Something strange is going on at the Rogue Ales Brewery in Newport, Oregon. Brewers there are developing an ale made from wild yeast harvested from the beard of Rogue’s award-winning brewmaster, John Maier.

He hasn’t shaved since 1978, and that apparently makes his beard the perfect place to harvest yeast. I’m just kidding, it’s far from perfect, but Rogue Ales’ president, Brett Joyce said he was looking for a “different place that might have some magic yeast in it” and decided to try out Maier’s facial hair. The guys at Rogue had tried developing some new yeast strains from some of their own hopyard, but came up empty-handed, so as a joke they had their lab guy take a couple of Q-tip swabs from John Maier’s fluffy beard. Amazingly enough, he found a yeast cell, did some fermentation tests and the unique “beard beer” was born. What started out as a joke turned into something really special, since they never expected to find the new yeast they were looking for right in their brewmaster’s beard. “This really is the needle in the haystack” John Couchot, Rogue Ales’ self-described mad scientist said.

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This is one of those rare stories that’s both creepy and heartbreaking at the same time. Tian Xueming lost both his children in just on decade, and decided to store his son’s remains in an ice chest inside the house for six years, so he could see and talk to him whenever the massive loss became to hard to cope with.

60-year old Tian Xueming, a carpenter from Huangling Village, China’s Chongqing province, got married in 1979, and took his wife to live in a modest home made of mud. At the time they were living with six other relatives, so to provide better living conditions for his family, Tian went to work in the city. Thanks to his carpentry skills and impeccable work ethic, the Tians’ lifestyle gradually improved. In 1982 they had a daughter, and in 1987, his wife Yang Hongying gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. In order to spend more time with his family, Tian decided to quit his job and return to his native village as a stay-at-home dad. He managed to build a three-storey house for his family, the most luxurious in all of Huangling, and he describes those days as the happiest of his entire life. Only the new-found happiness didn’t last long… Read More »

Hong King-based property and shipping tycoon Cecil Chao Sze-tsung has offered up a bizarre $65 million marriage bounty to any man capable of wooing and eventually marrying his lesbian daughter, Gigi. “I don’t mind whether he is rich or poor – the important thing is that he is generous and kind-hearted,” the billionaire said.

33-year-old Gigi Chao has recently announced wedding Sean Eav, her partner for seven years, in France. But her powerful father doesn’t even want to hear about it and even publicly dismissed the “false reports” of his daughter’s marriage insisting she was still single. He told the South China Morning Post that he is eager for his daughter to finally marry and even offered a $65 million reward to any MAN capable of winning her heart. “Gigi is a very good woman with both talents and looks. She is devoted to her parents, is generous and does volunteer work,” he said, adding that the financial reward is just “an inducement to attract someone who has the talent, but not the capital, to start his own business”. To sweeten the deal even more, he is willing to start his future son-in-law up in his own business.

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“This is completely insane… we don’t even play the lottery that often,” 29-year-old Hege Jeanette Oksnes said after her family won their third national lottery jackpot in the last six years. The most bizarre thing is it always happened after she gave birth to a child.

Just last week, Tord, Hege Jeanette’s 19-year-old brother won 12.2 million crowns (S$2.6 million) in the national Norwegian lottery, adding to the Oksnes family’s growing wealth. Previously, Jeanette herself won 8,2 million crowns ($1,4 million), and her father 12 million crowns ($2,1 million), playing in the same lottery. Three members of the same family winning the lottery in the last six years doesn’t happen very often, but after connecting the dots, the Oksnes have apparently identified what makes them so incredibly lucky. The first two times they won the lottery it happened just hours after Jeanette gave birth, and the third time stroke of luck occurred three months after she had her third child. The young mother told AFP she has three brothers who have yet to win the lottery and they asked her to have at least 10 other children. But after three children, Jeanette thinks it may be time to call it quits. “My husband thinks we have enough money now,” she says.

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Thinking of going to Roswell in the hopes of spotting a UFO? Don’t bother, just head out to the southern coast of Puerto Rico where you’re guaranteed to see one. It may not be able to fly, but it’s bizarre shape and colorful decorations make it quite a sight.

58-year-old Roberto Sanchez Rivera has been planning his unique UFO house for about 40 years. In a perfect world, I’d be saying his inspiration for the project was love, but this is the real world and Roberto’s true motivation was sweet revenge. In his youth years, when he was just a dreamy, artistic student from a poor family, he courted a girl by sending her love notes decorated with drawings of UFOs, and telling her he would one day build a UFO-shaped house. Not the usual pick-up lines, that’s for sure, but he eventually made her his girlfriend, if only for just three months. After she broke off their relationship, the girl’s mother told Rivera it was because she thought he would never amount to anything in life. Rather than crying his heart out, drowning his sorrow in booze or burying himself in work, the man started plotting his revenge. The truth is he was so devastated that he even contemplated suicide, but then he said “No, I’m going to show her, this person, I’m going to work that much harder to show her who I am.”

