Fabio Gomes Trindade, a talented Brazilian street artist, creates stunning graffiti masterpieces by combining his detailed portraits with branches of trees and flowering bushes.

Whenever he starts work on a new project, Fabio Gomes Trindade first chooses the location of the artwork. The presence of lunch trees or flowering bushes is critical, as they basically make up about half the artwork. The Brazilian artist uses graffiti to depict the faces and part of the hair of the portraits he creates, letting nature take care of the rest. Seeing the artworks from the perfect angles, they look like a perfect collaborative effort between man and nature.

Read More »

Nicolas Gentile, a 37-year-old fan of Tolkien’s fantasy, decided he wanted more than just to read about the life of his favorite characters, the hobbits, so he started living as a real-life hobbit himself.

A pastry chef by training, Nicolas Gentile grew up reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s books and watching the popular Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movie trilogies. He had always been a fan of fantasy literature, movies, and games, but it was Middle Earth that captured his imagination the most. Only at one point, reading about and imagining the world and characters he loved wasn’t enough anymore. Gentile was tired of experiencing the adventures of others and decided that he could be a character in his very own real-life adventure, so he decided to start living as a hobbit.

Read More »

A 23-year-old student in Germany can reportedly shrink and enlarge his pupils on command, a feat previously thought to be physically impossible.

The dilation and constriction of the pupil were believed to be completely automated processes triggered by various factors, like entering a bright or dark environment, but a recent case study suggests that isn’t always the case. A young student in Germany is believed to be able to voluntarily control the tiny muscles that adjust the size of the pupil, a feat once thought to be impossible. The authors point out that while some people can alter their pupil size via “indirect methods”, this person is instead able to directly control the sphincter muscle in his eyes to adjust the size of his pupils.

Read More »

The Techa River flowing down the eastern flank of the Ural Mountains in Russia is considered the world’s most radioactive river, as a result of having been used as a dumping ground for nearly 80 million tons of radioactive wastewater over several years.

At first glance, the Techa River looks pristine, inviting even, and you’d never guess that it once was – and by some accounts, still is – the dumping ground of a secret nuclear compound responsible for exposing tens of thousands of people to as much as 20 times the radiation suffered by the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. 23 or the 24 rural communities that the Techa flowed by have been evacuated in the last 13 years, but not before thousands of people developed cancers, or suffered chromosomal abnormalities and birth defects. Even today, when authorities claim the levels of radiation in the Techa River are “acceptable”, Geiger counters still beep ominously when placed near the waterline…

Read More »

Although there are plenty of flightless bird species on Earth, the Parlor Roller pigeon is believed to be the only one selectively bred by humans until it lost its capacity to take to the skies and developed a completely new and bizarre means of getting around – backflips.

Seeing a parlor roller pigeon roll on the ground, you would think it was having some sort of seizure, but in reality, the birds are rolling on the ground because it comes naturally to them. No one knows exactly how or when the breed was created, but experts and enthusiasts speculate that its origins can be traced back to mid-19th century Scotland when someone probably encountered a specimen with a slight tendency to roll on the ground and decided it was worth emphasizing via selective breeding. It is believed that over years of selective breeding, pigeons that rolled over long distances were obtained.

Read More »

Once believed to be the stuff of legends, the double-nosed andean tiger hound is an extremely rare dog breed used by Bolivian hunters to track jaguars through the Amazon rainforest.

The first mention of double-nosed dogs in the Amazon jungle can be traced back to 1913, when legendary explorer Colonel Percy Fawcet told tales of such animals on his return from an expedition. No one believed him, they laughed at his stories, and the double-nosed dog remained a cryptozoological beast up until the mid-2000s, when Colonel John Blashford-Snell returned with photographic evidence of the dog’s existence. It’s an extremely rare breed believed to only exist in Bolivia, where it is used to track jaguars because of their enhanced sense of smell.

Read More »

Do-Dodonpa, the world’s fastest-accelerating roller coaster, has been temporarily closed after a number of people broke their backs or necks after riding it in the last nine months.

Located in the Fuji-Q Highland Park, in Fujiyoshida, Japan, the Do-Dodonpa roller coaster has been operating since 2001, offering riders an adrenaline-fueled experience. It is famous for being able to accelerate from 0 to 180km (112 miles) per hour in just 1.56 seconds, which makes it the world’s fastest-accelerating roller coaster. Despite its  “super death” speed, Do-Dodonpa had never been associated with rider injuries until December of last year, when people started suffering bone injuries after going on the roller-coaster. Six cases have been reported since, four of which involved broken back or necks.

Read More »

Every year, hundreds of people from India’s Uttarakhand state engage in Bagwal, a brutal stone-pelting battle that often leaves dozens with severe injuries that require medical attention.

