A team of welders from Mazda Motor Corporation in Japan recently showed off their skill by painstakingly welding the faces of a 1mm die.

Photos of a metallic die barely visible on a person’s fingertip and a magnified up-close photos showing the elegant welding keeping all six facets together recently went viral on Japanese social media, leaving a lot of people impressed. Although you’d be hard-pressed to use this type of die in a real-life situation, the fact that people are actually capable of this sort of impressive feat is incredible. It goes to show you that nothing is impossible, regardless of how hard it is.

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An English millionaire who notoriously built the “UK’s biggest man cave” in his backyard without planning permission, is now trying to prevent it from being torn down by buying up properties around it.

After an eight-year battle, millionaire businessman Graham Wildin was ordered to tear down the enormous man-cave complex on his property in Gloucestershire, but he has failed to do that. The 10,000sq/ft facility, which included a cinema, squash court, small casino and bowling alley, has now become the center of a fortress created by acquiring the properties around it, in an alleged attempt to stop the council from forcefully tearing it down. Although the deadline to level the luxurious man cave passed a month ago, the entire complex still stands.

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A Vietnamese man has become famous on social media for his drastic physical transformation with the help of plastic surgery which left him looking like a male K-Pop star.

The story of Tran Dang Phuoc Cuong’s transformation began in 2009, when, following a tragic car accident, which resulted in his father passing away and his mother fighting for her life in the hospital, the Da Nang native left to study in China. There, the 17-year-old student enrolled in a Chinese language course, so he could learn Chinese and increase his chances of finding a job to support himself. Then, he tried to find a part-time job and learned that his appearance was a hindrance as well, and that prompted him to go under the knife and drastically change his look.

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Douglas Smith, a gardener from Hertfordshire, UK recently set a new Guinness Record for most tomatoes grown on a single stem, 1,269.

Up until last summer, the record for most tomatoes grown on a single stem had stood unchallenged for over a decade. Then English farmer Douglas Smith set his sights on breaking it, thinking that he could grow more than 488 fruits on a single stem. And he proved that last year, when he managed to obliterate the old record by growing 839 tomatoes on a greenhouse-grown plant. It was quite the achievement, but he was only getting started, as only a few weeks later the Hertfordshire broke his own record by growing no less than 1,269 tomatoes on a single stem.

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A Japanese startup is trying to blur the line between reality and virtual reality with technology that allows the wearer to feel the pain experienced inside the metaverse in real life.

H2L Technologies, a Sony-backed technology company based in Tokyo, recently unveiled a wristband that dishes out small electric shocks whenever the wearer suffers pain-inducing damage in the much-hyped metaverse. The device is supposed to do a lot more than that, including mimicking a range of sensations from catching a ball to a bird pinching the wearer’s skin, as well as conveying weight and resistance. It’s all meant to make the metaverse this immersive experience that the people and companies involved in its creation have been pushing over the last year or so.

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Korean Bamboo Salt is a luxury product that can cost over $100 per 8.5-ounce (240g) jar. The price is mostly dictated by the laborious process of making it, which involves roasting it 9 times in bamboo cylinders.

If you thought pink Himalayan salt was expensive, you probably haven’t heard of actual luxury salt varieties. There are actually a bunch of them, including soy salt and pitch-black Kilauea Onyx salt, but at the very top of the list is Amethyst Bamboo, a Korean variety made by filling bamboo cylinders with sea salt, capping them with Loess clay and roasting it nine times in a traditional kiln. It’s a complex process that takes an entire month to complete. Every step is done by hand, so it’s no wonder that the salt can sell for over $100 per jar.

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A 31-year-old woman was recently sentenced to 2 years in prison for impersonating a physician and then an ophthalmologist for years without any medical training.

It all started in 2018, when Sonia, a 31-year-old woman from Meaux, in northern France, decided to try her luck as a physician, without undergoing any medical training. Sonia had a bachelor’s degree in real estate management, but she didn’t let that get in the way of attaining a lucrative job as a general physician. The woman forged a bunch of diplomas from the Faculty of Strasbourg and a false certificate on the board of the Order of Physicians, and not only got the job, but saw patients for three years before anyone noticed she had no business being a doctor.

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The sand dunes behind Barril Beach on Portugal’s southern Algarve Coast are home to over 200 rusty anchors abandoned there almost 60 years ago by the local tuna fishing community.

O Cemitério das Âncoras (The Anchor Cemetery) is one of the most iconic Sights of the Algarve Coast, yet not many people know its history and meaning. This isn’t just a random place where old ships abandoned their anchors many years ago, but a memorial to a now-defunct trade going back hundreds of years. In 1964, the local community decided to commemorate the death of traditional Bluefin Tuna fishing by burying the anchors that once formed the backbone of the complex tuna traps known as armações. They’ve remained there ever since as a reminder of the effect of industrialization and over-fishing on the locals.

