A devoted pet owner in England recently spent nearly $500 on a complicated surgery to save the life of his favorite goldfish. The unnamed man rushed his fish to the Toll Barn Veterinary Centre in Norfolk, when he noticed that it was struggling to eliminate waste. After a thorough examination, the staff at the center informed him that a delicate surgery costing £300 ($460) was required to save his pet. The man declined at first, but he soon changed his mind and 10 minutes later, the goldfish was wheeled into surgery.

29-year-old vet Faye Bethell was given the task of performing the 50-minute procedure, which involved carefully administering anaesthetic and using tiny instruments to carefully remove lumps from the fish’s backside. She said that the three-inch fish made a full recovery after the operation, but it could have died if left untreated.

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For a lot of people, the term “ethical fur” is nothing more than an oxymoron, since it still involves killing animals for their pelts, but one fashion designer is actually legitimizing the expression by using roadkill for her fur accessories.

Pamela Paquin, founder of the aptly-named Petite Mort fashion label, picks up animal carcasses from the side of the road and turns their pelts into fur accessories that sell for up to $1,000 a piece. All of her creations, from gloves, to leg warmers and hats are marked with a specially-designed silver disk that lets people know they are ethical products. “People need to look at the fur and say okay, that’s Petite Mort, it’s an ethical fur,” Paquin said about the distinctive label. I would add that it’s also a great heads-up to animal activists not to smear the expensive fur accessories them with paint, as they tend to do at public events.

The idea of roadkill fur had been in Pamela’s head for a few years, before she actually decided to actually make it happen. But after traveling the world as a global sustainability consultant and living in Denmark for seven years, she and her daughter returned to New England, looking to start over. She told the Washington Post that she found herself “sitting in the woods literally staring at the trees. Winter was coming. I was like: ‘What am I doing to do with myself?” There was that dead raccoon on the road the other day. My cousin’s a hunter. Maybe I should just do this.'”

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72-year-old Howard Helmer can produce a delicious gourmet omelette faster than anyone else in the world. Over the years, he’s managed to hang on to two Guinness World Records – one for the fastest omelette (in 39 seconds) and the other for turning out a whopping 427 omelettes in 30 minutes.

In every demonstrative video he makes, Helmer shares his secret – he mixes two eggs with two tablespoons of water, and fries them in a 10-inch omelette pan. His routine goes something like this: “Butter in the pan – two eggs and two tablespoons of water – bring the cooked egg to the center of the pan and tilt the pan so that the raw egg finds some base to cook on until there’s no more runny egg but the egg is still very moist on top. In goes some cheese, some spinach, fold the omelette in half, and then the whole thing goes upside down on your plate.”

Helmer’s association with eggs actually began 42 years ago, when he took up a job at the American Egg Board, writing copy about the wonders of chicken eggs. Since then, he has promoted eggs at country fairs, restaurant conventions, culinary schools, and on national television. Over the years, he’s also worked with famous chefs and taught movie stars to make omelettes.

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Meet Oscar, a cat with a supernatural ability to feel when people are about to die. In over 50 documented cases, Oscar, who lives in a nursing home , has curled up beside patients in their final hours, seeing them through to the ‘other side’.

His unique story was revealed by Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, who claims Oscar’s predictions have rarely been wrong in the past six years. In fact, he has even proved medical staff wrong at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island, where he was adopted seven years ago as a kitten.

Dr. Dosa first told the world about Oscar’s rare gift in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. Since then, the cat has accurately sensed even more deaths, convincing the geriatrician that it wasn’t just a series of coincidences. Dr. Dosa eventually wrote a book about his experiences with Oscar at the nursing home. It’s called ‘Making rounds with Oscar: The extraordinary gift of an ordinary cat’.

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An extraordinary plant that produces both tomatoes and potatoes has been developed in the UK. Just one of these bad boys can grow more than 500 sweet cherry tomatoes above the ground, and a decent crop of white potatoes below. Aptly named ‘TomTato’, the plant is actually 100 percent natural, and not genetically modified as one would expect.

