Images of a simple-looking 80-year-old man gifting his elderly wife a diamond ring are making waves on Chinese social networking site Weibo. The photos of the couple dressed in plain clothing and trying on rings were posted by Weibo user ‘This is Xinjiang’ last week, and have already been shared over 1,500 times.

Intrigued, the Xinjiang Internet Office decided to investigate the story. They contacted and interviewed staff at the jewellery shop where the photo was taken. According to staff member Zhou Lanlan, the couple had visited their shop at noon on Wednesday. The man then proceeded to ask for diamond rings that were ‘reasonably priced’.

The salesperson recommended one particular ring that was being sold at a discounted price. After trying it on, the man payed for the ring with a huge roll of small banknotes that are believed to have been his entire life’s savings. He mentioned that he wanted to make his wife happy after a lifetime of struggles. “We’ve been leading a hard life. I just hope to cheer her up,” he told the staff.

Read More »

When a recent study revealed that expectant mothers want more empathy from their spouses, the executives at Aima maternity hospital in eastern China came up with a wonderful idea – ‘Pain Experience Camp’. The camp offers fathers-to-be the chance to experience the pain of childbirth by giving them electric shocks through special pads placed on their bellies.  The shocks simulate labor pains by causing muscles to spasm.

The painful service was started in November and over 300 men have signed up for it since then. In fact, the response has been so overwhelming that in addition to free sessions twice a week at the hospital, Aima has opened a pop-up booth at the local Shi Mao shopping mall. Each session lasts about five minutes, during which a nurse gradually raises the intensity of the shocks between a scale of one to ten.

Read More »

Attending a Tat2noiseact concert might just be the most bizarre experience of your life. The Belgian rock band is known for performing experimental music while simultaneously inking themselves, creating a freakishly surreal atmosphere that you won’t soon forget.

Their act starts with random screaming by lead singer Phil, while the band performs in the background. Then the members begin tattooing themselves or each other, and the screams get louder and more incomprehensible. As the performance reaches a crescendo, all you get to hear is the buzzing noise of tattoo guns, amplified by the sound systems they are plugged in to. At this point, everyone will seem to be in a sort of trance. There is nothing commercial about this unique performance, and you’ve got to have a taste for the bizarre to be able to relax and enjoy it.

“There is nothing conventional in our practice,” a band member proudly proclaimed. “Everything is spontaneous, accidental, according to our mood. This is the exact opposite of what happens in tattoo parlors. There are no rules, nothing is planned. No one would walk into a parlor and say – you can do anything, even dance.”

Read More »

British make-up artist Jordan James Parke adores Kim Kardashian so much that he spent a whopping $150,000 on cosmetic procedures, just so he could look like her. He has undergone over 50 surgeries including botox, lip and cheek fillers, eyebrow tattoos and laser hair removal.

Jordan revealed that he became obsessed with the star of reality TV series Keeping Up with the Kardashians after watching just one episode. “I love everything about Kim,” he said. “She’s the most gorgeous woman ever. Her skin is perfect, her hair, everything about her.”

After all his surgeries, Jordan does appear to be an exaggerated version of Kim – a look that has brought him quite a bit of criticism. But he isn’t too bothered because he actually seems to like the way he looks now. “I laugh when people try to insult me by telling me I look plastic or fake,” he said. “Do they think I’m going for a natural look? If I was, I’d ask for my money back.”

Read More »

Valued at a staggering $550,000 the Calibre R822 Predator is undoubtedly the most expensive belt buckle in the world. Curious why it’s called the ‘Predator’? Well, its Swiss creators say they chose the name simply because it “eats up every other belt buckle out there!”

The Calibre R822 Predator weighs 145 g, and is made of 18-carat solid white gold and titanium. It is adorned with 387 baguette-cut and round-cut diamonds, amounting to a total of 14.15 carats. But what makes the world’s most expensive buckle really special is its intelligent and innovative design. The mechanical buckle is made of 167 components, making it very similar to a high-quality, complicated Swiss timepiece.

It comes loaded with a host of high-tech features such as self-cleaning mechanisms and safety catches to minimise accidental release. Its ergonomic design enables the wearer to close the belt with ease and also loosen, tighten and change out the leather belt effortlessly. However, the $550,000 price does not include the belt. You’ll have to buy that yourself.

Read More »

When New Yorker Jhonn de La Puente realized that many high school students aren’t allowed to bring their personal cell phones to school, he hit upon a simple yet brilliant business model – a cell phone storage van.

