A Polish robotics engineer recently posted a series of intriguing videos of what looks like a dextrous android arm powered by synthetic muscles.

Łukasz Koźlik, who goes under the moniker Automaton Robotics online, is a talented robotics engineer from Poland who has spent the last few years creating an incredible synthetic muscle arm that moves eerily like a human one. A firm believer in the idea that muscle mimicry is the key to fast, efficient, and affordable robots, Łukasz has been building on the concept of McKibben muscle, or pneumatic artificial muscles, creating a synthetic muscular system that allows robots to move their fingers and palms in a similar way to humans.

Read More »

An Indian man shocked his relatives and his entire country after he agreed to let his wife-of-five-months marry her lover, and even arranged their wedding.

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, a 1999 Bollywood blockbuster, tells the unlikely tale of a man who helps his wife marry the man she truly loves, played by superstar Salman Khan. It’s the kind of story most people don’t even imagine could happen in real life, and yet the exact same thing already happened twice in India this year alone. Back in April we posted about a man’s India’s Bihar state who helped his wife of seven years marry her lover, whom she had been having an affair with, and now we feature the similar story of a husband who recently helped his wife marry an old fling.

Read More »

Megavalanche is a unique enduro race that sees thousands of participants riding downhill on a glacier, 8,530 feet above sea level while trying to stay on their bikes and not get run over by the pack.

Downhill enduro racing usually involves a series of stages where competitors ride individually against the clock, trying to get the best time possible. The contestant with the fastest time on average wins. But Megavalanche, a monster of a race that has been taking place every year – except 2020 – since 1995, is different. It is the only endura downhill race with a mass start on a glacier, a detail that creates the ideal condition for the chaos and mayhem that Megavalanche is famous for. Imagine 2,000 bike riders setting off on a snowy track, reaching speeds of around 75mph, losing control of their mountain bikes, and trying not to get swept away by the human avalanche forming all around them. That’s the starting portion of Megavalanche in a nutshell.

Read More »

It’s hard to believe, but there was once a time when the rich and powerful spent small fortunes on radium-infused distilled water advertised as a cure for a variety of illnesses.

Knowing what we know now about radioactive elements and their effects on the human body, most of us wouldn’t dare touch, let alone drink, a bottle of radium-containing water, but at the beginning of the twentieth century, the so-called “remedy” was all the rage among wealthy socialites. Radithor and other radioactive elixirs were sold as harmless remedies that could combat fatigue, and cure all sorts of conditions, from cancers to impotence. Unfortunately, in reality, they slowly killed the very people they were supposed to heal.

Read More »

Unless you’re a passionate gardener, the only types of cabbage and kale you know are probably the ones grown as food, but there are quite a few ornamental types of cabbage as well, grown only for their beauty.

If you’re looking for something to brighten up your garden in the autumn and winter seasons, ornamental cabbage is definitely an alternative worth considering. While regular kale and cabbage can be traced back 4,000 years, the ornamental types rose to prominence in 17th century Japan, where they became a centerpiece of Japanese gardens. In the early 20th century, the U.S. Department of Agriculture sent Howard Dorsett to China and Japan to look for new plants, and the ornamental kale he saw in Japan was one of his favorite finds. Several varieties were brought to the States, and by 1936 they were available to mass markets.

Read More »

Brazilian tattoo artist Clayton Dias has been getting attention for his signature holographic sticker tattoos that not only have the characteristic metallic shimmer of the real thing but also appear to be applied on the skin.

Sticker tattoos have become really popular lately, and the rising popularity of artists like Lucke Cormier is a clear example of that, but the tattoo style is continually evolving. Case in point, the work of Clayton Dias, a talented tattoo artist from Porto Alegre, Brazil, who has developed his own technique of giving sticker tattoos the holographic treatment, which gives them a characteristic metallic shimmer.

Read More »

Dekochari (デコチャリ) is a bicycle decoration movement specific to Japan, and that is characterized by the use of plywood accessories, chrome plating, elaborate light displays and hi-fi audio systems.

Dekochari can be traced back to the 1970s, back when Japan’s Dekotora truck decoration trend started gaining traction. Unable to unleash their creative decorating talent on trucks, kids started adapting the same general style to their bicycles, and they ended up creating their very own culture. Dekochari thrived right alongside dekotora, but as the trucks’ excessive lighting and extra weight started posing legal problems to drivers, both cultures kind of faded from the roads of Japan, and today dekochari bikes are considered rarities.

Read More »

As part of its ambitious efforts to attract tourists from across the world, Saudi Arabia has announced plans to turn an abandoned offshore oil platform into an oil-themed extreme theme park.

