Deoco, a range of women’s beauty products that allegedly captures the coveted “young woman smell”, has become a huge hit in Japan, among both older women who want to smell younger and lonely men who crave the fragrance of a younger woman.

The story of this intriguing line of cosmetics began last year, when Japanese company Rohto Pharmaceutical announced that it had successfully isolated two fragrant chemical compounds, called Lactone C10 and C11, which younger women’s bodies seemed to produce in much larger quantities than those of older women. In a study that involved 500 women of all ages, from teens to adults in their 50s, Rohto’s scientists detected a “sweet aroma” that was stronger in younger women’s worn clothes. Subsequent research revealed that the scent came from two lactones, the levels of which were highest among teens, but dropped significantly in women over 35. After making the discovery and isolating the two compounds, Rohto quickly started working on Deoco, a line of body soaps and deodorants rich in Lactone C10 and C11.

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1sec Inc., a Japanese technology company that specializes in blending the digital world with our reality, has created Japan’s first virtual male influencer, a young music producer named Liam Nikuro.

If you thought making it as an Instagram influencer these days was hard, we have some bad new for you: it’s about to get even harder, with perfect-looking virtual models entering the fray. Following the success of digital social media stars like Miquela and Imma, a Japanese tech start-up set out to create the Asian country’s first virtual male model. The result of their hard work is Liam Nikuro, a young heart-throb “from Los Angeles” who reportedly works in some of the coolest and most profitable industries of our time – music, fashion, and entertainment.

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A street artist performing on the streets of Fortaleza, in Brazil, has made quite a name for himself thanks to his adorable partner, a pet dog, who assists him when he does his realistic living statue routine.

Yorge Luís Ruiz is a young Venezuelan street artist who immigrated to Brazil in search of a better life. He settled in Fortaleza, in the northeastern state of  Ceará, and started performing his living statue routine to entertain passers by in the city’s busy Ferreira square. He’s not the only street artist working that area of the city, but he stands out thanks to his adorable partner, a cute canine named Jaspe. The pooch not only accompanies Yorge whenever he goes to work, but she actually assists him in his routine, resting on his bent arm and standing as still as she possibly can.

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Lance Wooton, a 32-year-old IT supervisor from Kentucky, has has made a worldwide name for himself thanks to his incredibly luscious, waist-long beard.

Wooton started growing his facial hair in June of 2014 to compliment a pirate costume he planned on wearing for Halloween. By the time October came around, he had already grown an impressive-looking beard, which happened to draw the attention of a friend who owned a local barbershop and invited him to check out some beard care products. He didn’t even know such things existed, but he bought some, used them on his beard and posted photos of the results on social media. That’s how he got invited to his first beard competition, where he was introduced to a tight community of passionate beard growers. He was instantly hooked, and decided to keep growing his beard, even though everyone around him told him to shave it off. Today, his luscious facial hair measures 2.5-feet and reaches down to his waist.

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For the average person, having a nice-looking signature is not that big of a deal, but for business people and public figures it’s apparently pretty important. A strong yet elegant signature expresses confidence and can help build trust between business partners, so it’s no wonder that some people actually pay for designer signatures.

Ivan Kuzin, a 20-year-old student from Krasnoyarsk, Russia, has created a lucrative online service offering business managers and entrepreneurs custom signatures. He came up with the idea last year, when he turned 20 and had to change his passport. He realized he didn’t like his signature at all, and since had already started his first business, which was already bringing in steady income, he decided to change it. Ivan turned to his friend, Anastasia Zdor, who had mastered oriental calligraphy while studying in China. She designed a beautiful signature for him and then patiently taught him how to write it himself. The whole process got Ivan thinking about offering designer signatures to others as a paid service.

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Valdir Segato, a Brazilian bodybuilder in his early 50s, has been injecting an oil-based substance into his upper body muscles for year. Despite looking like someone took an air pump and inflated his arms and chest like balloons, he continues to use the appearance-enhancing substance regularly.

As a teenager, Valdir became addicted to drugs and lost so much weight that his friends started calling him ‘Skinny Dog’. He managed to turn his life around though, and started going to the gym every day. Still, he wasn’t satisfied with the results his hard work lifting weights yielded, so when someone introduced him to the popular muscle-enhancement substance synthol, he became hooked on it. The Sao Paolo-based construction worker has been regularly injecting synthol into his biceps and pectoral muscles for years, and despite being warned that he risked having his limbs amputated if he continued to use the substance, he hasn’t been able to stop.

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A homeless artist in the Indian state of Kerala spends most of his days decorating concrete walls and buildings with beautiful murals he paints using only plant leaves, mud, charcoal and natural pigments.

