At Shangrila, a newly opened cafe in Akihabara, Tokyo, the waiting staff is made up of well-rounded young women, playfully nicknamed ‘marshmallow girls’.

According to the founders of Shangrila, the cafe is trying to promote the ‘bostive’ (body positive) mindset among Japanese youth. They want to contribute towards reducing the stigma associated with being overweight, and show people that ‘skinny’ isn’t the only definition of ‘cute’.

While maid-themed cafes are common in Japan, Shangrila is the only one that exclusively employs plus-sized women. Interestingly, they do not sell any junk food. Instead, they serve fresh food prepared by an Italian chef, using only organic ingredients. They claim to have the best pizza in all of Akihabara, but since the place is quite new, that is yet to be confirmed.

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Five-year-old Ramses Sanguino is no ordinary child. The boy is being hailed as telepathic after his mother recently posted a video of him apparently reading her mind and reciting numbers that she wrote down without his knowledge. The footage caught the attention of scientists who are now studying his abilities.

Ramses, who has a ‘high functioning’ form of autism, is apparently able to recite up to 38 numbers written out of sight. His mother, Nyx Sanguino, said there was no trickery involved in any of the home videos she made, adding that Ramses was special from the moment he was born.

“I knew even before he was born he was going to be someone special who would change the world,” she said. “Even when he was a baby he didn’t like toys, he just liked reading. He started reading when he was 12 months old and could even say words in English, Spanish, Greek, and some Japanese. When he was 18 months old he knew all the multiplication tables in English and Spanish and had learned the periodic table and all the atomic numbers.”

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While most lifestyle and fashion magazines are full of photos of slender male and female models photoshopped to perfection that create an unrealistic image of the human body, a fresh Japanese men’s magazine is taking a different approach. Mr. Babe is targeted towards chubby men, a body type that is rarely represented in the mainstream fashion industry.

Launched early this month, Mr. Babe describes itself as  Japan’s first “fashion and lifestyle magazine of chubby men, by chubby men and for chubby men”. It’s main goal is to boost the confidence of its readers and convince them that they can lead happy successful lives regardless of the few extra pounds, by offering fashion tips, health and personal grooming advice and articles on romance and marriage. “Our magazine is in no way encouraging men to gain weight and become chubby,” editor-in-chief Norihito Kurashina said in a recent interview. “Our message is that chubby men can be attractive by making use of what they have now while being mindful of their health so as not to become obese.”

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Biohackers are always looking for new ways to enhance their bodies with implantable technology, even if it’s for aesthetic purposes only. The newest augmenting trend involves having LED lights under the skin.

A group of three biohacking aficionados recently had a device called Northstar V1 implanted under the skin of their hands. About the size of a small coin, the chip is designed to emulate bioluminscence, the kind of light naturally produced by fireflies and some jellyfish. When activated by a magnet, the Northstar’s high-definition LEDs will light up in the shape of a star. The device is made up of a printed circuit board with five red Surface-Mounted-Device Light-Emitting Diodes (SMD LEDs) that become activated for 10 seconds whenever a magnet is placed near the included sensor. It is coated in silicone and powered by a 3 volt battery.

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Patrons dining at Lefty’s Restaurant, in Cape Town, South Africa, can relax and enjoy their meal knowing that their car is protected by a nunchuck-wielding karate master known only as Master Lolo.

Car guards are quite popular in many South-African cities, charging drivers a fee to look over their vehicles and keep them safe from thieves while they are dining or shopping. But no car guard is more famous than Master Lolo, a Congolese balaclava-wearing, nunchuck-wielding karate master hanging out in front of Lefty’s Restaurant, on Harrington Street, in cape Town. The 36-year-old has become a local celebrity, with people showing their gratitude for his services by posting videos of him in action on sites like YouTube.

“People need their cars protected and I have the ability to make the area safe. I am very good at it and will do it for as long as I am needed,” he told the Daily Voice. He admits that the area is very quiet and that so far he has only had to move people along instead of fighting them, but claims that’s probably because of his reputation. “People know not to make trouble here,” he said.

