Unsatisfied with her looks, Candice Armstrong, a former barmaid from London, started going to the gym and working out for three hours a day. After two years, Candice still wasn’t getting the results she wanted, so she began taking steroids and ultimately became addicted to them. Today, the young body-building enthusiast has virtually transformed into a man, with unusually broad shoulders, noticeable stubble and developing male sexual organs.

Candice, who suffers from body dysmorphia, has always been dissatisfied with her womanly looks, especially her upper body which she thought was too thin. “I hated my body. My hips and legs were too big and my arms and torso too skinny. I thought I was out of proportion and not attractive. I’d never had a proper relationship with a man,” Candice says. She soon found herself at the gym, lifting weights and doing push-ups to improve her physique, but after a couple of years of hard work, she still wasn’t ripped enough. Candice stepped up her game becoming obsessed with the way she looked and working out for three hours a day.  Without giving it too much thought, she also started taking daily doses of Trenbolone – a steroid normally used by veterinarians to increase muscle growth in animals. She thought the steroids would finally help her have the bulky upper-body she had always wanted. “After a year, everyone said I had Madonna arms but I wanted them bigger. I heard about steroids and bought them online,” she explains. “When I started taking them I trained very hard. It enabled me to build more muscle and I was making gains I could see.”

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Peter Fitzek is a self-proclaimed king of a made-up state called the Kingdom of Germany which promises to “not serve capitalism, but the people.” This was possible because of a lesser-known subarticle of German law which entitles the citizens to establish non-profit organizations with their own legislation, executive and judiciary structures.

Fitzek started off as a chef working in a renowned restaurant. He then founded several businesses such as a video store, shoe and jeans shop, a disco bar and tattoo parlor. When he got bored with them, he turned to martial arts. He had always been interested in being healthy and in great shape, thanks to his father who always rode a bike on his way to judo class and because of his mother who was physically disabled. Her condition gave him the determination not to be ill since, according to him, being handicapped is a matter of choice. He believes every man has utter control over what happens to his body. “I control every thought I have. Every emotion, every action. I observe very carefully what those ‘bodies’ do and I carefully decide what I allow them to do and what I don’t allow them to do,” Fitzek says. After participating in some karate tournaments, getting married and having two children, he met a mysterious person who gave him some “ancient magical writings.” Fitzek was so captivated by what he read in those books that from then on, he rejected the rational scientific worldview and embraced the magical, surreal world and beliefs the books described. He soon started teaching that belief system to others, holding seminars in his apartment. “I am a teacher with all my heart. I love to teach people new things and set a good example,” he states. In his seminars, he talked about big issues such as humanity’s problems and political systems which, according to him, were flawed. He now believes democracy too is flawed since “the masses never came to a wise decision. It’s always been a small amount of people or individuals who served the further development of mankind.”

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Roll over and shake paws with Boomer the Dog – a man with a canine soul, who often roams the streets of Pittsburgh in a large dog costume, barking at every passing car and digging holes in the backyard. Boomer takes his persona very seriously and wishes everyone would treat him like a real dog.

Born Gary Matthews, Boomer is now a 50-something unemployed computer technician who lives by himself. He wears ears made from his long hair and a collar with a dog tag with his adopted name, Boomer the Dog. He rarely dresses as a human as he loves wearing his full size paper dog costume and getting on all fours. He eats dog food with his snout from a special bowl on the floor, barks, chases cars and digs for bones in the backyard like any other canine would. The guy even sleeps in his own indoor doghouse which, according to him, is much more comfortable than a human bed. Boomer, who resides in Pennsylvania, adopted his canine persona after watching the NBC hit show “Here’s Boomer” when he was only a child. The popular TV series was about a mixed-breed stray called Boomer who travels around helping people in trouble. This idea appealed to Mathews and soon, his fascination with dogs in general as well as with the star of the show took a life of its own and became his ultimate obsession.

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From screaming teenage girls to fanatic grannies, everybody’s got Bieber fever, including Toby Sheldon, a 33-year-old songwriter from Los Angeles who spent $100,000 on plastic surgery trying to transform himself into his idol, Justin Bieber. The man has had countless procedures such as eyelid surgery, chin reduction and face fillers all in an off-the-wall attempt to look like the popular pop-star.

