Like millions of Americans, Triana Lavey loves taking selfies. But the 37-year-old television producer from Los Angeles didn’t really like herself in her Facebook photos or during Skype chats. So in 2012, she decided to get plastic surgery to achieve the perfect selfie look. Triana spent a whopping $15,000 to change the shape of her face. And that’s just the discounted price because her plastic surgeon is a family friend.

Triana believes in presenting the best of herself online. “Your social media presence is just as important as your real life presence,” she said. But she was not always happy with the selfie pictures she took. She would use popular iPhone apps with filters that gave her the perfect airbrushed look. But over time, she began to notice flaws in her face that she felt needed more permanent fixing. Changing camera angles didn’t work anymore, so she decided to go under the knife for a nose job and a chin implant.

“Ten years ago, I don’t think I even noticed that I have a weak chin,” Triana had said before her surgery. “That darned chin bugs the living daylights out of me. It’s kind of the first thing I look for in the photos – ‘how does my chin look?’ – which is really weird.” So she had an implant inserted into her chin at  Dr. Richard Ellenbogen’s clinic in Beverly Hills. The doctor didn’t stop with the chin, though. He suggested a few other changes like fat grafting and a nose job. Triana was convinced she needed them too and ended up spending $15,000 on her face.

Changing your face just to look good in pictures might sound extreme, but Triana doesn’t think so. She’s really happy with the way her face turned out. “I now have the face that I always thought I had,” she said. “I look like myself, but Photoshopped.” And she believes that plastic surgery isn’t just about getting an ego-boost. She thinks it’s actually a necessity in today’s world.

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Big-Hole Golf is a recreational version of regular golf that helps beginners and disheartened casual golfers enjoy a good game. As the name suggests, the golf holes are 15-inch in diameter, instead of the regular 4.25 inches. Golf purists may scoff at the thought of this, but big-hole golf is gaining popularity, even among seasoned golfers. They call this big-hole version ‘fast and fun’, which they say is quite nice for a change.

The concept of big-hole golf is very similar to that of regular golf. You hit the same number of full shots as in normal golf, which is the heart of the game for most players. The bliss and frustrations of the game are still the same, it’s just that you’re a bit farther from the hole. While the traditional format of golf tends to be slow and difficult for newbies, big-hole golf is a lot more exciting. The idea is quite simple: faster rounds, less putts, more fun.

Big-hole golf is said to be the brain-child of Mark King, chief executive at TaylorMade Golf Company. When asked why he chose to make the holes 15 inches, he shrugged and said, “It seemed about the right size.” To put the idea into action, TaylorMade paid another Minnesota-based company called Par Aide to manufacture 15-inch hole-cutters, coordinated tee markers and shorter flags to distinguish from other regular flags that might be on the green. The company then held an event as a part of the Hack Golf initiative – to solicit fresh ideas for bringing more players into the game and retaining the current ones.

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Mary Beth Webb, from Murrysville, Pennsylvania, is making  some tall claims about her ancestry. She considers herself to be the 64^th great-granddaughter of Saint Joseph Ben Matthat Arimathaea, who is considered to be Virgin Mary’s paternal uncle. So that makes her the Virgin Mary’s cousin, 65 times removed.

Mary has been looking into her ancestry since 2010, and it has taken her two years to spot her connection to Saint Joseph. Saint Joseph of Arimathaea is credited in the Bible for providing the tomb in which Jesus Christ’s body was placed after his execution on the cross.

The idea to research her ancestry came from her other bizarre ritual – speaking to the dead. When she lost her brother to cancer in 1999, she started communicating with him and also with her dead parents. Mary’s cousin was always the medium for these conversations – she conveyed messages from Mary’s parents that included details she could never have known about. Mary herself admitted that there was no way her cousin could have known some of the stories.

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Chen Qingzu, a 56-year-old health worker from South China’s Hainan province, has a very bizarre hobby – he collects brassieres. In the past 20 years, he has amassed over 5,000 bras of various colors, shapes and sizes. Chen now wants to start a museum to display his entire bra collection.