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It was bound to happen at some point, I guess. Chen Guangbiao, a famous Chinese businessman and philanthropist, has recently launched a line of canned fresh air collected from various parts of China and Taiwan. The product is called “Chen Guangbiao: Nice Guy” and sells for about $0,80.

It’s no secret China has a huge air pollution problem, but while authorities don’t seem to be taking any action to resolve it, billionaire Chen Guangbiao, aka “Brother Biao” is trying to raise awareness in a very original way. He has recently started selling canned fresh air collected from “revolutionary” areas of China, including Jinggang Mountain in Jiangxi Province and some ethnic minority areas and Taiwan. “One only has to open the can, directly ‘drink’ it or put the nose close to the can to breath deeply,” Chen said. He also mentioned there is a chip in the can, and during the “packaging process”, when the negative oxygen ions reach a certain concentration the lid is triggered by the chip and closed. And since the air is compressed, it stays inside the can even without a lid, the quirky philanthropist claimed. Before the big launch of “Chen Guangbiao: Nice Guy” canned air, Brother Biao said he was confident of its success, because there are lots of people in big cities inhaling air mixed with vehicle exhaust every day who are dying for a breath of fresh air.

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A 16-year-old girl from Haren, the Netherlands, forgot to set her Facebook birthday invitation to private and got a few thousand more guests than she was expecting. And if that wasn’t enough, the revelers also started a riot in the small Dutch town.

Why don’t these young school girls ever learn? Jut last year a similar event took place after a German girl forgot to make her Facebook birthday invitation private and got 1,500 unwanted guests. Police were able to contain the crowd back then, but on September 21st 2012, things really got out of control in Haren. After the young girl posted her public invite on Facebook, her friends started sharing it with their friends, sites started posting about it, and soon the whole thing grew out of proportion to the point where 30,000 users confirmed their presence to the event known as Project X Haren. This was turning into way more than the girl had planned for her big day, so the authorities were alerted. The party was cancelled, and the police appealed to Facebook revelers, asking them not to descend on Haren. Despite their best efforts, at least 3,000 people from all over the Netherlands turned up, and they were not the most peaceful bunch either.

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Dasrath Manjhi, a landless farmer from India, made history after he spent over two decades chiseling away at a mountain with rudimentary tools, in order to create a road for his community, when the Government refused to.

If you’re looking for some motivation, stories don’t get much more inspirational than that of Dasrath Manjhi. 53 years ago, he set out to carve a 1mk-long path through a rocky hillside, all by himself, in order to make it easier for his fellow villagers to access schools, markets and neighboring villagers. “This hill had given us trouble and grief for centuries. The people had asked the government many times to make a proper road through the hill, but nobody paid any attention. So I just decided I would do it all by myself,” Manjhi told Indian newspaper Tehelka, in 2007, a shortly before succumbing to the cancer that was plaguing him.  With just his chisel, hammer and shovel, this legendary man turned what was once a precarious one-foot-wide passage into a 360ft-long, 30ft-wide road accessible by bicycle and motorcycle. The hill kept the region’s villages in isolation, forcing people to trek through dangerous terrain for hours just to reach their lands or the nearest market town. Children had to walk eight kilometers to reach school, but thanks to Dasrath Manjhi’s handmade road, that distance has been reduced to three kilometers, and people from over 60 villages now use it every day.

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Remember the Necomimi, those wacky brainwave-controlled cat ears we featured around this time last year? Well, the same Japanese company that makes those, Neurowear, has just released a fluffy mind-controlled tail to go with them.

I have to admit it’s kind of strange seeing a company that has the knowledge to create mind-controlled gadgets create stuff like cat ears and tails for humans, but then again this is Japan, so the weird factor is still pretty low. Anyway, much like the Necomimi cat ears, Shippo, the new tail developed by Neurowear is able to read your emotions and reflect your mood by wagging. Depending on how your heart beats and the extent to which alpha and beta brainwaves are activated, the tail moves from side to side or top to bottom at different intensities. The feline accessory also communicates with an app that records your mood and broadcasts it out via your social network, so anyone can know when you’re happy, sad and even in love. There is even a  database of places other people wearing these wacky cat tails found relaxing, so you can check them out whenever you’re looking to find some peace and quiet.

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Joe Wos, a Pittsburgh-based cartoonist and performer, is currently working on what he hopes will be the new world’s largest most difficult hand-drawn maze. Creating this thing is one daunting task, but nowhere as difficult as finding someone willing to spend approximately 40 hours trying to solve it.

Like all children, Joe Wos loved to doodle when he was young boy. He grew up to become an cartoonist, and as he approached 40 years old, he felt the need to achieve some “lifelong goals”, one of which was setting a Guinness record. He remembered that as a kid, he would create mazes on huge pieces of paper that often ended up on the walls of his home, and realized that could be his shot. After doing some research he learned Guinness had other maze-related records so he asked them if they were willing to acknowledge the world largest hand-drawn maze. They accepted, but with a number of conditions: Wos’ maze would have to be at least 10 square meters in size, it would have to be solvable, and drawn by him alone. Also, he needs five witnesses every time he goes to work on it. The 42-year-old cartoonist started this monumental project on July 27 and hopes to complete his intricate masterpiece by the end of September. “It’s not easy,” he told the Huffington Post. “One path has to remain open, but I have to keep about five paths available just in case I draw myself into a wrong path. And that will be terrible for the person who actually solves the maze because they may spend up to 30 minutes going down a wrong path as well.”

