Brazilian artist Fabiano Millani specializes in hyperrealistic oil paintings that look almost indistinguishable from high-definition photos.

We’ve featured quite a number of extremely talented hyperrealist artists on Oddity Central over the last 15 years, but there is no doubt that Fabiano Millani is right up there with the best of them. The São Paulo-born artist, who was raised in the Rio Grande do Sul, has become famous for his oil paintings that imitate real life so well that they are often mistaken for photographs. It’s actually hard to believe that he only started making art professionally at age 18, after taking an artistic course. Today he is regarded as a remarkable figure of the hyper-realist painting community.

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Devised by a Tokyo hair salon during the Covid-19 pandemic to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the ‘Silent Cut’ service is becoming increasingly popular in Japan.

As a way of curbing the spread of the coronavirus during the Covid-19 pandemic, authorities in Japan started promoting “no conversation” or “less conversation” policies in schools, shops and supermarkets. Less talking meant fewer risks of spreading the virus via saliva droplets, so everyone understood and complied, but the two policies seemed incompatible with businesses like hair salons and barber shops, where conversation is basically part of the service. However, one Tokyo salon decided to implement the ‘silent cut’ service and it proved so popular that others quickly followed suit and kept it even after pandemic-related restrictions were lifted.

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Cleveland-based company Save My Ink Forever offers people the opportunity to have their tattoos preserved as artworks after they pass away.

Third-generation mortician Michael Sherwood and his son Kyle came up with the idea for Save My Ink Forever a few years back, while having a few drinks with some friends. One of them said that he would like his ink preserved somehow and asked the Sherwoods how he should go about doing that. They laughed at the question at first, but their buddy pushed the issue and it got the two morticians thinking. Tattoos mean a lot to the people who have them inked on their bodies, as well as to their families, so it made sense that some of them would like them preserved. After devising a technique for removing and preserving tattoos, the Sherwoods founded Save My Ink Forever and started taking orders.

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Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome (LPS) is a seasonal disease that occurs every year between October and June, causing lorikeets to drop out of the sky and become unable to move.

Ornithologists and veterinarians have known about Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome for many years now, but despite their best efforts, the cause of the disease has remained a mystery. That is particularly alarming because the disease affects thousands of birds every year, and proves fatal to many of them, rendering them unable to feed or escape predators. Cases of LPS have been reported in Australia since 1970, and although scientists have been able to eliminate some probable causes, they still don’t know what causes it.

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A new online “profession” is making news headlines in Brazil. Attractive women will attempt to seduce clients’ husbands and then provide proof of their faithfulness.

Brazilian loyalty inspectors have become very popular on social networks like TikTok and Instagram. They are usually young, attractive women who charge between 20 reals ($4) and 150 reals ($30) to test men’s loyalty to their wives or girlfriends online, and then provide proof to their clients. Testing usually involves sliding into their targets’ DMs, approaching them on WhatsApp or simply pretending to have obtained their contacts from a mutual acquaintance. They take screenshots of conversations with their marks, any photos that they send, and then hand them all to their partners as proof of their loyalty, or lack-there-of.

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An 18-year-old lioness has baffled staff at a zoo in Kansas after growing an “awkward teenage mane” after the pride’s last male lion passed away.

Looking at Zuri, you’d think she was a young lion growing his mane for the first time, but she is actually an 18-year-old female. That makes the mane around her neck pretty unusual, with only a handful of similar cases reported in the past. The lioness reportedly started growing a mane soon after the last male lion at Topeka Zoo in Kansas passed away in October of 2020. Although zookeepers don’t believe there is any connection between the lack of a male lion and Zuri’s mane, they do admit that the lioness has gotten feistier since growing the new fur, growling, snarling, and roaring more often than before.

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