At the request of students who wanted to avoid lunchtime socializing, Japanese universities in Kyoto and Kobe have replaced regular tables with so-called “lonely seats” featuring 50-cm dividers in the middle.

In most cultures, going to lunch with friends or co-workers is a great way to take your mind off the job and relax, but it seems that’s exactly what the students at Kyoto University are trying to avoid. They are busy people who don’t always have time to sit around and make small talk with their peers, so in order to avoid this kind of uncomfortable situations, they’ve asked the university for a practical solution. There are always empty tables where they could eat their meals in peace, but according to one 22-year old engineering student “If you are sitting at a big table by yourself it’s like you don’t have any friends and that is embarrassing.” So to solve this predicament, the university replaced the regular cafeteria tables with “bocchi seki” or “lonely seats” that have an opaque divider across the middle so the person on the other side can’t see you slurping your noodles or engage in a conversation.

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What would you say if I told you losing those extra pounds is as easy as taking a nice long breath and exhaling for just 2 minutes a day? Only it’s not me who is saying it, it’s Miki Ryosuke, a Japanese actor turned dieting guru and inventor of the famous Long Breath Diet.

Miki Ryosuke discovered the Long Breath Diet completely by accident. He was practicing breathing techniques to ease back pain, but noticed he was losing a lot of weight, which eventually amounted to 28 pounds and 5 inches in 50 days. Realizing the potential of his discovery, Ryosuke came up with a series of more effective ways of breathing in and exhaling, and created the now famous Long Breath Diet. The name is a bit misleading, because his weight-loss techniques have little to do with dieting and more with exercising. Basically, you have to have a certain posture, inhale through the nose for three seconds and than exhale aggressively through the mouth for seven seconds, while using your whole body to push out all the air. Apparently, repeating the process for 2 to 5 minutes every day will help you lose weight, or breath away the extra pounds, if you will.

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At the Albert Kindergarten, in Taichung, Taiwan, children aged three to six don camouflage outfits and take part in a mandatory exercise program modeled after marine drills. Their parents hope the rough training will prepare them for the hardships of life, but there are those who criticize the preschool for pushing the kids too hard and exposing them to injury.

For one to two hours a day, the children enrolled at Taichung’s Albert Kindergarten perform a series a series of physical exercises inspired by military drills. Principal Fong Yun believes Taiwanese kids lack confidence and courage compared to youngsters from other countries, so over 10 years ago she teamed up with pediatric professor Chen Yi-hsin to develop a special program that combined military drills and gymnastics to boost their physical and mental strength. Yun is convince her training will help the students deal with hardships like tough college admission exams, job hunting and even marriage. Many Taiwanese parents seem to share her beliefs, as all the classes at Albert Kindergarten are full and parents drive from over half an hour ever day just to drop their kids off here. The children climb ladders, do handstands, backflips and all kinds of other exercises that even hardened marines sometimes find difficult. In order to graduate, they must prove they’ve mastered the entire routine by passing a challenging test.

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It’s not going to make his house airborne, but Laurent Aigon’s home-made Boeing 737 cockpit is so realistic that the Institute of Aircraft Maintenance at Bordeaux-Merignac Airport asked him to give a lecture on his achievement, and an aircraft maintenance company contacted him about using his creation for simulations.

40-year-old Laurent Aigon, from Lacanau, France, has always had a thing for airplanes. He grew up in Beutre, just 200 meters from the Merignac Airport, where he used to spend most of his time watching planes land and take-off, daydreaming that one day he would be the one behind the yoke. At 12-years old he had his first plane-flying experience, in front of his computer screen, playing Flight Simulator, but he was just too lazy for school and never went on to become a real pilot. Still his childhood dream stuck with him, and one day he decided that if he couldn’t fly a real plane, he was going to fly a fake one, right in the comfort of his own home. Five years ago, he met Jean-Paul Dupuy, a like-minded aircraft enthusiast, and together they set out to build the most realistic simulation cockpit possible. They met with the people of Aquitaine Simulation, and got s glimpse of their Airbus flight simulator. Confident they could build their own functional cockpit, Laurent and Jean-Paul scoured the internet for parts, and piece by piece, module by module, they managed to put together one of the world’s most realistic Boeing 737 cockpits. The fact that it’s crammed between a closet and a bunk-bed in a children’s bedroom is of little importance.

