After moving to the big city, Melinda Schmidt looked for a way to connect with people like she did with her friends and family back home, and found hugging helped. So she hugged total strangers every day, for a whole year.

It’s tough moving to the city after you’ve spent all your life in a small community where everyone was close, and young Melinda Schmidt found that out the hard way. She was feeling homesick, so she vowed to hug a new person every day, for an entire year, to help her get over her feelings. Only hugging quickly became a way of life, and although her pledged 365 days are up, she continues hugging total strangers. ‘I won’t ever stop doing this. I won’t ever stop hugging strangers and people who I’ve just met because it’s a complete lifestyle change,” she says in a video shot to showcase her bizarre habit.

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In a time when man has so many communication tools at his disposal, it seems odd that someone would use a horse to get their message across to the world. But that’s exactly what Vincent Gabriel Kirouac did to promote chivalry and polite manners in Canada.

It’s not every day that you get to see a man in full knight regalia, riding a horse through the busy streets of Canadian cities like Ottawa, but that’s just what Vincent Kirouac has been doing during the last few months. “I’m crossing Canada on horseback dressed as a knight, to remind people of the values of long ago, such as devotion,” he told the National Post. And believe it or not, his unique strategy seems to be working as he manages to steal smiles from people everywhere he goes and even some friendly invitations from total strangers. “You ask for the hospitality and they say ‘yes’ all the time,” he told CBC.

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American Woman Loves to Eat Rocks (Metro)

20 Most Incredible Lenticular Clouds (Environmental Graffiti)

Horrific Meals at Beijing’s Penis Restaurant (Asia Obscura)

$165,000 Ferrari Has a Leather Exterior (Elite Daily)

Video of Man Using Piranha as Scissors Goes Viral (YouTube)

Cosmetic Surgery to Beat “Toe-besity” on the Rise in the US (ABC News)

German Mayor Makes Easier Parking Spots for Women (Consumerist)

Ernestine Shepherd – The 75-Year-Old Bodybuilder (The Inquisitr)

Exploring the Nuclear Complexes of the Manhattan Project (Environmental Graffiti)

Creepy Robot Mimics Human Facial Expressions (New Scientist)

A lot of people like to snuggle and cuddle, but Jacqueline Samuel, from New York’s Rochester area, actually opened her own business charging $60 for an hour’s worth of non-sexual cuddling and snuggling.

There are moments in life when you feel the need to cuddle, but you have no one to do it with. That’s where 29-year-old Jackie Samuel comes in. Last month she set up The Snuggery, a unique business that offers total strangers the chance to snuggle and cuddle with Jackie, for $60 an hour. “What I like to do is cuddle, so I figured it was a good thing to do. A lot of people didn’t like the idea so I figured it would be kind of an underground small-scale operation and provide a little extra income,” the young entrepreneur says. But her nutty idea already started attracting national attention and she’s already been featured on FOX, CNN and is set to make an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

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Sitting on a toilet isn’t the best way to get things done, except for one particular thing, but it was the perfect way for Simon Griffiths to raise $50,000 for his commendable project.

Australian Simon Griffiths is a man on a mission. He’s planning to solve a big part of the world’s sanitation problem by building toilets where they’re needed the most, and he started his big plan by spending two days sitting on a toilet bowl, with his pants around his ankles. You’re probably thinking this guy must be crazy, but Simon is actually a man with university degrees in engineering and economics, who chose to turn his back on a white-collar career in order to try and change the world, one flush at a time. He’s traveled to places where toilets aren’t what you’re used and by sitting on a bowl for 50 straight hours he tried to attract attention and funds to a worthy cause.

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I know what you’re thinking, we’re all pretty much addicted to water, but we don’t feel like drinking it every moment of every day, and we certainly don’t consume over six gallons of it, daily. But Sasha Kennedy does, and that definitely makes her a water addict.

Drinking plenty of water is generally regarded as healthy advice, but they say too much of a good think can sometimes be bad for you, and 26-year-old Sasha Kennedy, from Essex, England, is certainly overdoing it. The young mother of two says she drinks about 25 liters of water a day, and can hardly go one hour without water, even at night. Because of her strange addiction, Sasha is forced to carry bottles of water with her, everywhere she goes, and has to use the bathroom up to 40 times a day.

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Usually, when a dog starts humping your leg, you’re quick to make him stop, but at the Humpy Awards, owners actually encourage their pooches to get it on with their legs.

There’s the Grammys, the Emmys, the Webbies, and now we have the Humpys, which celebrate dogs’ natural behavior to hump your legs. This first ever annual humping competition for dogs was actually a viral marketing stunt for a new AMC reality show called Small Town Security, but that doesn’t in any way diminish the dogs’ admirable performances. Almost all of the canines brought forth into the humping arena did just what they were supposed to, impressing the judges with their techniques. I don’t know if they got any training prior to the competition, but it all seemed pretty natural to me.

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At one particular Brazilian jail, inmates don’t actually need both wheels on their bicycle to make an escape. By pedaling on stationary bikes, they can reduce their sentence and also get into shape.

The medium-security penitentiary of Santa Rita do Sapucai, a mountain range city about two hours north of Sao Paolo, has recently made headlines for its controversial sentence-reducing program. Thought up by the local judge, Jose Henrique Mallmann, who said he was inspired by a piece of news he read on the Internet about gyms in the United States where people generate electricity by riding stationary bikes, this two-month old program has inmates doing the same thing to reduce their stay in jail. For every three eight-hour days riding the bikes, criminals have one day of sentence shaved off. It’s a pretty good deals, but like other recently-implemented programs in Brazilian jails, it sparked some controversy around the South-American country.