Now, before you write-off Chen’s hobby as a fetish, you might want to hear his version of the story: “It’s my job to educate the public about the importance of health checkups, but my special interest is as an advocate for female health relating to their breasts and this was a good way of going about it,” he said. “Many women wear tight or smaller-size bras to show off their figures, which would do harm to their breasts.”

Chen said that most of his bras were donated to him by college girls after he visited their campuses to talk about breast health. He told the girls about the dangers of wearing ill-fitting bras and asked them to give him theirs. “Many girls thought I was a bra fetishist,” he said. But when he explained that he was only trying to promote well-fitting bras, the students were convinced and handed over their ill-fitting ones to him.

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28-year-old Sydney V. Smith’s goal in life is to become a ‘giraffe woman’. For the past three years, the Los Angeles resident has been trying to extend her neck by wearing no less than 11 copper rings around it. The idea stemmed from her lifelong fascination with body modification, especially the tribal women of Thailand and Burma who encase their necks in rings at an early age.

“I’ve always had a long neck,” said Sydney. “In middle school, they called me ‘giraffe girl’. Then I saw pictures of the long-necked tribes in Thailand and Burma in National Geographic and I became fascinated with them.” That’s when she began to cut up coat hangers and wrap them around her neck at bed time. Naturally, her parents thought the idea was ridiculous. But she persisted, and she believes that her night-time ritual actually helped elongate her neck.

“After a few years, it became obvious that my neck was longer than the other girls, but not freakishly,” said Sydney. “So I stopped for a while to consider if being a long-necked woman was what I really wanted.” But soon, it became clear to her that she was quite attached to the rings. “I had missed the comfort from the pressure on the top of my neck and shoulders and had been thinking about doing it again for a while. The comfort and exhilaration of this process was really what I was after.”

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Palcohol – powdered alcohol – is a new American product that can be sprinkled on all sorts of dishes and drinks. According to the company’s website, Palcohol is the brainchild of Mark Phillips, a physically active guy who was tired of lugging heavy bottles of alcohol during his adventures. So he decided to create instant alcohol – just open the sachet, add some water and get a strong drink to enjoy whenever and wherever he wanted.

Initially, Mark did search for powdered alcohol on the market, but it wasn’t available. So he got together with scientists from around the world and spent years in experiments, research and consultation. Finally, he succeeded in making powdered alcohol a reality, and called it Palcohol. “Now Palcohol is here,” declared the website. “A great convenience for a person on the go. One package weighs about an ounce and is small enough to fit into any pocket.” The product is now privately owned by a company called Lipsmark.

The company does insist that Palcohol is not just for sportspersons. “Palcohol can be transported in your luggage without the fear of bottles breaking. In any situation where weight and breakage is an issue, Palcohol provides the answer. That’s why we say: ‘Take your Pal wherever you go!’” The product’s promotional material also stated: “What’s worse than going to a concert, sporting event, etc. and having to pay $10, $15, $20 for a mixed drink with tax and tip. Take Palcohol into the venue and enjoy a mixed drink for a fraction of the cost.” Such claims were taken off the site after news of the invention went viral

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Paying a woman to carry a child is illegal in Australia, the UK, and several other countries. Even where it is allowed, it costs and arm and a leg. And that’s why commercial surrogacy is a thriving business in India. Infertile couples all over the world are now looking to Indian women to help them have their babies. Indian surrogacy clinics provide an economical alternative for childless couples and in return, the money that these surrogate mothers from poor backgrounds receive is helping them build their life. It’s a win-win situation really, if you choose to look at it that way.

Akanksha Infertility Clinic, located in the small town of Anand in Gujarat State, is one of the top places for commercial surrogacy in India. A surrogacy package here costs about $30,000, from which about $8,000 is given to the surrogate. Given that over one-third of the Indian population is extremely poor, there are plenty of women more than willing to bear children for others. The clinic has been in operation for the past 10 years, and over 700 surrogate babies have been delivered there so far. All the money earned from these treatments has hugely impacted the economic situation of the town and its surrounding areas.