Toby has been obsessed with his fading boyish looks ever since he was 23, when he started a series of treatments for his thinning hair and ended up undergoing hair transplants which cost him an impressive $8,000. It wasn’t until 2008, when Justin became popular worldwide, that Toby really started considering plastic surgery. He explains that “once Justin shot to fame his face was everywhere and I all I kept thinking when I saw his picture was, ‘I want to look like him’.” To the disappointment of millions of second grade schoolgirls, Sheldon is not a true Bielieber as he mostly admires the pop star’s soft facial features rather than his musical aptitude. “I didn’t necessarily listen to his music or fawn over him as a celebrity, but his face was just so flawless every change I made was modeled after him,” Sheldon says. With Justin in mind, the 33 year old spent another $21,000 to further enhance his appearance and underwent a procedure to lower his hairline closer to his temples to resemble that of Bieber. Toby then grew out his bangs and got Bieber’s signature haircut which he says often gets him mistaken for his idol.

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A Bogota-based company specializes in fashionable clothes that will protect wearers against gunshots and knife attacks. One such bulletproof jacket can withstand ammunition from a variety of weapons such as a 9mm, a .44 Magnum and a 3.75 revolver. The protective clothes – now sold in 18 countries, have been worn by the Vice President of Colombia, Francisco Santos, Hugo Chaves – the former President of Venezuela, the Price of Spain and even by action film star Steven Seagal.

Colombia is notorious for arms and drug trafficking and is considered one of the most violent and dangerous countries is Latin America. High-level dignitaries an businessmen here try to protect themselves as best as they can, with owning bulletproof cars and vests being the most typical life-saving accessories. During their University years, Miguel Caballero and John Murphy noticed people’s pressing need for safety and started a profitable business creating stylish and lightweight bulletproof clothing.  While citizens are safe in their bulletproof cars, once they get out, they became vulnerable to attack. “Most of these people ride in armored cars, so they need something to wear when they step out of the car and walk into their home or restaurant,” said Murphy – who left the partnership but still sells the innovative  garments he and Miguel designed.

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All eight members of the Pullan family from Delhi suffer from a rare genetic disorder called albinism which, as its name suggests, is characterized by the complete or partial absence of melanin pigment in the skin and hair. Because of this condition, Rosetauri Pullan, his wife Mani along with their three daughters Renu, Deepa and Pooja and three sons Shankar, Ramkishan and Vijay all have fair skin, white hair and light colored eyes despite being Indian.

Their ghostliness is not just an aesthetic problem. It actually comes with certain undesirable medical problems. Their pale white skin makes it impossible for them to stay in the sun for too long. The lack of pigment in their eyes have left them short-sighted and Shankar was even forced to attended a school for the blind. “All we know is that we can’t see properly, and we can’t sit under the sun for long, but we live the best we can,” the family explains. Unfortunately sunburns and short-slightness are not their only concerns. There are only 17,000 people in the world who suffer from albinism and those who are unfortunate to live in less developed countries, like the Pullans, are harshly discriminated against.

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Meet Dan Price, a real life hobbit who has been living in his underground hole in Oregon for the past twenty years. He manages to survive with only $5,000 a year – $100 of which goes on the rent for the land he resides under – and doesn’t believe in “houses or mortgages.”

Dan used to be an office job type of guy, working as a photojournalist in order to support himself, his wife and their two kids and pay the mortgage on their house. He didn’t really give his life too much thought until he read a book by Harlan Hubbard which described an existence without the everyday commodities of modern life. After reading the book, Dan soon packed his bags and moved to a peaceful meadow where he tried out various housing options- a cabin, a flophouse and a tepee, before settling in the hobbit house he lives in today. The 8-foot hole in the ground barely accommodates Dan, a stove, his books, a CD player and some clothes, but it’s everything he really needs. Price, who wants to live a life without stress says “everything is at arm’s length when you are sitting there. It’s human scale. The idea is that you can see everything, no fumbling for stuff – that creates stress.”

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By working out and kicking his drinking habit, 31-year-old Mike Waudby, a former morbidly obese man from Kingston upon Hull, England, lost a staggering 18st – about 115kg, in just 18 months Excited about his accomplishment and determined to maintain his new physique Mike weighed 33st (209kg) has become a professional fitness trainer.

