India’s ‘Mango Man’ Creates Mango Tree That Produces 300 Different Varieties

Haji Kalimullah Khan, aka Mango Man, is a world renowned horticulturist and fruit breeder known for his accomplishments in breeding mangoes, and especially for his crowning achievement, a mango tree that produces 300 different varieties.

When Haji Kalimullah Khan dropped out of school at the age of 15 to make growing and breeding mangoes his life’s work, his family, like most farmers in Malihabad, Northern India, was growing only two varieties of the delicious tropical fruit. But one day, after seeing a rose plant that produced flowers of different colors in a friend’s flower garden, Khan learned about plant crossbreeding, and started wondering if the same principles didn’t apply to fruit trees. This was the beginning of a career that would eventually see him crowned as one of the world’s leading horticulturists and fruit breeders, and earn him the affectionate nickname “Mango Man”.

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Why Dye Your Hair When You Can Have It Printed?

Barcelona-based stylist and hairdresser Alexis Ferrer has spent years developing a technique that allows him to digitally print colorful design onto human hair.

Alexis Ferrer started experimenting with hair printing in 2012, after being asked by haircare brand Wella Professionals to interpret a collection at that year’s International Trend Vision Awards. The aim was to “was to innovate with a technique not usually used in hairdressing,” and photographic printing on hair seemed like the perfect way to graphically tell a story. Ferrer’s first attempt managed to get a lot of attention in the world of fashion, and he has been working on refining hair printing techniques ever since.

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Greece’s Unique Valley of Butterflies – A Real-Life Natural Paradise

The Greek island of Rhodes is home to a special biome called Petaloudes Valley, or the Valley of Butterflies, after the millions of endemic moths that cover almost every surface during the summer months.

Located on the western side of Rhodes Island, about 10 kilometers from 10 km from the airport and 25 km from Rhodes City, Petaloudes Valley hosts the only natural forest of Oriental Sweetgum trees (Liquidambar orientalis) in Europe. It’s the scent given off by these trees that attracts an endemic subspecies of Jersey Tiger moths called Euplagia quadripunctaria rhodosensis; huge numbers of moths congregate in this small valley, covering almost every visible surface almost as a living blanket.

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The Magical Pencil Drawings of Alessandro Paglia

When it comes ultra-realistic pencil drawings, you’d have a hard time finding someone better than Italian industrial designer turned artist Alessandro Paglia.

Having studying design at Politecnico di Milano, Alessandro Paglia managed to secure a job at 3M, working its first  international Design Center for five years. He then moved to a light design company and then to a brand design agency, but eventually realized that it wasn’t what he wanted to do in life. He had always been more fascinated by the artistic side of design, and his career was steering him further away from that. So one day Alessandro quit his job and decided to focus exclusively on artistic drawings, and we’re glad he did, because otherwise we would have probably never gazed upon his shiny masterpieces.

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The Loneliest Monk in Tibet Lives Alone in This Isolated Temple

Located on top of a small mound, on a sliver of land stretching into the serene Yamdrok Lake is Rituo Temple, the home of just one solitary monk who spends his days chanting sutras and meditating.

Rituo, which means “the stone on the mountain” in Tibetan, is often referred to as Tibet’s loneliest temple. It has a history that goes back more than 700 years, but it’s considered one of the country’s hidden gems, as few tourists venture out to visit it. That’s because it’s located in the middle of nowhere, on a thin patch of land stretching into Yamdrok, one of the three holy lakes of Tibet. But the few people who did visit it, tell stories about the peace and quiet that most of us only dream of, and about the surreal experience of taking in the amazing natural scenery from atop the solitary rock mound.

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Giant Smiley Face on Oregon Hillside Is Made Up of Trees

People Driving along Oregon Route 18 in the autumn months or early December are treated to a unique view that is sure to brighten their day – a giant smiley face looking back at them from forest-covered hillside.

Located at roughly mile 25 on Oregon Route 18, between Willamina and Grand Ronde, the now famous smiley face of Oregon makes its appearance every fall, as the color of the trees that make up its body start to change color. It is about 300 feet in diameter, and consists of two different types of conifers, one that changes color in autumn, and one that remains all year round. It has become a popular landmark in Oregon’s rural Polk County, and should continue to put smiles on people’s faces for the next 30-50 years, until the trees are ready to be harvested.

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Street Artist Creates Beautiful Drawings With Burning Logs and Rocks

A 23-year-old street artist from China has been getting a lot of praise for making use of simple yet intriguing drawing supplies to create some very impressive artworks.

Long Tsai has been trying to make himself known on Chinese social media by posting videos of himself drawing Chinese fantasy and TV series characters on the pavement. The problem is he is just one of the many self-taught artists around the world trying to make a name for themselves, so he decided to do that by using some unconventional tools. Instead of colored chalk or spray paint, he creates his art with a burning log for black and rocks or bricks for every other color.

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Would You Let Yourself Be Tattooed by This 13-Year-Old Girl?

Despite being just 13-years-old, Lilith Siow is already one of the most talked-about tattoo artists in Singapore.

Lilith first made international news headlines in 2019, when she attended the Culture Cartel Exhibition, in Singapore, where she showed off her steady hands and ability to work under pressure. The now 13-year-old is the daughter of Joseph Tan of Visual Orgasm Tattoo, a famous tattoo artist in Singapore, with over 20 years of experience under his belt. Joseph asked her if she was interested in tattoos and picking up the skills to do tattoos herself, and when she said yes, he started taking her to the shop with him.