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Beggars at a religious festival in Nanchang, southern China, have been ordered to either stay in specially-built metal cages or risk being removed from the city, in an attempt to stop them from harassing visitors.

Living in a country where begging is a very lucrative business, I know what it’s like to constantly be disturbed by various characters asking for money (not food, money), but what these Chinese festival organizers did is a bit extreme. According to a Nanchang official, in recent years the number of beggars turning up for the local religious festival has increased to a point where they’re actually making temple visitors uncomfortable with their lamenting and pleading for some pocket change. So this year, to make sure everyone attending the festivities will be left alone, they decided to separate the hundreds of beggars in small metal cages around the festival grounds, where people can still give donations if they wish, but without being followed around and nagged while they’re on a day out with their family. Organizers did point out that the beggars in this pop-up human zoo entered their cages voluntarily and that no one is actually forcing them to beg for a living…

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Created by Japanese divorce guru Hiroki Terai, Divorce Newspapers are gaining popularity as a quick and painless way to let family, friends and acquaintances know your marriage is over. This saves couples the embarrassment of having to tell each one of them their marriage has failed and explain how it happened.

You know those awkward moments when you bump into an acquaintance on the street and while making small talk you courteously ask them about their spouse, only to find out they got divorced? With the divorce rate on the rise, it’s becoming harder to avoid this kind of unfortunate situations. However, the resourceful Japanese have come up with an ingenious solution to this problem, called “the divorce newspaper”. Its creator, Hiroki Terai, got the seemingly-wacky idea after hearing many divorcees complain about having to tell everyone they know in person about their failed marriage, and wishing there was a quicker way to do it. Sure, you have social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but let’s face it, 80-year-old grandmas don’t usually have accounts on these platforms, and a simple status change doesn’t let everyone know how you feel about the whole thing.

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3,000 goldfish from 14 different countries around the world competed for the title of “World Goldfish Queen” in the first ever International Goldfish Championship, hosted in Fuzhou, China’s Fujian Province.

A warehouse full of thousands of big white bowls of water sure doesn’t sound like the beauty pageant events we’re normally used to, but that’s exactly what it was. Last Saturday, a panel of judges gathered in the city of Fuzhou to determine which of the slippery contestants should be crowned most beautiful goldfish in the world. In an interview with Reuters, judge Ye Qichang said: “We judge goldfish mainly by five criteria: breed, body shape, swimming gesture, colour, which is very important, and overall impression.” And although color counts for much, the favorite of the fishy competition impressed the judges with its size – weighing 1.75 kilograms (3.9 pounds), the giant goldfish reportedly moved arund his tank very gracefully, which obviously won it extra points. “Not all goldfish can grow this big. Many factors such as breed and breeding method may affect their size. A goldfish cannot grow into that size if it suffers any hardship or major illness during the breeding. So it is a very rare one,” Ye concluded.

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Unless you want to be confronted by a group of ninjas, you don’t want to break the code of conduct at London’s Prince Charles Cinema. They won’t run a katana through you or use throwing stars, but they will pop out of nowhere and give you a stern warning.

Invisible Cinema Ninjas, now there’s a cool concept! Well, they’re not really ninjas trained in the deadly arts, but really just volunteers dressed in all-black Lycra suits called “Morphsuits”. They’re offered free tickets by the Prince Charles Cinema, in London, and have the task of keeping an eye out for any misconduct from moviegoers, during screenings. “The ‘Cinema Ninjas’ may sound ludicrous, but they have been a real success in clamping down on those ruining films for everyone else with inconsiderate behavior,” says Paul Vickery, head of public relations for the theater. “Like every cinema, we were irritated and upset by the minority of people running films for everyone else.”

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A man from Jinan, China’s Shandong Province, has spent six months building a Transformer-like robot that morphs into a functional car, at the push of a button. If you’re expecting a real-life Bumblebee, you’re going to be disappointed…

But finally, right!?! A real transformer and it’s not some guy in a suit either. Frankly, I was getting a bit tired of seeing people build all these awesome looking Transformer replicas that didn’t do anything but look pretty, and I was really hoping someone would one day take it to the next level. Enter unknown Chinese Transformers fan with a passion for DIY stuff. According to RocketNews24, the man has wanted to build his very own Transformer ever since watching the first film in Michael Mann’s trilogy, four years ago. He didn’t have any kind of mechanical or electronics knowledge but that didn’t stop him from finally accomplishing his dream. It took the Jinan-native six months and 70,000 yuan (US$11,000) to finally complete his life-size Transformer, but just look at it…

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