TomTato, a.k.a ‘veg plot in a pot’, was developed through high-tech grafting by Thompson and Morgan, a horticultural firm based in the town of Ipswich, in Suffolk, England. Although similar plants have been created in the UK before, this is the first time someone has managed to produce a commercially viable version.

According to Guy Barter of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), taste was a real problem with past varieties, but the TomTato seems to have hit the jackpot.

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The ‘Surprize’ apple looks deceptively normal from the outside – its yellowy-orange exterior gives no indication of the surprise waiting inside. Take one bite though, and its pale-pink flesh is bound to leave you shocked and confused for a second.

The new variety of apples is currently available in 120 Tesco stores across the UK, priced at £1.75 ($2.82) for a pack of four. According to Tesco fruit product developer Ciara Grace, “This apple is a real head-turner on account of its unusual pale orange and yellow skin. But the real fun starts when they take a bite and see the unique pink flesh inside. It was named Surprize because of the fantastic reaction it gets.”

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Damian Aspinall is a casino-owning millionaire, environmentalist and animal lover who has made it his life’s mission to raise gorillas and release them into the wild. And in order to make that happen, the self-made businessman set up the Aspinall Foundation, through which he has raised over 60 gorillas in England and released them to secure locations in Africa.

Aspinall, who was once known for his party lifestyle and for dating supermodels like Naomi Campbell has now devoted his life to deepening the connection he has always shared with the animal kingdom. Apart from the Aspinall Foundation, he also runs Howletts and Port Lympne wildlife parks in Kent. It is his belief that animals should have as much right to happiness as humans do.

His deep-rooted connection with animals goes all the way back to his childhood – his father John, Aspinall, was a gambler and maverick zoo keeper. So he grew up around his father’s exotic pets, developing an all-consuming passion for wildlife as he got older. “It’s magic crossing the species boundaries, and the greatest thing about being alive,” said the 54-year-old. “You can’t explain it to people who don’t have it.”

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This group of highly skilled Indonesian woodworkers caters exclusively to people who love collecting sports cars – both real and wooden. They carve impressive life-size replicas of popular sports car models, and their creations are routinely exported to buyers in the US, England, Germany, and other European countries. 

Their latest handiwork is a model of the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, made entirely out of teak – it doesn’t work of course, but it’s a stunning copy of the real thing. And let’s not forget – cheaper by several thousands of dollars.

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British artist Chris Wood creates breathtaking pieces of art using only two simple things – light and glass. He is an expert at painstakingly arranging small squares of delicate glass that reflect light in a certain way, thereby creating exquisitely colorful light patterns that dazzle the eye.

Chris uses dichroic (two-color) glass, containing a special coating that alters the wavelength of light. So when he directs light through his wall-mounted glass structure, the glass alters the color and direction of the reflected light, resulting in a complex array of colors in continually changing patterns.

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Late last month, German artist Michael Sailstorfer made a surprising announcement –  he said that he had buried 24-carat gold bars on the Outer Harbor beach in the town of Folkestone, in South East England, and that it was ‘finders-keepers’. In the wake of this unusual news, hundreds of people have been thronging the beach, hoping to uncover at least a small portion of the hidden fortune.

The eccentric artist said that the project was his contribution to the town’s art festival, The Folkestone Triennial, which began last Saturday. He named the installation ‘Folkestone Digs’, and described it as a unique project to get people involved in art. The event was funded by Bristol-based designers ‘Situations’.

As a part of the installation, Sailstorfer hid 30 gold bars of varying sizes – 10g and 20g – in the sands of Outer Harbor. It might not sound like much, but each bar could be worth hundreds of dollars, and people get to keep everything they find. Sailstorfer encouraged people to start their search a couple of days before the festival actually started. As expected, hundreds of diggers turned up at the beach with buckets and spades, hoping to strike gold.