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They say the banking system is very complicated, but try telling that to a bunch of Indian street kids who set up a model bank with tens of branches all over South-East Asia.

In order to save money for a brighter future, a group of Indian children have created their own bank, where they can deposit their money and take advances whenever they need to. A branch of this unusual financial institution is located in a shelter for homeless runaway teens in New Delhi. It’s here that street children who work come to place their money for safekeeping, and take out development or welfare advances to start a business or invest in things they need for school. The most impressive thing about this bank for kids and teens is that it was initiated, implemented and is operated by children. In fact, Satish Kumar, who was elected bank manager for the New Delhi branch of the children’s development ‘khazana’ (Indian for ‘treasure chest’) doesn’t look a day over 12.

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Tian Hao, a Chinese hair-stylist, from Xi’an, Shanxi Province, has recently made news headlines with his unique method of cutting hair. With his eyes shut, Tian claims to use Zen meditation to “feel” the aura of his customers’ hair and trim it without chopping bits of scalp.

Until now, I thought using an open flame was the most extreme way of styling hair, but after reading about Tian Hao’s technique, my opinion has changed. This Chinese master keeps his eyes closed while wielding two sharp scissors and unleashes his hair-cutting talents on live subjects who actually pay a fortune for his service. To demonstrate his unusual skill, Tian recently made a demonstration at his salon in Xi’an, where he cut two models’ hair at the same time, without chopping their scalps off. In fact, the beggar-looking hairdresser says he hasn’t had an accident with the scissors yet.

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I guess it’s true what they say, you can find anything on eBay, even a slightly used human soul. And while some of us wouldn’t sell our soul for all the money in the world, a woman from Albuquerque tried to give hers away for just $2,000.

It might sound like a stupid joke, or an-attention grabbing scheme, but the woman selling her soul, identified as Lori N., said her eBay ad is a cry for help. “I guess you could say that. I’m at the point now, I’m tired. I don’t feel good. I’m near the end of my rope. I really am,” she told WOAI. Up until five years ago, Lori was living a normal life and made a living as a freelance writer, but a serious car accident completely changed her life. She was a passenger in a car hit by a drunk driver, and the repercussions were dire. The poor woman was in a coma for three weeks, and woke up suffering from a stroke, a broken hip, broken pelvis, leg, collarbone, sternum, ribs, a collapsed lung. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she lost one of her breasts.

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While most people are trying to remove hair from their bodies, others are more than happy to put it on, in the form of fashionable dresses.

English hairdresser Jodie Breeds has recently created a dress made entirely from human hair, which was worn by Miss England finalist Holly Lyons on the catwalk of the beauty pageant. Jodie apparently came up with the idea for the dress while contemplating how to represent her hair-salon in the Miss England contest. “My business is about hair and beauty so I wanted to represent what we’re about here. So I designed a hair dress, I sketched out the design and my aunty, Margaret Jenner, who’s a dressmaker, made it. It took about six hours altogether,” the hairdresser said. The “blonde” dress was made from hair donated by the salon’s clients and about 10 rows of hair extensions.

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26-year-old Lawrence Edmonds is a man with a taste for religion. In the last 13 months he has traveled 5,000 around England, licking 42 Anglican Cathedrals.

I know what you’re thinking, but Lawrence isn’t mad, at least not officially. This bizarre journey of his is the result of a bet two of his friends made at a pub, one night. Adam challenged Dan to lick every Anglican cathedral in the UK. If he agreed and failed to perform the task, Dan would have to run naked around the York Minster, but if he did do it in time, Adam would have to perform the streak. After talking with Dan and learning he had only licked Exeter Cathedral, he asked Adam if he could take the bet in Dan’s place. His friend accepted so he started traveling around England, taking photos of himself licking various holy cathedrals, and posting them all on a blog. So far he has put his tongue on 42 edifices, but recently discovered he has 20 more to go in order to win the bet.

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Can you imagine your life without plastic? That means no computer, no mobile phone. no car and a whole lot of other stuff we’ve come to consider basic necessities. It sounds a nearly impossible task, in this day and age, but a family in Austria has proven it can be done. Sandra Krautwaschl, from a village near Graz, Austria, has recently written a book called “Plastickfrei Zone” (Plastic-Free Zone) in which she tells the story of how she and her family started living a life without plastic.

It all began in the summer of 2009, when during a vacation in Croatia, Sandra was surprised how often her three children asked where all of the trash on the beach came from. This made her think harder about how plastic really affects our world. Although recycling works very well in Austria, it’s not as effective in other parts of the world, so the petroleum-made material ends up clogging up landfills and polluting the environment. The 40-year-old physical therapist realized that as long as we keep buying products made of or wrapped in plastic, we’re just contributing to the problem. Then, shortly after she returned from Croatia, Sandra saw the documentary “Plastic Planet”, and learned how toxic plastic is for our planet.

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An Indie Argentinian publishing house has come up with an innovative concept, using disappearing ink that simply fades away in two months time.

Dubbed “El Libro que No Puede Esperar” (The Book That Can’t Wait), this interesting format was pioneered by independent Argentinian publishing house Eterna Cadencia, as a way to promote young authors, who “if people don’t read their first books, never make it to a second.” The intriguing books come sealed in a plastic wrapper, and once that is removed and the books cracked for the first time, the ink begins to age and in 60 days time readers are left with nothing but the covers and a bunch of blank pages. So if you want to get your money’s worth, you really can’t put one of these books down too often, after you’ve bought it.

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