Mike’s weight problems started in his young adulthood and by the time he was 21, he weighted about 140kg. He worked various jobs including as a car valet and security guard for a supermarket but as he kept putting on weight, he soon found himself unable to fulfill his job duties. With no employment prospects in sight, he barely left his room, eating whatever his mom cooked for him and drinking alcohol he ordered online. He says it was the booze that made him fat, as he used to drink a whole bottle of whisky and 6 cans of beer every night. Feeling lonely, he decided to go out one night out but was disappointed to discover how judgmental some people could be of his appearance. “I used to go out but, one night, a girl came up to me and asked me to leave the bar I was in. I asked why and she told me I was making her and her friends feel sick,” he relates. This incident left him even more bitter than before and drove him to an attempted suicide. “One night, while listening to Guns N’ Roses, I thought to myself, “What kind of a life is this?” he explains. Tired of being laughed at, he was prepared to end it all. “I had terrible pains but I was too scared to go to the gym and do anything about my weight, as people pointed and laughed at me in the street,” he told reporters. After describing how he ingested two bottles of whisky, eight cans of Stella and as many tablets as he could find, Mike remembers waking up with no headache, no pains, just a sickening feeling that he was still there and not dead.

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If you’re eager to know when you’re going to get that much-awaited promotion or if you will ever meet the love of your life, move your pawn to C3 and let Amunnata Lamwanna  (Ajarn Nong, by her prophetic name) predict the outcome of the chess game that is your life. That’s right, Ajarn Nong, a fortuneteller from Thailand, uses chess to predict the future.

After a failed marriage, giving birth to a premature child and being homeless for a while, Amunnata Lamwanna got a job in public relations, working for a famous fortuneteller who thought it would be wise of her to pursue the same career. After studying everything under the stars, she finally became a fortuneteller herself and adopted her current name, Ajarn Nong. The idea of chess prediction came to her when she saw people playing chess in the park. She soon began developing a new method of telling the future that involved the popular strategy board game. “I invented a way of fortunetelling using a chessboard set up to show the position of the stars in Thai-style astrology, as well as cards and feng shui, in which each star indicates your horoscope. The method was completed in 2010, and the first person I used it on was my husband,” she explains.

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Australian Andrew Hellinga recently set a new Guinness Record after riding his bicycle for 337km backwards in a 24 hour challenge to raise money for the poverty-stricken children of Zambia.

Hellinga started the marathon on October 7^th at 6 a.m. and made just one brief stop to mark the 182 km milestone that made him the new Guinness world record holder for the longest distance traveled while cycling backwards. “I had to stop for a quick rest and to share the excitement with my support crew,” he said. After a quick celebration, he continued this difficult challenge hoping to make it to 300km within the 24-hour limit. Not only did he pull through and reached the 300km milestone, but he cycled for another few dozen kilometers, covering a staggering distance of 337km.  After withstanding the ever-changing weather, he ended the lengthy ride with a smile on his face.

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Martha Mason was an extraordinary human being who spent over 60 years of her life in immobilized in an Iron Lung after becoming paralyzed in her childhood years as a result of polio. Despite her seemingly desperate situation, Martha lived a fulfilling life, graduating from high-school and college with the highest honors, hosting many dinner parties and even writing a book called  “Breath: Life in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung”, in which she portrayed the challenges and joys of her life.

Martha was born on May 31, 1937, in Lattimore, a small town about 50 miles from Charlotte. Her story took a tragic urn when she was only 11 years old, after the death of her brother Gaston who had suffered from a terrible condition which left him paralyzed before eventually killing him. After his burial, young Martha realized she had also contracted the dangerous viral illness but kept it to herself as not to distress her parents even more. “I knew that I had polio. I didn’t want anyone else to know,” she wrote in her book. “The day before I had heard Mother talking to a friend about the iron lung Gaston had been in. . . . I knew I wouldn’t have that difficulty because I had excellent lungs.” But soon she  too found herself  immobilized in the iron lung, dependent on it to do the breathing for her. “Iron lung” is only a colloquial term used to describe a pressure ventilator, a type of medical device which helps paralyzed people breathe by decreasing and increasing air pressure inside of a large iron tank. Ms. Mason has lived almost her entire life in such a tank with the pressure contracting and expanding her lungs when her weak muscles couldn’t. Doctors told Martha’s parents to take her home and make her happy for a year, as that was how long she had left to live. She outlived them both thanks to an avid curiosity and a desire to learn about the world.

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Tim Friede, an unemployed factory worker and snake enthusiast, is a strong believer in the saying “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”.  In an attempt to build immunity to venoms and poisons, he has been injecting himself with diluted venom proteins from some of the deadliest snakes on Earth. He claims that as much as 100 snakes have sank their poisonous fangs into his flesh, including a black mamba which can kill a person in under 20 minutes.