30-year-old Neeta Makwara, who lives in the nearby village of Nadiad, has gone through surrogacy twice. In 2008, she gave birth to a baby boy for a foreign couple. And she had twins again in 2011. The first time around, her husband squandered all the money from the treatment. But Neeta was wiser the second time – she used the money to build a three-storey house. She’s even rented out the ground floor, so that earns her a bit of cash every month.

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For over 30 years, a man in China has been living with a horn growing out of his neck. 62-year-old Li Zhibing, from Shiyan in Hubei Province, said that the unusual growth first appeared on his neck in 1980. Since then, the horn has been growing at an alarming pace so Li’s friends actually help him saw it off twice a year.

Li’s greatest wish is to find out more about the mysterious horn and what caused it. Earlier, he used to visit a local doctor who treated it with herbs from the nearby mountains. But Li now suspects that this treatment actually made the horn grow faster. At its longest, the horn has grown up to 15 centimeters perpendicularly from the nape of his neck. And when it gets too long, his neck gets swollen and he runs a fever. So he needs to saw it off from time to time.

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South Korean plastic surgeons are among the best in the world. In fact they’re so good that people from other countries like China and Japan are actually having trouble getting back home.

That’s sounds really crazy, but it’s true. When most people get a nose job or a lip job, they just look like ‘enhanced’ versions of themselves. But people returning from a plastic surgery vacation in South Korea are truly transformed. You’d have to look very closely at the ‘before’ and ‘after’ photographs, and even then, it’s hard to make a connection. So I suppose you couldn’t really blame airport officials for stopping these tourists from returning home.

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In a nation full of soccer fanatics, 57-year-old lawyer Nelson Paviotti stands out like a sore thumb. For the past 20 years, he’s worn only yellow, green, blue and white clothing – the colors of the Brazilian soccer team. And there’s a specific reason for his loud choice in clothes. He had promised to wear their colors if the team won the Soccer World Cup in 1994. They kept their end of the bargain and so did Nelson.

Nelson goes to work each day sporting a banana-yellow jacket, a dark green shirt, yellow pants, and a bright blue hat. But he hasn’t just stopped at clothes. Nelson has gone all out – his office is decorated with yellow walls, blue and white filing cabinets, and a blue desk (and his screensaver is the team’s logo). The clocks, chairs, phones and stereo are green, yellow, blue or white and so are the folders that contain his clients’ documents. The office décor consists of a green-yellow guitar, a soccer-ball shaped woman’s purse, cups and mugs bearing the national coat of arms, and little key chains, flags and posters with the team’s players.

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Tony ‘the fridge’ Phoenix-Morrison got his name from his unique way of running marathons – with a fridge strapped to his back. Yes, a real refrigerator. Why on earth would anyone want to do that, you ask? Well, for Tony, this is a way to gain people’s attention so he can raise money for charity.

“My friends knew I was an ultra-runner, so trying to raise money by just running the Great North Run wasn’t getting me anywhere,” said the 49-year-old marketing manager from South Tyneside, in the UK. “So I thought about something different. I wanted an extreme challenge, something that would push me to my limits. In 2011, I told everyone I was running with a fridge and the world went mad for it! I ended up on the news in 17 different countries over night.”

Contrary to expectations, Tony isn’t really trying to show off his strength by running with the 42 kg Smeg Fridge. “I hate the fridge,” he insisted. “It starts off tough, then gets impossible. I don’t put it on for show. I should never have ran with the fridge because I was injured when I began. I went running with kettle bells in a rucksack and it swung everywhere, damaging my lower back.” According to Tony, there is no other way to prepare for the physically grueling marathon than by being mentally strong.