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Finding true love can be pretty tough for a lot of people, but a female management supervisor from a fairly well-known San Francisco advertising agency seems to think money helps. According to a leaked email, she is offering $10,000 to any of her friends who can introduce her to Mr. Right.

The unnamed husband seeker who sent out the email obtained by Agency Spy had just finished reading the best-selling feminist book “Lean In” by Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg. It was 11 PM on a Sunday night and she realized this was the second self-help book she had read in month, she was still single and she had just sprinkled dish soap on leftover pizza so she wouldn’t eat two more slices. Things were not looking well, but there was hope for her still. If Sandberg’s book had taught her anything it was that she needed take a more proactive role in finding love. After all, if she wanted to get a better job, she wouldn’t just sit in the lobby of an employer’s building and wait for someone to offer it to her, so why should finding a husband be any different. But instead of going out and meeting new people she decided to write an email to all her friends, offering to give them $10,000 on her wedding day if any of them manage to introduce her to her future husband.

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While most Western women spend ridiculous amounts of money to conceal or get rid of the puffy bags under their eyes, Korean women consider them a sign of beauty and resort to a variety of cosmetic procedures in order to get them.

Aegyo Sal, as the bizarre baggy-eyes trend is known in Korea, should not be confused with the saggy or dark purplish eyebags caused by lack of sleep and aging, those are considered unattractive pretty much everywhere. The trendy feature refers strictly to the slight puffiness of the lower eye-socket which has to match the color tone of the skin. Contrary to general beliefs and perceptions, Korean women find these little pockets of fat under the eyes cute and believe they give them a more youthful look by brightening the eyes. Ever noticed how a person’s eyes become puffy when they smile? The Koreans have, and they’ve come up with way of creating that illusion of a bright joyful facial expression without actually smiling – the aegyo sal.

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Most modeling agencies are interested in beautiful, tall and slender models with perfect proportions, but Berlin-based We Are Unlike You is not your typical modeling agency. As long as you have a unique style or persona, their only requirement is to be yourself.

“We are unlike other model agencies,” founder Maurice Redmond says about We Are Unlike You. “We don’t just offer tremendous looking individuals, but real characters who don’t just look the part, they feel and act it too. Because it’s simply who they are.” The story of this unconventional talent agency began when Redmond saw some photos documenting the Berlin burlesque scene, taken by his photographer Paul Green. Intrigued by the characters in the images, he started thinking about the stories behind them, so after talking with Green and Tim Rhodes, a mutual friend and photo agent, the three decided to work together and connect the colorful individuals in the images with their stories in front of the camera. Their goal is to work with people who are special not only for the way they look, but also for who they are and what they do, and help them get involved in projects that fit their unique personalities and talents. We Are Unlike You’s roster of amazing models includes “a 7ft a baton-twirling blue bunny on suicide heels, the man from Helsinki with the strongest nipples on earth, a human crab, a burlesque dancer that can make grown men weep and many, many more”.

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According to Chinese media reports, in a village on the outskirts of Changchun lives a nicotine-addicted alligator snapper turtle who smokes around 10 cigarettes a day. The turtle’s keeper says that whenever it feels the need for a smoke, the reptile becomes agitated and starts to hiss.

So how does a turtle become addicted to cigarettes? A local chef, surnamed Tang, who is helping his boss take care of it, says it all started about two months ago when he noticed the pet had lost interest in its daily fish diet. After inspecting the reptile, he noticed there was a sharp chicken bone lodged in its soft belly, but when he tried to pull it out, it snapped at his hand from the pain, nearly biting off his fingers. Tang realized the only way he could take out the bone was to distract the turtle, so he took the lit cigarette that was resting in his mouth and gave it to the pet to bite on. Its jaws snapped on the filter and didn’t let go for hours. His idea proved effective, as he managed to remove the sharp chicken bone, but little did the cook know it would lead to an even bigger problem.