The 42-year-old now runs a company called ‘Safe ‘n’ Secure Cellutions LLC’ – it consists of a modified Ford E250 parked outside Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights High School complex, which houses four different public high schools. Right before they enter school, students queue up outside the van to deposit their phones through a small mail-slot on the side. They are handed colored tickets that they can use to retrieve the phones as they leave school at the end of the day. The service costs them anywhere between $3 and $5 per week.

Puente, a Crown Heights resident, has put a lot of thought and effort into creating the van – he said that he designed and customised it himself, adding security cameras, storage racks and a cash lock box. “I even did research on the average height of high school students to get a median height to put this window at,” he revealed. “It was really important to me that it was the right level so they could see my face and so that I could interact with the customers.”

Read More »

New York resident Seth Cohen is on an epic quest to track down and meet every single one of his namesakes in the world. The project, he says, isn’t so much about meeting his namesakes as it is about the road less traveled, living in the world, not just on it, connecting with people he would never otherwise connect with, visiting places he would never otherwise visit and experiencing things he would never otherwise experience.

“I am on a mission to meet every Seth Cohen in the world, live life to its fullest and inspire others to do the same,” the globetrotter wrote on his website. “I don’t know what I will find, but I’m excited to find out…” The name ‘Seth Cohen’ is apparently quite common, a fact that Seth realized a couple of months ago. “My last birthday was in September,” he explained. “Everyone started posting on my [Facebook] wall, and this one woman that I barely knew said, ‘Seth, my favorite person in the world, have an amazing birthday.’ I was flattered, but I thought there is no way I am this woman’s most favorite person.”

So Seth snooped around and figured out that the woman, and four other friends, were connected with Seth Cohens on Facebook that weren’t him. He was so intrigued by this that he spent weeks trying to find out just how many Seth Cohens were out there. He spent time combing Google, social media websites, and online White Pages, and the results were mind-boggling – he found that there are at least 300 other Seth Cohens in the United States alone!

Read More »

26-year-old Luke Cameron has performed a good deed every day for an entire year, and he says that the exercise has completely transformed his life. The Cheltenham resident made the vow when a close friend died from cancer last year, and since then, he has been doing at least one nice thing every single day. He estimates that he has spent close to £3,000 ($4,700) on good deeds in the past year.

“In a world of taking selfies with your besties and Instagramming pictures of your new handbag and Rolex watch, we forget to think about anyone else but ourselves,” he said. “Our generation has forgotten to care about others, because we are too self-obsessed to even care what others are going through.”

Luke runs a website called TheGoodDeedDiary.com, on which he documents every single good deed or kind gesture – ranging from taking the trash out for his elderly neighbor, or baking cakes for his family and friends. He has also purchased meals for several people at McDonald’s, and even paid for a stranger’s petrol just because they stood next to him in the line. Luke now has over 12,000 followers on his corresponding Facebook page, and more than 6,000 followers on Twitter.

Read More »

Fasting is a common religious practice in several cultures across the world, but few are as hardcore as ‘Santhara’. The exacting ritual is a part of Jainism, one of the oldest religions in the world, and it involves participants making an oath to stop eating until they literally die of starvation. According to the Jains, this is a surefire way to purge oneself of bad karma and achieve ‘Moksha’ – liberation from the worldly cycle of death and reincarnation.

Every year, hundreds of Jains across India take up the onerous oath – some are monks, others are ordinary people. Interestingly, over 60 percent of the participants are female, and it is believed that women are more strong-willed than men. The practice is more popular with Jains who are ill or dying, but healthy people are also known to participate.

Read More »

With most of us having to replace light-bulbs every few months, it’s amazing that the Centennial Light-Bulb at Fire Station No. 6 in Livermore, California, has been burning continuously ever since 1901.

The exact date the centennial bulb was turned on is unknown, although its birthday is usually celebrated on June 18. However, we do know that it has been alight 24 hours a day since then, shining a dim light over the fire engines. Apart from the few power outages it has faced in the last 113 years, the unbreakable light-bulb has only had two breaks – one in 1976, when it was moved from one fire station and installed in another, and one in 2013, when it was off for 9 3.4 hours. When the bulb was moved, almost 40 years ago, people were so cautious not to break it that they severed the cord, instead of unscrewing it, and transferred it with a full police and fire truck escort. The whole business lasted just 22 minutes, after which it was back to business as usual.