Named ‘The Rig’, the upcoming offshore theme park is part of the Saudi Vision 2030’s strategy, which aims to diversify the country’s economy and boost its tourism industry in particular. The 1.6 million-square-foot extreme theme park will feature roller-coaster rides, submarines, bungee jumping, and sky diving, among other adrenaline-inducing amenities, as well as three hotels and 11 restaurants across The Rig’s interconnected platforms.

Read More »

A 12-year-old boy from Indonesia’s South Sumatra province recently made international news headlines because of his bizarre name – ABCDEF GHIJK.

Yes, you read that correctly, someone actually named their son after the first 11 letters in the English alphabet. The bizarre discovery was made accidentally when the 12-year-old boy took part in a vaccination drive organized by the local police in Muara Enim district. Health workers originally thought the boy’s name was a joke when they saw it in the appointment list, but their smiles turned to utter disbelief when they saw the same name, ABCDEF GHIJK, on his official ID. Photos of the boy’s documents and a name tag embroidered on his clothes went viral online this week after a police officer shared them on social media.

Read More »

To say the “Le Courage” restaurant in Sankt Petersburg, Russia, has a vintage look would be a gross understatement. The place looks to be in a state of severe disrepair, but it’s all by design, as the place just opened a couple of years ago.

Located in  Sankt Petersburg’s newly-built Russian House residential complex, Le Courage is a modern restaurant with a very unique look. It’s stylized as a 19th-century mansion in serious need of repairs, with deliberately worn walls, chipped stucco moldings, antique furniture, and deliberately worn floorboards. During the “renovation” phase, designers used a hammer to chip away at the stucco molds they had just glued onto the walls, they washed out the plaster to make it look like the ceiling had survived more than one serious water leak, and the 19th-century pattern wallpaper was left unfinished in places.

Read More »

Jasen Bracy became completely blind at the age of 7, but he didn’t let that setback come between him and his dream of playing football, and he is now a quarterback for the Modesto Raiders.

Jasen, who lives in Modesto, California, was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a type of cancer that causes tumors in the retina, when he was only 1-year-old. Despite undergoing several treatments to treat his condition, there was no saving his eyesight, and by age 7, Jasen was completely blind. Today, the only thing he can distinguish is whether it is daytime or nighttime. But despite growing up blind, Jasen never hesitated in following his dreams, no matter how ambitious they may have seemed. And it was this ambitious attitude that won him the role of quarterback on a local football team.

Read More »

A 30-year-old man from Guidonia, a town on the outskirts of Rome, found living at home with his wife so intolerable that he begged police to put him in prison.

Staff on duty at the Tenenza Carabinieri barracks in Guidonia thought they were the target of a prank on October 23, when a man casually walked in and confessed to breaking house arrest on purpose, so he could be thrown in jail. The unnamed Albanian man had apparently been fighting with his wife and decided that rather than living in the same house as her, he’d be better off behind bars.

Read More »

The English seaside city of Brighton is home to the world’s thinnest observation tower, a structure only 3.9 meters in diameter, with a height-to-width ratio of over 40:1.

Conceived and designed by Marks Barfield Architects, the same firm behind the famous London Eye wheel, the i360 coastal observation tower in Brighton, UK looks like a giant needle pointing at the sky. It’s not the only observational tower in the world, but it is the thinnest one ever made. It has a diameter of only 3.9 meters, or 12.8 feet, at its widest point, and stands 162 meters tall. Although it is often described simply as a vertical cable car because of the technology it uses to drive a tourist-filled pod up and down, the i360 is actually an engineering marvel.

Read More »

According to a recently published scientific paper, a team of researchers has developed a wood processing technique that makes the material 23 times harder, making it possible to create sharp wooden knives and nails.

Material scientists at the University of Maryland have reportedly developed a type of hardened wood that can be used as a sustainable alternative to materials like steel and ceramics. To demonstrate the toughness of their chemically-treated wood, the team created a knife that is allegedly nearly three times sharper than a stainless-steel dinner table knife, as well as a wooden nail that can be hammered through wood without sustaining any damage, and that isn’t affected by rust.

Read More »

Les Grands Buffet à Narbonne is a unique all-you-can-eat buffet in Narbonne, France, where you can stuff your face with the most decadent dishes of French cuisine, in a luxurious environment, and without breaking the bank.

While the above paragraph may sound like the beginning of a sponsored post, that is most certainly not the case. I only discovered Les Grands Buffet yesterday, while on my daily session of internet surfing for interesting topics to write about, when some photos of what looked like a lobster fountain caught my eye. It turned out to be just one of the many eye-catching arrangements at the Les Grands Buffet in Narbonne, France, a unique all-you-can-eat-buffet that only serves the best dishes of French cuisine, from lobsters to foie gras and cassoulet. It’s the kind of place that, as a gourmand, you simply have to visit at least once in your life.

Read More »