His experiments aim to prove that humans can become immune to poisonous substances by gradually exposing the body to snake venom. Each time he injects the venom, his body produces more and more antibodies to eliminate the harmful substance. By doing this, he hopes to generate the necessary research needed to create a stronger and more efficient antivenin. “I hope through developing my own resistance to poison some solid groundwork can be laid to build a vaccine for the 125,000 people that die from snakebite every year,” Tim explains. So far he’s proven that his body can indeed withstand toxic quantities of snake venom. Numerous pictures and videos show him being bitten by the lethal serpents with him surviving every time. His trials do have some side effects including life-threatening allergic reactions that cause the bitten hand to swell up and deep puncture marks left by the sharp fangs.

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“You can’t really understand another person’s experience until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” One man took this saying literally when he decided to give the ultimate homeless experience to anyone curious to see what  it’s like to live on the streets of Seattle and willing to pay $2,000 for it.

Mike Momany was a freelance computer programmer conducting his business from an RV when he began to notice that living in Seattle was becoming a luxury. Inspired by the ever-rising costs of the big cities and the minimalist movement, he took two months off in the summer of 2013 to see what it was like not having  a roof over his head. After experiencing life as a homeless himself,  Mike decided to allow other privileged people who still had a home do the same by giving them a three-day “Course in Applied Homelessness”, as he calls it. Before the start of the actual homelessness course, Momany insists upon a preliminary interview to assess his and the participant’s compatibility and to make sure that the person knows exactly what they’re getting themselves into. If all goes well, the tour begins with different activities planned for each of the three days. On the first day, the participant will be given a new persona along with a disguise tat will give them that genuine homeless look. They will then cruise around town vising all the “favored homeless spots” before retiring for the night in a homeless shelter. The shelter Momany is currently working with does not allow ladies, making him unable to share the lifestyle with women (he plans on changing this soon). For the second day, he suggests trying “panhandling or sleeping on a park bench” to get a real feel of how people view the homeless. After some more sightseeing, it’s time for free meals and after trying the Fare Start chef program, the tour ends with a night stroll until 3 a.m. and cocktails in the morning to discuss and celebrate having gone through the homeless experience.

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Featuring rudimentary depictions of plants illustrated in aged colors and written in a language system that has yet to be deciphered, The Voynich Manuscript is the world’s most mysterious book.

In order to pay for the restoration of their college, the Italian Jesuits of Villa Mondragone gave Wilfrid Voynich, an antique book dealer, an old manuscript written in an odd language that no one was able to identify or understand. With this valuable acquisition, Voynich also received a list of its ownership history dating back to the 17^th century, which made the book even more impressive. Its description read: “The codex belonged to Emperor Rudolph II of Germany (1576-1612) who purchased it for 600 gold ducats and believed that it was the work of Roger Bacon. It is very likely that Emperor Rudolph acquired the manuscript from the English astrologer John Dee (1527-1608). Dee apparently owned the manuscript along with a number of other Roger Bacon manuscripts”. The book remained in Voynich’s possession from 1912 to 1969, before being added to the collection at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Apart from the undecipherable text, Voynich’s manuscript contains colorful botanical illustrations which are very similar to what we know from modern science, but which do not entirely resemble any distinguishable plant. There are also other cosmological and astrological depictions, as well as some drawings of naked women bathing together in small receptacles. This has led some scientists to believe that the book is sectioned into several chapters including: botanical, astrological, medical, biological, cosmological and pharmaceutical.  Despite several attempts to decipher the manuscript, the meaning of the text itself or the the lovely naked ladies remain a mystery to this day.

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A thousand roses, boxes of chocolates, diamond necklaces, expensive shoes and cars. These are just some of the many ways men have tried to earn their spouses’ forgiveness after having cheated on them. Meet Ivan Lewis, the cheater, and Sonya Gore, the mastermind behind her husband’s unique and very public display of affection.

Lewis and Gore got married in 2010 but split after only 10 months because of Lewis’ constant cheating. After some time apart, during which Lewis reflected on what he had done, the guy decided to put an end to his unfaithful ways and do everything in his power to get Gore to forgive him. On September 22, he proposed to her publicly on his Facebook wall. Although many people were touched by his gesture, Gore wasn’t too impressed. He then posted a picture of himself holding a piece of paper which read “I cheated on my wife!!! (and she was ugly!!!)”, stating that he needed 10,000 likes in order for Gore to take him back. His plea was generally well received but there was a good amount of criticism as well: “My man wouldn’t have to show and prove it on fb! So, I’m probably one on the number who wouldn’t care for that!!”, Facebook user Latoya Holiday wrote. “Well if she was ugly why’d you do it? Men always think the grass is greener on the other side, this is a lesson learned if she takes you back and if she does this should never come up again because once you forgive someone you can’t keep back tracking, move forward and keep God first, I hope yall make it work !” another user posted.

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