Bagwal literally means “fight with stones”, so it’s a pretty fitting name for a celebration that’s all about hurling big stones at the opposing side. Four clans gather in the Champawat district of Uttarakhand to take part in the unique event, despite the danger of getting seriously injured by the stones flying through the air. In fact, bloody wounds are the whole point of Bagwal as legend has it that the Hindu deity Barahi struck a deal with humans to rid them of demon invaders in exchange for a sacrifice in the form of blood.

Read More »

In what scientists are calling a world-first for the species, a”miracle” baby shark was born in a tank full of female smooth-hound sharks in Sardinia, Italy.

Parthenogenesis, or “virgin births,” have previously been observed in nature, from various species of plants, insects, reptiles, birds and fish, but never in smooth-hound sharks, which explains why the staff at Acquario Cala Gonone were shocked to see the young baby among all the females. The asexual birth of the miracle baby shark is yet to be officially confirmed, but the team at the Italian aquarium says no other explanation makes sense.

Read More »

Husum Red Pied is a rare domestic pig breed popularly known as the Danish Protest Pig because its whole reason for being was to imitate the Danish country flag at a time when an actual flag could not be raised.

The story of the Danish Protest Pig can be traced back to the mid 19th century when Denmark and Prussia went to war over control of the southern Jutland Peninsula. The two countries couldn’t decide where the border between their lands was, so they eventually went to war. In 1848, Denmark won the war and the claim to the contested land, but only a decade later the Second Schleswig War erupted, and this time Prussia emerged victorious. In the years that followed, Prussian authorities launched a campaign against anything Danish, especially the Danish flag, which didn’t sit too well with farmers in the disputed Jutland territory. So they devised a cunning plan to bypass the ban…

Read More »

Luxury fashion brand Balenciaga has been raising eyebrows with a new line of extremely distressed sweaters that look like they’ve been munched on by rats, but cost a small fortune.

Balenciaga designers have always tried to push the boundaries of what is considered luxury fashion, but sometimes they tend to go overboard. Remember that $2,300 luxury skirt inspired by rubber car mats? Well, they found a way to one-up themselves with an entire line of distressed, high-quality wool sweaters designed to make the wearer look either extremely poor or like they narrowly escaped an encounter with an aggressive wild animal. The only thing that screams luxury fashion is the price tag, which stands at a whopping $1,450 on the Balenciaga online store.

Read More »

James Sakara, the pastor of a Zambian Christian church, was found dead after asking to be buried alive in the ground so he could come back to life in three days’ time, like Jesus…

To say that 22-year-old James Sakara was overconfident in his ability to emulate the resurrection of Jesus Christ would be an understatement. Be that as it may, the pastor of the Zion Church in the Zambian town of Chidiza managed to convince his congregation that he could in fact come back to life after three days, just like the Son of God. He somehow got three members of his Church to assist him by digging a shallow grave, tying up his hands, and burying him alive, only instead of coming back to life after three days, Sakara was found dead by members of the Zion Church curious to see why their leader hadn’t fulfilled his promise.

Read More »

A Texas man who sustained injuries after being involved in a bar fight two years ago sued the bar owner for overselling him alcohol and was awarded $5.5 million in a default judgment.

Daniel Rawls claims that after drinking at the La Fogata restaurant, in Andrews, on May 21, 2019, he and another patron, Robert Henrickson, got into an altercation in the parking lot of the restaurant. As a result, Rawls suffered head injuries that his lawyer claimed could have been avoided if the restaurant hadn’t continued serving alcohol to both men, who were visibly inebriated. In the complaint, La Fogata’s owner and bartender were accused of allowing the two men to drink excessively and leave the restaurant together, as well as not calling an ambulance after Rawls was injured.

Read More »

Panta Petrović has been living in a cave in the canyon of Serbia’s Gradašnička river for over 16 years, away from modern civilization and in the company of both domestic and wild animals, including a 200-kilogram boar named Mara.

Serbia’s most famous cave dweller recently made international headlines after Agence France Press reported that even he had gotten a Covid-19 vaccine, even though he hardly interacts with other people. But in his home country, Panta has been making headlines for at least the last five years. Everyone in the area around Petrovac city, in south-eastern Serbia knows who he is, because of his unique lifestyle. He has been living as a hermit for the last 15 years, spending half the year in a wooden treehouse in the middle of nowhere, and the other half in a 25-meter-long cave hidden in the canyon of Gradašnička river. All because he wanted to go back to the basics and get away from modern civilization.

Read More »

An Indian woman who lost her husband in a tragic car accident years ago has built a small temple in his honor, and worships a marble bust of him.

Padmavathi, a woman living in Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam district has been getting a lot of attention in her home country of India after it was reported that she built a small temple in honor of her late husband, complete with a white marble statue sculpted in his likeness. The woman claims that her husband, Gurukula Anki Reddy, appeared in her dreams soon after his death, in 2007, asking her to build a temple for him. She honored his wishes and has been worshipping there ever since.

Read More »