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When Krystina Butel was 15 years old, she went on a holiday and decided to get her caricature done. And then she fell in love with the drawing so much that she has spent the past 15 years and over $200,000 trying to look just like it.

Krystina, now 30, has gone through five boob jobs, lip injections, botox, teeth whitening and semi-permanent makeup just so that she could resemble the drawing of herself. “When I saw the caricature for the first time on holiday, I was jealous of it,” the salon-owner from West Yorkshire revealed. “She was so glamorous. She was everything that I wanted to be. It was like holding a carrot out to me, showing me what I could be.”

While most people would have chosen to simply keep the drawing as a souvenir, Krystina decided to actually make herself resemble it. So she spent a large fortune on beauty treatments and surgery to achieve her goal. And it appears that she is far from being done.

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A struggling South Korean Major League baseball team has come up with a novel idea to boost players’ morale. They’re replacing human fans with robots called ‘Fanbots’, all in a bid to improve the atmosphere at their matches.

The promo video for ‘Fanbot – the world’s first cheering robot’ rides high on the emotions involved while watching a match. “Fans of Hanwha Eagles always come to the stadium to cheer for the team,” the video states. “But those who cannot come to the stadium watch the game on the web or on their phones and cheer through commenting online. What if there was a robot cheering for those fans?”

It’s not easy being a fan of the Hanwha Eagles – most fans are subject to ridicule because of the team’s poor performance. The Hanwha Eagles have suffered over 400 losses in the past five years. Fans of the team are regarded with sympathy – they’ve even been dubbed ‘Buddhist Saints’ and ‘Hanwha Chickens’ by fans of other teams. The humiliation has been so great that many fans don’t feel like attending games anymore. Others simply do not have the time.

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Each time we feature hyper-realistic paintings on OC, I think, “This is the best I’ve ever seen.” But then we get to see another artist’s work, and I’m amazed all over again. This time it’s the work of New York-based Israeli painter Yigal Ozeri. I’m still having a hard time believing that these paintings aren’t actually photographs of women.

Seriously, there’s no denying the fact that Ozeri’s taken hyperrealism to a whole new level. You can’t spot a single brushstroke in these photograph-inspired paintings, that’s how perfect his work is. He starts each piece by photographing beautiful women in nature-themed sceneries, while staying hidden at a safe distance from his models. Back at his studio, he alters the shots with Photoshop and prints them out. Using the prints as a reference, Ozeri then spends days recreating them with oil on canvas

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‘Only Girls’ is a new garage designed to make women feel comfortable, especially those who are tired of being shortchanged by deceitful mechanics. It recently opened in the Saint-Ouen-l’Aumone suburb of northwestern Paris.

The garage opened just a month ago and it has already had around 40 customers, two-thirds of which were women. The concept of an all-female garage stands to be a big hit because Only Girls aims to offer women motorists exactly what they need – respect. Many women claim to have a tough time getting their cars fixed at regular garages, because mechanics do not take women seriously and quote higher prices than they would for male customers.

“When you’re a woman, it’s like you’ve got ‘sucker’ tattooed on your forehead,” said Sandrine Hautenne, 42. “One time, I went round to three different garages, and got three different estimates. Since then, I’ve sent my uncle to get estimates and guess what? The prices have dropped!”

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Muhammed Karim, the mad chef in charge of spicy dishes at Bindi Restaurant, in Lincolnshire, England, claims he has created the world’s hottest drumstick sauce in the world. It’s called the Atomic Kick Ass, and yes, it’s like an atomic bomb going off in your mouth.

So just how hot is this crazy concoction, you ask? Well, Muhammed has to put on a gas mask whenever he prepares it, to avoid passing out from the fumes, so that should give you an idea. If you need more technical data, you should know the Atomic Kick Ass sauce scores 12 million units on the Scoville scale of hotness, several times more than police pepper spray.

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