The impressive light-bulb is apparently an improved hand-blown incandescent lamp with carbon filament. Debora Katz, a physicist at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., has conducted extensive research on the centennial light-bulb and what makes it so special, using a vintage light bulb from Shelby Electric Co. that is a near replica of the Livermore lamp. “The Livermore light bulb differs from a contemporary incandescent bulb in two ways,” says Katz. “First its filament is about eight times thicker than a contemporary bulb. Second, the filament is a semiconductor, most likely made of carbon. When a conductor gets hotter, its ability to conduct electricity goes down. When the Shelby bulb gets hotter, it becomes a better conductor of electricity.”

Read More »

The Visha Hindu Parishad (VHP), a right-wing non-governmental organization in India, has recently launched a line of beauty products containing two very special ingredients – cow dung and gau mutra.

“The use of gau mutra in medicines and beauty products will help farmers and prevent them from selling cows. Ayurveda talks about use of cow dung to prevent pimples. But people are reluctant to use dung, which is why we are making beauty products out of it,” VHP leader Venkatesh Abdeo said. Just to be clear, gau mutra is not some miracle plant but plain old cow urine, which has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for centuries.

Read More »

Abulfazl Abbas Shakoory not only bears an uncanny resemblance to legendary martial arts master Bruce Lee, but he can also perform his incredible moves almost to perfection. Shakoory has become an internet celebrity of sorts, after putting up videos of his stunts on social media websites.

The 20-year-old Kabul resident, who calls himself “Bruce Hazara” has been practicing various types of martial arts ever since he was a child. He had always considered Bruce Lee his hero, and describes the ability of mastering his famous moves as his “only dream”. To accomplish his goal, Shakoory has also started practicing Wushu, a full-contact sport derived from Chinese martial arts. As fate would have it, his face resembles that of the great Chinese actor as well, and adopting his famous bowl haircut made “Bruce Hazara” an almost perfect doppelganger.

Read More »

Dead Raising Team (DRT) is a team of evangelical Christians who boast that they can raise people from the dead with their prayers. Tyler Johnson, the group’s charismatic leader, claims to be responsible for bringing 13 corpses back to life!

The DRT story was covered in the 2013 documentary film Deadraiser. It depicts various miracle stories where DRT members pray for dead people and witness them come alive. Some of the people who allegedly came back from the dead claimed to have seen hell and the demons who were torturing them. But they were ultimately saved and pulled back to earth.

Mark DeDio, for instance, used to be a troubled drug user who actually claims to have died in 2006 as a result of an overdose. The next thing he knew, “there was screeching, torment, screams. The smell was just like vomit, sulphur.” But he was eventually saved by DRT member TJ Aderholdt, who happened to pass by the ambulance in which Mark’s corpse lay.

Although the man had no pulse, TJ began speaking in tongues as soon as he spotted Mark. Within minutes, Mark’s eyes popped open, he stood up and started telling everybody how he went to hell and was pulled back. “It was like a grab on my collar,” he recalled. “Jesus pulled me out.”

Read More »

Hu Juan, a 28-year-old mother of two from Hunan, China, suffers from a rare condition known as Cutis laxa which has caused the skin on her face and neck to age at an accelerated rate, leaving her looking like a woman in her 60s or 70s.

The young woman’s nightmare began 11 years ago, right after she gave birth to her eldest son. She started noticing that her appearance was changing fast and just six months after giving birth, her youthful looks had deteriorated drastically to the point where she could hardly recognize herself in the mirror. Hu Juan was diagnosed with Cutis laxa, an extremely rare connective tissue disorder that causes the skin to become loose, saggy and wrinkled at a very rapid speed due to loss of elasticity. It has only affected her face and neck, and several medical checkups over the years revealed that she is otherwise  in good health. Hu Juan is the only known Cutis laxa sufferer in China and one of ten worldwide. Read More »

Johnnie Walker Whisky and Harris Tweed Hebrides, two of Scotland’s most iconic brands, teamed up with Heriot Watt University to create a new smart fabric that permanently smells like whisky. Because who doesn’t want their clothes smelling like booze all the time, right?

Recently launched in Berlin, the smelly fabric is said to have key notes of malt, vanilla, red fruits and dark chocolate tones, which closely resemble the aroma of Johnnie Walker Black Label.  “The unique scent, inspired by the nose of our liquid, echoes the masterful whisky production process. The key notes of rich malt, golden vanilla, red fruit and the trademark dark chocolate tones have been layered onto the fabric to achieve the unique final nose and finish of the Johnnie Walker Fabric of Flavour”, the famous spirit maker declared in a press release.  The colors of the fabric match the colors of the Johnnie Walker label (that is, black, gold, and off-white).

Read More »