Texas-based Paige Chenault loves birthdays, and believes everyone should have a chance to celebrate theirs. So she hosts beautiful parties for homeless children, giving them birthday celebrations they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. She started with a few parties in Dallas and went on to found a non profit called The Birthday Party Project, with chapters across the US.

Chenault, a former wedding planner, is perfect for the job because of her extensive experience. It all started when she read a magazine on a plane about kids’ birthday parties, when she was pregnant with her daughter. “I was just dreaming about all the great stuff that I could do for my daughter, just because I was an event planner, so I thought, ‘If anybody could throw a big bash, it was going to be me for my kid,’” she said.

And then she picked up another magazine and read about poor children in Haiti who didn’t have anything. That’s when it struck her that there are millions of children in the world who not only have shelter or food, but would never be able to enjoy the kind of celebration she had in mind. “That’s where the idea came from, and it really started stirring in me,” she said.

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Meet Gong Xunhui, a 62-year-old Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patient who recently wrote a detailed autobiography using only her eyes!

Gong Xunhui has been suffering from ALS for the past 12 years. She’s been confined to a wheelchair since 2006, but despite her almost complete paralysis, she has actually managed to write a 150,000-word book on her life – something that even able bodied people might struggle with. And she did it with the only part of her body she still has full control over, her eyes. 

It all started about three years ago, when Xunhui’s family bought her an eye-tracking assistive device that she could use to communicate and also control a computer. After it was installed, the first line she typed was: “I am very happy today, and after I get better at typing with my eyes, I will probably write an autobiography.”

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Scientists and doctors have made a huge leap in cryonics – the effort to save lives through sub-zero temperatures – by freezing the body of a two-year-old child. Matheryn Naovaratpong is now the youngest person in the world to be cryogenically preserved.

Fondly known to her family as ‘Einz’, the little girl was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer shortly after her third birthday. She died in January this year, just before she turned three. But her parents – both medical engineers – have decided to give her another chance at life using cryonics. 

Through cryonics, it is possible to preserve the bodies of humans and animals who cannot be cured through contemporary medicine, with the hope that they may be healed and resuscitated if extraordinary medical advances take place in the future. “As scientists, we are 100% confident this will happen one day – we just don’t know when,” Einz’s father Sahatorn said.

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Navy veteran Sean Mace is suing a California national park for $5 million after his skull was crushed in a freak accident. A giant pine cone apparently fell out of a tree and hit him on the head, causing serious, life-altering injuries.

The incident occurred last October at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, where Mace was reading a book under a grove of coniferous Araucaria bidwillii trees. He had been waiting to watch a Blue Angels air show when a 16-pound pine cone dropped from a tree and smashed his skull, knocking him unconscious. Mace suffered severe swelling and a brain hemorrhage.

He was immediately rushed to San Francisco General Hospital, where he underwent two emergency surgeries to relieve the pressure on his brain. A part of his skull had to be removed during surgery, in order to save his life. He now suffers from permanent brain damage, memory loss, depression, and ‘a tremendous degree of anxiety’. He cannot get a job, while he still has to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. And he still has to get a third operation.

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Ever felt so angry that you could break everything in the room? Well, a new stress busting trend in Russia is letting people do just that. The art project, known as ‘Debosh’, offers stressed out folks the opportunity to destroy an entire room with sledge hammers, baseball bats, clubs and more!

So whether you’ve had a bad day at work, a huge fight with your spouse, or you just need a way to vent out all that passive aggressive frustration, all you have to do is fork out $160 to $450 – depend on the cost of the furniture involved, which is mostly cheap, old mid-century stuff – and you can go crazy on the place.

So far, the service has proved a big hit. There are other ‘rage room’ services in Moscow, but Project Debosh is so popular because it allows a huge amount of customization. Users can select the furniture through an a la carte service and they can have a car placed into the room to take their frustration out on.

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A Russian TV show recently risked a man’s life, just to prove the strength of a new type of superglue. They had their producer hanging upside down below a hot air balloon, with nothing but superglue to hold him in place!

The crew glued the soles of the producer’s shoes to a wooden board attached to the underside of the balloon, before flying it up to a height of 5,000 ft. Thankfully, the glue proved to be strong and the man did not fall.

The bizarre experiment was shown as a segment on the Russian show Chudo Tehniki (Wonders of Technology), and the footage has now gone viral on the internet.

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New York woman Jennifer Connell is being called the world’s worst aunt after she tried to sue her 12-year-old nephew for breaking her wrist four years ago. The kid, Sean Tarala, apparently jumped into her arms because he was excited to see her at his eighth birthday party in March, 2011.

The awkward embrace resulted in a broken wrist, for which Connell, 54, is now seeking a compensation of $127,000. She admitted in court that her nephew was ‘very loving’ and ‘sensitive’ towards her, but she believes that the boy should be held accountable for his behavior.

The lawsuit alleged that the boy’s “negligence and carelessness” caused Connell’s injuries and subsequent losses. It stated that “a reasonable eight years old under those circumstances would know or should have known that a forceful greeting such as the one delivered by the defendant to the plaintiff could cause the harms and losses suffered by the plaintiff.”

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China’s very own Walter White was arrested late last month, after being hunted by the police for months. The former chemistry teacher was found in possession of 31.5 kg of meth and 185 kg of toxic raw materials. He also had a high pressure cooker and other other equipment stashed away in his three bedroom apartment in Nanning, Guangxi. A police officer confessed that it was the most advanced drug making paraphernalia he’d ever seen!