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A Spanish doctor who went missing 20 years ago and was declared dead by authorities 14 years later, after nothing was seen or heard of him, was recently found living deep in a forest in Tuscany, by a couple of villagers foraging for mushrooms.

Carlos Sánchez Ortiz de Salazar, who should now be 47-years-old, disappeared from his home in Seville, Spain, in 1996, after falling into a deep depression. His family spent years looking for him, but after being unable to find any kind of clues to what had happened, they eventually gave up, and Spanish authorities declared him dead in 2010. However, two weeks, ago, a man claiming to be Sánchez Ortiz de Salazar was found living in a forest outside Scalino, a town in Tuscany, by two local mushroom pickers.

The two foragers had gone into the forest hoping to find some mushrooms after a weekend of heavy rainfall, but after having little luck, they decided to stray off the beaten path in order to change their fortune. But instead of mushrooms, they discovered a trail of plastic bottles and water canisters which eventually led them to the camp of a man who they say had “a dirty face and large beard”.

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Meet Alan Whitman and Andrew Masters – the guys who refused to grow up but got rich anyway. They’ve made a killing out of marketing a one-of-a-kind spray called ‘Liquid Ass’, which makes anything smell as bad as it sounds!

The product was born several years ago when Whitman was in high school – his parents had gifted him a chemistry kit and he used the ingredients to invent a smell that had a whiff of “butt crack, kind of sewer smell, with a little hint of dead animal in there.” He used it to play a prank on an English teacher he wasn’t very fond of, and that’s when he realised that what he had on his hands was a real weapon.

But the concoction wasn’t useful to him until about 10 years ago, when he was about to get fired from a truck manufacturing company. Things got pretty bad between him and the management, so along with his friend Masters, he decided it was time to bring out his trusty old weapon again.

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One of the dire problems faced by homeless people across America is the shortage of public showers and toilets. Unofficially dubbed one of the homeless capitals of the nation, San Francisco’s 6,500 homeless have access to only about 16 to 20 shower stalls. But Lava Mae, a San Francisco nonprofit, is trying to make a difference by converting retired city buses into mobile shower stations.

Lava Mae is the brainchild of former marketing executive Doniece Sandoval, who, moved by the plight of the homeless around her, quit her job to help them. “One day I passed a woman in the street and she was very dirty and basically crying, and I heard her say that she would never be clean.” Sandoval told ABC News. “There’s obviously a lot of layers but I was wondering what her opportunities were to actually get clean.”

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The Van Girls are London’s first and only all-female packing and moving service – mostly hired by women, but sometimes men as well. “Guys who hire us kind of think it’s quite novel… and are really surprised by how strong we are,” said founder Emma Lanman.

Lanman started Van Girls in 2011, when she quit her job at the fire brigade and decided to start a business of her own. She’d seen people get excited about female firefighters, and realised it was something of a novelty for a woman to be seen doing a ‘man’s job’. She also figured that lots of women might feel safer hiring an all-female moving service.

“I thought it might actually be a valuable service,” she said. And Lanman was right – it turns out that plenty of women who live alone or don’t live with men are a lot more comfortable hiring the Van Girls – not just for safety reasons but for that feminine touch! Like 68-year-old Jean Hewitson, who moved down the street with her daughter and granddaughter last year. “We’re an all-female household,” she explained. “I thought, yes I want women packing up my house. I thought they’d be more sympathetic to my belongings really, and I’d get on with them better.”

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Meet Rolf Bantle, a Swiss football fan who lived on the streets of Milan, Italy, for over a decade just because he lost his way after a match! 

As it turns out, Bantle used to be a resident of an alcoholics’ rehabilitation center in Läufelfingen in the canton of Basel-Country. He had been on a day trip to the San Siro stadium in Milan, on August 24, 2004, to watch his home team FC Basel play Inter Milan, in a Champions League match. But by the end of the match, he was reported missing, as he failed to show up at the bus that had transported him and his fellow Swiss football fans to the stadium. They left home without him.

Bantle, 71, recently told  a Swiss newspaper his version of events – he had visited the toilet at the stadium that fateful day, where he became disoriented and could not locate his friends. “I was suddenly in a different sector,” he said. “I had about 20 euros in my pocket and no phone so I wandered into Milan. People gave me food and cigarettes, and one student offered me a sleeping bag.” 

