Greenpeace activists are going to fall in love with the genius invention of Li Fan : curtains made of living plants.

Chinese inventor, Li Fan, has come up with a brilliant way to support the environment, and help people say “adios” to cleaning and washing curtains. Her living curtains are actually self-sufficient plants, on a supporting mesh.

Li Fan’s curtains filter light, like regular curtains, but also suck all the impurities out of the air, and smell fresh all the time. Living plants curtains are the hottest thing in Beijing home-design, right now, and Li Fan says business is booming.

No word on whether these living plant curtains are available outside China, but I’m sure there are people out there willing to pay top dollar to green-up there homes.

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Three-year old Ruby Dickinson, from Wales, is preparing to ink a small tattoo, on her father’s body, and become the youngest tattoo artist on Earth.

Ruby has been living in a tattoo-filled environment, ever since she was born. Her father, Blane, has his own tattoo shop, set up right in their home. Tattooing has already become part of Ruby’s life, and she always talks to her father’s customers, about what they’re planning to ink on their bodies, and repeats whatever her father tells them, on the matter.

Blane has already ordered a special tattooing tool, from the States, one that fits Ruby’s small hands. Right now, she is practicing her favorite design, a spider, about the size of a 2 p coin. Since her father already has 70% of his body covered with tattoos, he’s not worried Ruby might mess up the spider.

Brent says “this will set her off on a fantastic career, and a tattoo machine is a lot cheaper than university fees.”

Photos by Cascade News via Daily Mail

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Back in January, when “Top Banana” Ken Bannister was forced to split (get it?) with his giant banana collection, out of the place that served as headquarters of the Banana Club and Museum, since 1972, things looked grim for banana lovers, everywhere.

But thanks to a substantial donation, of approximately $50,000, the Banana Museum will live on. When Banana Club founder, Ken Bannister, posted an ad on eBay, announcing he was wiling to part with his extensive collection, fellow fruit lover Fred Garbutt decided to become the new curator of the Banana Museum

Garbutt’s donation bought him a 17,000 item banana collection, including a banana golf club, banana drinks, and even a Michael Jackson banana. He has big plans for his purchase, which include buying a BMW and painting it yellow, selling banana-leaf wallpaper and making banana clothes, for kids. A real banana man, as Ken Bannister, himself said.

It can’t be easy for “Top Banana” Ken Bannister to leave his 38-year-long work, in the hands of someone else, but it’s better than letting it go to waste, that’s for sure.

Photos via BananaClub

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President Obama may not be as popular as he was when he became president of the United States, but his name is still viewed as a potential client driver.

A Chinese entrepreneur, from Shanghai, China is relying on Barack Obama’s popularity to make his soon-to-open nightclub a profitable venture. The Obama Nightclub is schedule to open on April 26 2010, and as you can see in the photos below, all of Shanghai is full of advertising banners. The website is, unfortunately, under construction.

Odd as it may be, this is really not a bad idea, considering how popular the American president is, in China, You may remember the wacky ways the Chinese people celebrated his visit, last year.

Photos via ImagineChina

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It’s official, China is trying to get this cooking thing completely automated. A week after a retired engineer presented his DIY robot cook, another springs up .

The students of Yangzhou University, in Yangzhou, China partnered up with an enterprise from Shenzen, to create a fully automated robotic cook. Their result is nothing short of impressive, considering the machine can cook over 600 dishes from Chinese cuisine. All anyone has to do is put in the necessary ingredints, program the robot and weight for the dish to be served.

Bad news for Liu Changfa, the retired engineer who presented his own patented robot cook. Iguess hi dream of selling one to every restaurant in China, won’t be coming true, after all.

Photos by Zhao Jun/Xinhua

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35-year-old Kevin Easterday was born with a rare condition that prevented his spine from developing correctly. His legs were amputated, when he was only a baby, but that hasn’t stopped him from living life to the fullest.

A strange illness, known as sacral agenesis, made it necessary for doctors to amputate Kenny’s legs, when he was only six months old. Part of his shinbone was used to create the missing part of his spine, but Kenny lost the ability to walk. Believe it or not, Mr. Eastearday was able to live a rich happy life, regardless of his handicap.