According to local media, investigations began in March, when the narcotics department of the local police force was tipped off about drug trafficking in the region. The detectives managed to infiltrate an online platform used for drug deals, and arrested three dealers. All three of them confessed to having purchased their drugs from a man named ‘Lumou’ in Nanning.

‘Lumou’, obviously a fake name, proved difficult to track down. After following a series of clues, they finally were led to a 35-year-old admissions director at a vocational school, who had quit his job in 2012, after he himself became addicted to drugs. 

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Although most young Argentinians aren’t even thinking about marriage these days, they seem quite fond of wedding ceremonies. So they’ve come up with a bizarre party trend of fake weddings, where groups of 20- and 30-somethings get together to attend wedding-themed parties complete with fake bride and groom.

The idea was the brainchild of 26-year-old publicist Martin Acerbi, who, a couple of years ago, organised a fake wedding with four of his friends in La Plata, about 32 miles away from Buenos Aires. “It all started two years ago with a group of friends: we realised we hadn’t been to a wedding in a long time because hardly anybody is getting married anymore,” Acerbi says.

To his surprise, the event was a huge success which got him thinking about a new business. The friends went on to found ‘Falsa Boda’, a fake wedding organising company, in November 2013. They rent out real wedding locations, hire caterers, florists, and DJs, and make everything look like a real wedding. Except, there is no ‘happily ever after’.

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A Florida woman was temporarily blinded in one eye after her friend accidentally handed her a bottle of glue instead of her eye drops!

The freak accident occurred last week, when Katherine Gaydos, 28, and her friend were clearing dry leaves at her West Palm Beach property. They were using a leaf blower when a small piece of debris got into Katherine’s eye. She then asked her friend to hand her a bottle of Visine from her handbag, but the woman mistakenly reached for fingernail glue instead.

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Not everyone has access to the beautiful autumn foliage that grows in the American Northeast. Which is why there’s a legitimate business that sells three perfectly preserved New England autumn leaves for about $20!

The idea belongs to Boston entrepreneur Kyle Waring, known for trying to ‘Ship Snow’ to warmer places earlier this year. Kyle’s latest seasonal venture is called ‘Ship Foliage’, which according to his website, preserves and ships “gorgeous fall foliage” across the US. 

“All leaves are collected from New England, and undergo a unique preservation process,” the website adds, revealing that their foliage experts (Waring, his wife, and their two Italian greyhounds) hike all over the Northeast in search of the perfect leaves. This is called the collection phase, during which each leaf is hand selected and branded ‘Grade A’ foliage. They venture out every weekend around Hamilton and Manchester-by-the-Sea, and at scenic spots like Lincoln, Tuckerman Ravine on Mt. Washington, and Lake Winnipesaukee.

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As if rollerblading wasn’t difficult enough, this guy from Germany actually skates on his hands! Mirko Hanßen claims to have invented the sport of ‘handskating’ himself, and he’s currently the best (and only) hand skater in the world.

Mirko has always loved skating and handstands, and one day at dinner, he thought of combining the two, on a whim. He made his first attempt in his bedroom that night, putting his hands in his rollerblades and attempting a headstand. He hardly managed to prop himself up before he came crashing down on the floor.

But Hanßen would not give up. With more practice, he was able to stand on his hands and even glide forward. He soon took his sport outdoors to the streets, practicing on bike lanes but when motorists proved to distracting, he moved to more obscure locations, like back alleys, which also ensured no one could copy his unique sport. “I’ve always made sure that nobody is filming me with their smartphone,” he said. Eventually, he got pretty good at handskating and started posting videos of himself online. He’s able to do backflips, skate on ramps, and even skate on just one hand.

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Meet Joel Miggler, a 22-year-old with a ‘disturbing’ addiction to flesh tunnels. He’s taken body piercings to a whole new level with a total of 11 flesh holes fitted with expanders on his face, including his nose and lips. Two of the largest holes are on his cheeks, each measuring 34 mm in diameter. And he soon plans to increase them to 40mm!

German-born Miggler now holds the Guinness World Record for ‘most flesh tunnels on face’. His obsession with body modification began at age 13, when he got his first ‘normal’ fleshy on his earlobe. Since then, he’s developed a taste for the process that he simply never got out of his system. “I’m very happy with my flesh tunnels, but I always want to get a new one,” he said. Read More »

A Texas couple is in the news for taking their marital spat to a whole new level. The husband has apparently set up camp on the front lawn, ever since his doctor wife kicked him out of their million dollar mansion in Taylor Lake Village, Seabrook. According to local police, Sharafat Khan, 69, has been living outdoors for the past six months!

As funny as the matter sounds, neighbors are pretty worried about him because he’s elderly and in poor health. “He’s wearing the same clothing, it’s dirty,” said Debbie Scoggins, who lives in the neighborhood. “He has no bathroom facilities, no shoes.”

“The weather is starting to get colder,” added Laurel Stout, who lives across the street. “He’s very frail, he can’t even walk. I’m afraid he’s going to die out here in his yard. It just seems the man is elderly and it seems inhumane to leave him stranded out there.”

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Meet Katelyn Thornley, a seventh grade student who spends most of her day sneezing. The 12-year-old from Angleton, Texas, suffers from an unknown condition that causes her to sneeze over 12,000 times a day, preventing her from enjoying a normal childhood.

The mysterious ailment started about three weeks ago, just after she left a clarinet lesson. “I just started in little spurts, sneezing,” Katelyn explained. “I thought it was like, I’m allergic to something or didn’t wash out my mouthpiece the right way.” But it soon snowballed into something a lot worse – about 20 sneezes a minute all day long, making it difficult for her to do anything at all. “I’m constantly in pain with my abdomen, my legs are weak, I can barely eat,” she said.

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