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iPhone 11 Accidentally Dropped in Lake a Year Ago Still Works

A man who accidentally lost his iPhone 11 while paddling on a lake in March of last year recently posted photos of the handheld miraculously retrieved from the bottom of the lake after more than a year. The handheld was in need of a recharge, but otherwise worked perfectly!

The owner of the iPhone, a Taiwanese man named Chen Yj, recently took to a public Facebook group to tell the amazing story of how his handheld survived a year underwater. Writing on the Bangfu1 Commune Facebook group, Chen said that he lost his iPhone 11 in March of 2020, while paddling on Sun Moon Lake, in Taiwan. Photos shared on the public group show him wearing an orange vest, with the Apple handheld around his neck. At one point, the man falls off his board, and the phone can be seen sinking to the bottom of the lake. Little did Chen know that he would not only retrieve his phone a year later, but it would be in perfect working condition.

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Bento Artist Creates Insanely Detailed Edible Portraits

A talented bento artist from Hiroshima, Japan, has been turning a lot of heads online with their incredibly detailed edible black portraits over a white rice background.

Nori bento is the most common forms of the portable Japanese snack, but one Japanese food artist has managed to turn the simplicity of the classic meal into an impressive art form. Miki Matsuura creates bento portraits so detailed it makes eating them a travesty. She carves the edible black layer so meticulously that the resulting portraits look almost drawn on the white rice with a black pencil, like manga characters. But while the artist posts photos of her art on social media, they aren’t made specifically for people’s entertainment, but as an actual lunch for Miki’s husband.

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Busty Female YouTuber Turns Out to Be 37-Year-Old Man

A popular Japanese YouTuber with tens of thousands of fans who mostly focused on filming her generous bosom recently outed herself as a 37-year-old man who had been using a silicone breast prosthesis.

Chiharu (むね肉ちはる) only started her YouTube career in December of last year, but by the end of March, 2021, it had already attracted 20,000 subscribers, despite featuring only six clips. They weren’t your usual YouTube fare, though, but weird videos of a woman filming her nightly exercise routine, with the camera focusing on her generous bosom most of the time. In fact, her most popular video showed the mysterious woman’s breasts bouncing up and down while jogging. The weird thing about Chiharu was that, the few times she showed her face on camera, she never took off her face mask and never said a word. Turns out she had a very good reason…

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Cascatelli – The Ideally Shaped Pasta You Didn’t Even Know Existed

Inspired by the firm belief that spaghetti is far from the ideal shape for pasta, a man set out to create a perfectly shaped pasta. The result of his hard work is now known as cascatelli.

The story of how cascatelli came to be began in 2018, when Dan Pashman, the host of the James Beard and Webby Award-winning “Sporkful” podcast, made some harsh remarks about spaghetti, on the stage of the Caveat Theater, in front of a live audience. His comments got a lot of attention and inspired him to dedicate a lot of his time to researching pasta shapes in a quest to create the ideal pasta design, which needed to have an appealing texture, have the perfect bite, and, most importantly, hold the right amount of sauce. Believe it or not, he spent almost three years on this project.

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Hand-Painted Knees – A Forgotten Beauty Trend of the 1920s

Knee makeup isn’t really a thing, but a century ago it was the hottest trend in the beauty industry. It started out as knee rouging and eventually turned into full-on knee painting.

Fashion has always been a reflection of the spirit of the times, and the knee makeup and painting of the 1920s was no exception. The “flappers” were wearing skirts shorter than ever before (hemlines just under the knee were the ’20s version of a miniskirt), they were rolling down their stocking bellow the knee or giving up on them altogether, and knee rouging became just another way to attract attention to an area of the female body that had never been as visible before. Women of the generation had a number of blush formulas to choose from including cream, powder, and liquid formulas, which they used for an added “look at me” effect.

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Scientists Now Know Why These French Rabbits Do Handstands When Moving Fast

For over a century, animal experts have known that a certain variety of rabbits move exclusively on their front legs when trying to move fast, but they’ve only recently learned why that is.

The Sauteur d’Alfort, also known as the Alfort jumping rabbit have baffled scientists for more than a decade. Unlike other rabbit varieties, the sauteur d-Alfort have a uniquely acrobatic way of moving. Over short distances, when moving slowly, they walk on all four limbs, but their hind legs hit the floor one after another, rather than at the same time. But the truly remarkable thing happens when it needs to move faster. Rather than hopping, it quickly lifts its hind legs above its head and starts moving on its front legs alone. Experiments done decades ago showed that the sauteur was incapable of hopping, but thanks to modern technology, scientists know exactly why that is.

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China’s King of Live Streaming Sales Sells More in 12 Hours Than a Mall Does in a Year

Xin Youzhi, aka Xinba, an online personality known as China’s king of live streaming sales, recently managed to sell more products in a single day than a Hong Kong shopping mall sells in 12 months.

Born in a small village in northeast China, Xinba managed to defy the odds, becoming one of the most popular web perdonalities in China, as well as the most successful live stream seller. Operating on Chinese streaming platform Kuaishou, the young entrepreneur specializes in promoting all sorts of products to his fans, and trying to get them to buy as many as them as possible during his online broadcast. He is really good at it too, as demonstrated by his latest achievement, selling over $300 million worth of goods during a 12-hour stream.

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