That’s quite a clever setup, but sadly, the students were caught when instructors noticed that their glasses had unusually thick frames and decided to have a closer look, which led to the discovery of the hidden cameras. The story went viral on social media after Rangsit University director Arthit Ourairat posted pictures of the cheating equipment on his Facebook page.

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