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The Metaura Pro claims to be the world’s first wearable air-conditioning device capable of constantly blowing cold air to keep the wearer cool.

Conventional wearable cooling systems only circulate ambient air, and thus don’t do a very good job of cooling people down. The Metaura Pro, on the other hand, allegedly relies on a portable cooling solution to produce genuinely cold air that is 7 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than that of the ambient, in fan mode, and up to 18 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than ambient air, in cooling mode. The device has a dedicated app and relies on artificial intelligence to regulate air temperature.

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Souq Waqif is a state-of-the-art hospital in Doha Qatar, where 150 patients are treated every day. Only patients here all have feathers, as Souq Waqif is a hospital for falcons.

To say that Qatar’s Souq Waqif Falcon Hospital is a medical facility unlike any other would be fairly accurate. But then again, few countries around the world have a falconry tradition as old as the small Arab nations. Keeping the birds in the best possible physical shape is considered an essential duty by those who choose to keep and train falconids, and many of them spare no expense doing it. So it’s really no wonder that Souq Waqif is better equipped and staffed than many human hospitals in some of the world’s most developed countries.

Founded in 2008, the Souq Waqif Falcon Hospital is located in one corner of the main square in Doha’s old city. Everything, from the shiny glass doors at the entrance to the comfortable sofas of the waiting room, lets you know that falcons are the most revered animals in Qatar.

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Vietnam’s latest cosmetic procedure trend has people injecting hyaluronic acid fillers into their ear lobes in order to achieve elongated lobes like those of Maitreya, aka Laughing Buddha, considered a good long charm.

Vietnamese media recently featured a beauty salon in Quang Ninh where an increasing number of people have been requesting ear lobe fillers in order to change their fortunes. They believe that by increasing the size of their ear lobes to emulate those of Maitreya, a symbol of wealth and good fortune, they will attract prosperity into their lives. Advertisements for this procedure have reportedly become very popular on social media as well, with many salons promising fast and painless procedures to superstitious customers.

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A Japanese couple who can’t agree on their last name has agreed to divorce and remarry every three years so they can take turns using their respective last names.

Japanese law clearly states that couples must agree on a single last name to use after they get married, but what happens when two lovers just can’t decide which one of their family names to use? That was the conundrum a young couple from Hachioji city, on the outskirts of Tokyo, found themselves in when they decided to tie the knot, after a few months of dating. Only when it came to settling on their last name, she made it clear that she intended to keep her maiden name, something that her husband didn’t agree with at all. They argued about it for a while, but then they decided that they weren’t the first couple to have this problem and that there was a way to solve it.

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The Budapest Short Faced Tumbler is a rare pigeon breed famous for its odd, almost alien-like appearance, with bulging eyes, a minuscule beak, and a triangular head.

When the Poltl brothers, a family of pigeon racing enthusiasts from Budapest, set out to create a new pigeon breed in the early 1900s, they used selective breeding to obtain a high-flying bird with unmatched endurance. They managed to achieve their goal, as the Budapest Short Faced Tumbler could fly for up to 5 hours without breaks, and cover a distance of around 800 kilometers. Endurance was its middle name, but those who saw it for the first time cared less about its flying capabilities and more about its unique look. The small face and beak, in contrast with bulging, frog-like eyes, intrigued or freaked people out, but it also made them pay attention.

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The Joanina Library of the University of Coimbra Alta and Sofia is one of two Portuguese libraries to house colonies of bats as natural deterrents for bugs that would otherwise feed on old books and manuscripts.

As unusual as having a colony of Common pipistrelle bats living behind the bookshelves of one of the most beautiful libraries in the world, the curators of this historical marvel swear that the flying rodents provide an indispensable service – they feast on bugs that would otherwise damage or feed on old books. And with some of these ancient manuscripts being virtually priceless, it’s no wonder that the bats are regarded as helpful guardians.

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Institut Le Rosey is generally considered to be the most expensive school in the world, with the annual tuition per student surpassing $130,000.

Switzerland is home to some of the world’s most expensive and exclusive schools. The European country is home to at least 10 schools with yearly tuition fees of over $75,000, but the most expensive of them all is Institut Le Rosey, an old and reputed boarding school with an ultra-impressive list of alumni. There’s a reason why Le Rosey is known as the “school of kings”. King Juan Carlos of Spain, King Fuad II of Egypt and King Albert II of Belgium were all students here, as were the Shah of Iran, the Aga Khan and Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece, among others. Having educated some of the best-known families in Europe for over a century, it’s no wonder Institut Le Rosey has an annual tuition fee of over $130,000 per student.

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