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Angel Sanguino, an electronics technician from Caracas, Venezuela, who last year lost his left arm in a motorcycle accident, has recently been awarded a Prize for Science, Technology and Innovation, after he manged to build an ingenious robotic arm that allows him to perform a series of useful tasks.

33-year-old Angel Sanguino was riding his motorcycle when he was hit by a speeding car engaged in illegal street racing. He was taken to the emergency room, and doctors were forced to amputate his left arm from the shoulder. It was a devastating blow for the talented electronics technician who worked for a prestigious computer part manufacturer, as he could no longer do his job with just one arm. The orthopedist told Angel he should accept his disability and move on with his life, but he had other plans. While in intensive care recovering from the surgery, severe internal organ damage and fractured legs, Sanguino learned he was going to become a father soon, and that gave him the strength to fight for his life and make sure he was able to provide for his family. Three months after his accident, the young Venezuelan used his experience as a cartoonist to design a prosthetic arm that would allow him to repair electronic components just like before.

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When yoga first came to the United States it was mostly regarded as a chick thing, and the few men who rarely walked into a yoga studio were only waiting for their girlfriends. Things have changed a lot in the last few years, and now almost 50% of attendants are men, but there are still stiff guys out there who don’t feel comfortable in the same room with a bunch of flexible women. That’s where broga comes in.

As its name suggests, broga is a variation of yoga tailored for “bros”. It’s based on the idea that most men want to keep fit without feeling emasculated by silly posies, meditation and Sanskrit chanting.  Co-founders Robert Sidoti and Adam O’Neill have found a way to combine yoga routines with manly exercises like push-ups and squats to make the original Indian practice more appealing to men. Guys usually engage in other types of physical activity, like tennis or basketball, because it feels like a better workout, but broga is brutal enough to make you sweat and catch your breath, while at the same time improving your muscle and joint flexibility and reducing stress. Sidoti and O’Neill also design their studios with men in mind, and although they don’t look like regular man caves, the two always opt for neutral colors and use a soundtrack featuring the Black Keys, Radiohead, Awolnation and Bon Iver instead of the traditional New Age music commonly used for yoga. Their instructors don’t sound like the usual zen types either, but more like buddies giving you pointers.

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Being stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives is most people’s idea of hell, but not for Chloe Jennings-White. A 57-year-old chemist from Salt Lake City, Utah, has an unnatural desire to become a paraplegic (paralyzed from the waist down).

Chloe lives the life of a disabled person. She moves around in a wheelchair and wears long leg braces that lock at the knee to enable her to ambulate with crutches. But when she needs to go up or down a flight of stairs, she simply stands up, removes her braces and walks like a normal person. Like most paralyzed people, she loves outdoor activities, only instead of using specialized equipment to enable such activities, she simply goes on 12-hour hikes in the woods, skies down dangerous slopes, climbs mountain peaks, like a normal person. Chloe Jennings-White isn’t physically impaired, she just likes to feel like she is. In 2008, doctors diagnosed her with BIID (Body Integrity identity Disorder), a serious psychological disorder that causes sufferers to  feel they would be happier living as amputees or paraplegics. To resist the urges of damaging her spine and fulfilling her desire of becoming paralyzed, doctors suggested she use a wheelchair and special braces. Being able to spend most of her time as a paraplegic has been a massive relief for Chloe, but she admits to sometimes fantasizing about being an accident or a car crash that would truly damage her legs.

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German entrepreneur Reitner Reuther has made headlines in the national media for offering a very unique service. He gives parents who suspect their children of using illegal substances the chance to find out for sure by hiring a trained sniffer dog.