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Cândido Godói, a small town in Southern Brazil, has fondly been nicknamed: ‘Twin Land’. As the name suggests, a phenomenal number of twins are born in the remote town each year – 10% of pregnancies result in multiple births. That’s nearly 1,000 percent higher than the global average. Right from the elderly to young children, most of the town’s inhabitants are two-of-a-kind. Understandably, several theories have been proposed to explain this bizarre phenomenon – both scientific and outlandish in nature.

While some people have blamed a mysterious ingredient lurking in the town’s water supply, most fingers point towards the Nazis. Specifically, towards Dr. Joseph Mengele (a.k.a. Angel of Death), one of Hitler’s most ruthless followers. Mengele became infamous during the war for the horrifying medical experiments he conducted on prisoners. One of his sick experiments aimed at creating the perfect Aryan race for his Fuhrer. At this time, he also became interested in discovering the specific gene quirk that produces twins – to double the birth rate of the perfect race.

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About a quarter of the Melanesian population in the Solomon Islands archipelago has an extremely unusual trait – dark skin with blond hair. The archipelago, located east of Papa New Guinea in Oceania, consists of a thousand islands inhabited by over half a million Melanesian people. They have the darkest skin in the world outside of Africa, but strangely, about one-fourth of the inhabitants sport blond afros.

This rare Melanesian characteristic has baffled scientists and genetic experts for years. Up until now, they have attributed the trait to inheritance – from the Europeans, especially the British, German and Australians, who have been associated with the island for hundreds of years. Several of the islands were under German jurisdiction in the 19^th century. In 1893, the UK took southern Solomon Islands under their wing, declaring the region a protectorate. The rest of the islands were added to the protectorate at a later stage. And in the early 20^th century, Australian and British companies set up coconut plantations on many of the islands.

So it isn’t entirely unbelievable that the dark-skinned Melanesians got their blond hair from the growing influx of ‘outsiders’. The locals, however, prefer not to go by that theory. They have been insisting for years that their blond hair is a result of a diet rich in fish and constant exposure to the sun. As it turns out, both theories are quite far from the truth. According to a recent investigation, random mutation might actually be the answer to the mystery of the Melanesian blonds.

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Eating rabbits isn’t a real Easter tradition, but that hasn’t stopped Hell Pizza from adding rabbit pizza to their menu this year. And that’s not even the strange part of this story. What’s really unusual is their marketing strategy. The New Zealand based pizza chain has put up billboards completely covered with real rabbit hides. The posters read: ‘New for Easter. Rabbit Pizza. Made from Real Rabbit. Like this Billboard’.

If you find that gross, you aren’t alone. The restaurant has been receiving severe backlash from locals ever since the billboards went up at multiple locations. But the folks at Hell Pizza are totally unapologetic. They’ve defended their PR stunt on their Facebook page: “As well as being a delicious meat, and even quite cute, rabbits are unfortunately also a noted pest that is damaging to the New Zealand environment, particularly in the South Island.”

General manager Ben Cumming called rabbit meat one of the healthiest meats in the world. “Eating rabbit meat isn’t just environmentally sustainable – it’s actually helping to reduce pests,” he said. “It has a beautiful, subtle flavor and is a great match for the other ingredients on the pizza. You get chunks of the smoky rabbit flavor complimented by sweet and slightly spicy beetroot and horopito relish, then bursts of cream cheese and toasted pine nuts which linger on the taste buds afterwards. We think it’s going to go down really well.”

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When this wealthy Chinese businessman purchased an 18^th floor penthouse apartment in Guangzhou city several years ago, he appeared quite contented with it. But soon, he began to make changes that the neighbors thought were weird. At first, he planted all kinds of huge trees and thick bushes on the roof, which neighbors assumed were meant to protect his privacy. But then he took it one step further, by surrounding the property with camouflage nets filled with plant foliage, which was very unusual.

That’s when the neighbors began to worry for his sanity, but it turns out the businessman wasn’t insane at all. He was actually using all the camouflage as a cover up for the additional two floors that he was secretly adding to his apartment. While he told everybody that he renovating, he was actually adding a 19^th and 20^th floor to his already massive apartment. And he did this in secret to work around the local planning laws.

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