During a documentary, Kenny’s father reveals he taught his son to walk using his hands, by telling him to imitate his mother, who “walks like a duck”. As a child, he was offered a pair of prosthetic legs, but he didn’t really find them very useful, so he always used his hands, or a skateboard, to get around.

Although he wasn’t expected to reach the age of 21, Kenny not only beat the odds, but enjoyed life, in the process. He learned to play pool, bowl, work, and even make love to his fiancee,Nicky. To top things off, the happy couple is waiting for confirmation that Desiree, their 7-year-old daughter, is actually Kenny’s daughter. Read More »

Liu Changfa, a retired automation engineer,from China, needed only one year to create a robot cook, using only rudimentary tools, like hammer and axe.

The Chinese inventor connected his robot cook to a laptop computer and a cellphone that allow to choose preset menus, or program it to cook certain dishes. Vinegar, salt, sugar and all other seasoning is stored in the robot’s chest, and the cooking takes place in its belly, where an induction cooker is installed. With the help of some dedicated software, the dedicated robot can be programmed to add a certain amount of seasoning, or stir a dish a certain number of times.

All Liu Changfa has to do is put the raw ingredients into the pot, and wait for the beeping sound, made by the robot. He has already contacted a Chinese restaurant, which will test the robot cook in its kitchen, and add robot dishes on its menu. More restaurants will shortly follow, says Liu Changfa.

Well, I’d wait a while before adding cooking to the list of automated fields, but this is definitely a step in that direction.

Photos via CNS Photo

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Born at a normal weight, little Pang Ya now tips the scales at 41.5 kilograms, which is about as much as an adult Chinese woman.

Pang Ya weighed around 4 kilograms, when she was born, but reached 20 pounds in just 8 months, and ever since then she kept piling on the pounds. Now her worried parents are seeking medical help. They admit the toddler has a very healthy appetite, but claim doctors have no idea what is wrong with their daughter.

Pang Ya, from Taocun town, Shanxi province, is just one of over 60 million obese people in China. The numbers doubled between 1992 and 2002. That may have something to do with the opening of several fast-food chains in China.

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Actually, Vijay has earned the nickname “Rubber Man” in his native country of India, for performing incredible flexibility stunts.

Vijay is able to wrap his legs over his head, wind his arms around his back, crawl his body through a tennis racket and even drink from a coke bottle held between his toes. The 27-year-old shop assistant says his passion for extreme flexibility tricks comes from watching Jackie Chan movies when he was a kid.

Vijay Sharma discovered his unusual talents when he began taking martial arts lessons, so he could follow in the footsteps of his idol. He started crawling into tight spaces, curling up in boxes, and before he knew it, he was earning the title of  “Rubber Man” in the Limca Book of records. That’s India’s version of the Guinness Book of Records.

Te ambitious young man has made appearances on national TV shows and won the silver medal in a body flexibility tournament, and says he will stop at nothing to reach the international fame he deserves. Maybe he could learn a thing or two from Rubberboy

Photos by BARCROFT INDIA via Daily Mail

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13-year-old Zara Hartshorn suffers from a rare skin-condition called lipodystrophy, which makes her look like an old woman and causes her daily grief.

It’s hard to imagine what it’s like having to cope with people staring at you like you’re some kind of freak, and being called names like “baggy face”, “monkey” or “granny”, on a daily basis. But, no one knows what Zara has to go through, better than her own mother, 40-year-old Tracy. She says she knew her youngest daughter inherited her dreadful condition, ever since she was just a few days old. All her other kids have it too, but the symptoms are much more severs in Zara’s case.

Tracy managed to protect her little girl until she had to go to school. That’s when the nightmare began. Schoolmates make fun of her and beat her up if she tries to talk back, adults stop and stare at her wrinkled face as if it’s her fault she was born with this yet incurable condition.

Lipodystrophy causes the fatty tissue underneath the skin to deteriorate, while the skin itself grows in excess, at an accelerated pace. Tracy, who experienced the same tragedies, when she was Zara’s age, had facelift surgery, but after only two years, the lypodystrophy symptoms were just as severe and now she had the surgery scars as well.