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We all know we need to drink water to survive, but one man claims he drank his last sip of water, or any kind of liquids for that matter, over three years ago. And, yes, he’s till very much alive.

Peter Filak, a former registered nurse and current webcam model, says he had his last sip of water on May 5th, 2012. He has had a few slips in the early days of his liquid-free lifestyle – some sodas and chocolate milks – but after managing to control his urges, he has relied solely on fruits and vegetables for his nutrition and hydration needs. “Especially as I went into a raw fruit and vegetable diet, I’d be waking up two to three times a night to pee. So it just didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t understand why I had to be drinking all that water,” Filak wrote on his website, More Apples a Day.

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Parents in Naples, Florida, can no rely on a new tool to teach their misbehaving children a lesson – a creepy 65-year-old clown called Wrinkles.

Sporting a scary clown mask, a polka dot onesie and black rubber gloves, Wrinkles is definitely an unnerving sight, which is exactly what he is going for and what makes him so popular. In the few years since he adopted this creepy persona, the 65-year-old man hiding behind the gloomy mask has carved out a niche for himself, either attending birthdays, bar mitzvahs, funerals or whatever kind of events that require the presence of a spooky clown with hollowed out black eyes. And business is good, as Wrinkles told local reporters that he is booked through January.

One of Wrinkles’ latest endeavors involves scaring misbehaving children out of their minds.  He was recently hired by a mother to teach her trouble-making 12-year-old son a lesson. “He was scared of clowns and I showed up across the street from him at the bus stop and he just started crying in front of his friends and ran home,” the creepy-looking character said. “His mother called back a few days later and said ‘Thank you!’ Now when he acts bad, she just has to ask him: ‘Do you want Wrinkles to come back?’ ”

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Vipers are usually the ones who do the biting, but a one-year-old boy from Brazil gave the venomous snake a taste of its own medicine, biting it on the head and killing it.

17-month-old Lorenzo was playing with the family dog in the garden of his home, in the town of Mostardas, Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state, when he apparently came face to face with a pit viper. His mother Jaine Ferreira Figueira, who was doing some work inside the house, heard some noises and turned around to go check on the boy, only to see him in the room with a snake in his mouth and blood on his clothes. She instinctively shouted for her husband Lucier. They quickly got in their car and took Lorenzo to the Sao Luiz hospital, some 175 km from Porto Alegre, but not before putting the snake in a jar, so doctors could identify it and administer the right anti-venom.

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Why should ‘test drives’ be limited to cars? Momentary Ink, a Philadelphia-based startup has introduced the concept to tattoos as well – they provide highly realistic temporary tattoos that look and feel like real ink, so people can be sure they like them before making a permanent decision.

According to Momentary Ink founder Jordan Denny, the business is a response to people’s growing desire to get tattoos that are meaningful and symbolic. “People are getting rid of these cookie-cutter tattoos and really getting into more meaningful, complex, often custom design,” he told Mashable. “It really calls for a thoughtful decision, and requires a lot more of a flexible tattoo process.”

“We want to make it easier to visualize something much more powerful and meaningful to people before they get it done,” he added. “When it comes to the type of tattoos that people are getting today, it’s a lot harder to visualize and get on the paper exactly what you’re thinking. We allow them to really visualize what this thing is going to look like as an exact replica before they get it done.”

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Drew Wissler, a.k.a Runnerguy2489, is the new superstar of the gaming world for his impressive feat of completing an entire video game (with all its levels and challenges) blindfolded. After 103 hours of sightless gameplay, he finally defeated the classic game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on October 14. Thousands of fans who watched the live stream were overcome with emotion after the monumental finish. Wissler himself reported that he “couldn’t stop shaking”.

Wissler, a speedrunning champion, was always obsessed with how quickly he could zip through video games. “I’m a runner in real life so I always compare it with that. How fast I can go,” the young civil engineer told The Daily Dot. It wasn’t until 2007, when he came across a blind player looking for help to complete Ocarina of Time that he got interested in blindfolded play. “It seemed a neat challenge and I thought I could help him out,” he said.

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