Statistics show drug abuse among youth is an increasing problem all around the world, but parents in Germany now have a new way of dealing with it without involving the authorities. Reitner Reuther believes his sniffer dog Thor is able to find even the most secret stashes of narcotics that can often be “too sophisticated” for parents to discover, so he set up a website where he offers to conduct discreet searches at the clients’ homes, at a rate of €95 ($125) per case. Thor completed his training to become a police dog in Texas, USA and specializes in sniffing out cannabis, heroin, speed and ecstasy. Parents get in touch with Reitner and they set up an appointment. When their child is away at school, he brings the dog by to search the house. According to his owner, no matter how well the drugs are hidden, nothing gets by Thor.

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Mehmet Ali Gökçeoğlu, a successful businessman and topographical engineer from Turkey, has built the world’s most amazing fence for his luxurious villa in Çeşme, Izmir. Eight years ago he replaced the metal fence at the front of his property with a 50-meter-long aquarium filled with hundreds of fish and octopuses. I know, you have to see it to believe it. Luckily we have the photos and videos to prove it.

Located just a few feet away from the shores of the Aegean Sea, Mehmet Ali Gökçeoğlu’s property has become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Çeşme, attracting up to a thousand visitors a day, according to its owner. The villa itself is pretty impressive, but it’s not what draws so many people to this place. They come to see the aqua-fence. Eight years ago, the Turkish businessman had the eccentric idea to replace the front fence of his home with a giant aquarium full of various marine creatures from the Aegean Sea. Building the transparent structure was actually the easy part of the project. The hard part was linking the aqua-fence to the Aegean through a 400-meter-long buried pipeline, so the water could be changed continuously to keep the aquarium looking clean and its inhabitants happy. Gökçeoğlu hired a team of private divers to perform the task, and ended up paying approximately 40,000 Turkish Lira ($21,000) to fulfill his dream. The businessman says just seeing people line up outside his house staring at his creation makes it all worth it.

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Palmistry, the art of predicting the future by reading palm lines, has always been very popular in Japan, only now modern day believers are taking matters into their own hands by using plastic surgery to alter or extend their life, love and success lines, and hopefully change fate.

Do you want to live a long and healthy life, find the man/woman of your dreams or win the lottery? Changing your fortunes may seem impossible, but an increasing number of Japanese are confident it’s as easy as altering your palm lines through plastic surgery. A reporter from The Daily Beast sat down with Takaaki Matsuoka, a plastic surgeon at the Shonan Beauty Clinic, who has so far performed 20 of these palm-line altering surgeries. Matsuoka knew nothing about palmistry until two years ago, when a client walked into his office and asked him to change some of her palm lines. Unsure he could pull off such a procedure, the doctor started searching through medical journals and found it was already practiced in Korea. He studied the methods and after the patient confirmed what she wanted altered, he performed the surgery for ¥100,000 ($1,000). It turned out alright, and since then 37 clients have had their palm lines changed or added at the Shonan Beauty Clinic alone.

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Snail slime is believed to have an anti-ageing effect on human skin and beauty product companies have been using as an ingredient for around two decades. Now, a Japanese beauty salon is taking things to a whole new level by offering a treatment where live snails are put directly on clients’ faces to cover them in slime.

For a lot of women, having snails crawling on their faces is the stuff of nightmares, but the owners of Tokyo-based beauty salon Ci:z Labo are hoping some will actually be willing to pay for it. According to Ci:z Labo spokeswoman Manami Takamura, snail slime removes old cells from a person’s skin, moisturizes it and treats sun burn effects. The treatment, called the Celebrity Escargot Course, costs Y24,150 ($241) and involves four snails bought from an organic snail breeder in Japan and kept in sterile conditions. An assistant gently places the snails on the patient’s previously washed face and let’s them crawl freely. If they get too close to the person’s mouth, eyes or nostrils, she picks them up and places them back on an area where they feel less uncomfortable. The slimy facial is a central part of this 60-minute treatment and is followed by a series of massages, masks and electrical pulse machines using creams infused with snail mucus which ensure the secretions penetrate the skin properly.

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