Modern medicine has advanced a lot since then, and Tracy is desperate to help Zara before it’s too late. Unfortunately, she can’t afford the proper skin treatment on a single salary. But if there’s ever a sure way her daughter could be spared all the torment, she’d do anything to save her.

via Mirror.co.uk

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11-year-old Dayton Webber lost all his limbs when he was just a baby, but that didn’t stop him from performing in wrestling matches and riding his skateboard.

Young Dayton is a true inspiration. he lost his hands and legs when he was just 11-months-old, due to a life-threatening infection in his body. But for him, the absence of limbs didn’t mean he couldn’t live a perfectly normal life. Armed with ambition and will to succeed, Dayton took on sports other perfectly healthy people can’t do.

Both Dayton’s parents say they never pushed him to do anything, it was always his idea to try new things. These days he competes for the The Rampage Westling Team, in Waldorf, rides a skateboard, ice-skates, drives go-karts and even plays video-games like Madden NFL.

Other boys are surprised when they first meet him, especially in wrestling matches, but they soon find out he’s a worthy adversary. What Dayton can do physically he compensates in willpower. When asked what happened to his hands and feed, he simply answers “it’s no big deal”.

Record attempts are very frequent in Mexico and most of them have to do with food. On January 3rd, Mexican chefs managed to create the world’s biggest sweet bread, called “Rosca de Reyes”.

Popular around the Three Kings holiday, in Mexico, Rosca de Reyes never looked as big and tasty before. The cooking of the sweet bread has been sponsored by Mexico’s National Bakers’ Association, but this year the bakers outdid themselves and came up with the largest Rosca de Reyes ever.

Measuring 720 meters in length and weighing over 10 metric tons, the world’s largest Rosca de Reyes took over 21,000 man hours and $128,000 to make. 50,000 eggs and 2,900 kg of sugar were “sacrificed” during the cooking process.

The giant Rosca de Reyes was shared among 250,000 locals gathered in Mexico City’s Zocalo Square. Many of them couldn’t afford to buy sweet-bread on their own so this event came like a godsend.

Photos via Xinhua

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Using thousands of permanent solar panels to harvest energy, the Solar Valley Micro-E Hotel is the largest solar-power hotel on Earth.

Built by Himin Group, China’s leading solar products manufacturer, the Solar Valley Micro-E Hotel opened its gates Dezhou City, eastern China. It covers 75,000 square-meters and features thousands of solar panels and solar heat pipe collectors that harvest and store enough energy to sustain 70% of the hotel’s needs.

The solar energy is used for a variety of functions, including air-conditioning and water heating.

via ImagineChina

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Real gold leafs and white truffles make the Golden Kaiser Schnitzel the world’s most expensive schnitzel.

A German restaurant in Dusseldorf decided to laugh at the economic crisis and offer its customers one of the most expensive treats on Earth. The Berger Strasse restaurant has been serving its golden delight for about three years, but only recently began to promote it.

Thomas Huber, the establishment’s manager, said the gold has no taste and therefore ads nothing to the flavour of the schnitzel, but the white Italian Alba truffles are a whole other matter. At 5,000 euros per kilo, these exclusive ingredients set the Golden Kaiser Schnitzel’s price tag at 150,euros ($242).

So far around 100 golden schnitzel’s have been sold.

via The Local

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27 -year-old Lucian Craita, from Romania, parted ways with his pet lion, Richie, after raising him in his backyard for over a year.

Lucian has always had always had a thing for lions and when he had the chance to buy one for a pet, from an animal market, he didn’t hesitate. Richie cost him just 1,000 euros and he never regretted spending the money. Over a year and a half of living together, Lucian and Richie developed a truly special relationship, so you can imagine the young man’s grief when he had to hand his pet lion over to the Vier Pfoten animal association.

The Romanian gave up his friend voluntarily, after realizing he couldn’t offer it the life it deserved. Now Richie will be taken to Lion’s Rock Lion Reservation, in South Africa, where he can be with his own kind. Because Richie spent so much time as a house pet, he will never be a real lion, but at least he’ll enjoy being free in the savanna.

Photos by REUTERS via Xinhua

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