Everyone knows him as Raju, but that’s not his real name. Judging by his dirty clothes and unkempt beard, you’d think he was just one of the many street dwellers in Kollam City, Kerala, but he’s actually an insanely talented artist. For at least 8 years now, Raju has been entertaining the people of Kollam by painting beautiful murals on whatever clean concrete walls he can find, using plant leaves as paint brushes, and plant saps, mud, charcoal and natural pigments as paint.

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If you thought the average balloon dog or rabbit you commonly see entertainers twist at children’s parties was impressive, get ready to have your mind blown. Japanese artist Masayoshi Matsumoto takes the art of balloon animals to a whole new level, creating insanely detailed sculptures that often look too good to be true.

The average balloon animal takes a skilled artist a few seconds to a couple of minutes to create, but Masayoshi Matsumoto spends between two and six hours on a single creation. It’s not that he’s not talented enough, quite the contrary, his works simply display a whole other degree of detail. From realistic-looking octopuses and iguanas, to large models of flies, centipedes and caterpillars, there’s literally no animal that Matsumoto can’t create using simple balloons if he really puts his mind to it.

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There’s no question that artificial intelligence has come a long way in the last few years, but apparently it’s not yet advanced enough to tell the difference between someone using a mobile phone and someone scratching their face.

Chinese media recently reported the case of a man in Jinan, eastern Shandong province, who received a notification that he had broken the law by talking on the phone while driving. The letter also had a surveillance picture of his so-called offence attached, which showed him holding his right hand to his cheek. Only the man didn’t remember using his phone behind the wheel that day, and the picture didn’t show a phone either, just his hand in an awkward position near his face. It turns out the motorist was just scratching his face when the picture was taken. Even so, he learned that he would receive two penalty points on his licence and be required to pay a 50 yuan ($7.25) fine.

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An independent candidate from the Indian state of Punjab managed to make himself known around the world after a video of him crying and telling a reporter that he only received 5 votes in the recent Indian general elections despite having 9 family members went viral on social media.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi got a resounding victory in India’s general elections, which ended last week after some 600 million people across the country cast their vote. But another important thing happened: Neetu Shutteran Wala, a relatively unknown politician who ran as independent in the city of Jalandhar, had a meteoric rise to meme status. In an interview with a local reporter, Shutteran Wala broke down in tears as he revealed that despite having nine family members, he had only received five votes. Asked if that meant that not even his family voted for him, the emotional politician said that he doesn’t blame his relatives, but election fraud.

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A Hong Kong woman reportedly suffered a case of short-term amnesia which made her unable to remember anything from the last 10 years of her life, after straining too hard on the toilet due to constipation.

We all know that straining too hard when trying to move bowels can have a host of side effects, including minor ones like dizziness and headache, and life-threatening ones like strokes. However, according to anecdotal evidence that went viral on Chinese social media last week, we can now add short-term amnesia to the list of possible symptoms associated with over-straining on the toilet. Experts say that while unlikely, this side-effect may be explained by the lack of oxygen to certain parts of the brain.

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A Boston-area man was recently the victim, or rather the beneficiary, of a bizarre breaking and entering. When he and his son came home one day, earlier this month, they noticed something was off. There was nothing missing, but the whole house was clean and tidied up, which was not how they had left it that morning.

Nate Roman, who lives with his son in a single-family home in Marlborough, Massachusetts, came home on May 15, after picking up his child from school, to find that the back door of his house was unlocked. He had forgotten to lock it several times in the past, so he didn’t really think anything of it, but after entering the home, he immediately noticed that something was off. It smelled of bleach and cleaning products and a door he normally kept open was firmly shut. Things got even weirder when he want upstairs to check the bedrooms, which had both been cleaned and had everything arranged in a “really creepy way”.

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Emma, an adorable and perfectly healthy Shi-Tzu was recently put down, because its owner put it in her will that she wanted to be buried with her beloved pet when she died.

On March 8, shortly after her owner passed away, Emma was brought to the Chesterfield County Animal Shelter in Chesterfield, Virginia, where she remained for the next two weeks. Staff there were informed about the dog’s fate, so they kept trying to convince the deceased woman’s estate to sign Emma over, so she could be adopted by another family. The shelter repeatedly told representatives of the estate that they could easily find a home for her, but they declined every time. They did the same on March 22, when an executor came to pick up Emma to have her put down, but there was no convincing him.

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Whether you constantly fall victim to procrastination and just can’t seem to put down your smartphone for more than 10 minutes, or you’re putting on the pounds due to an insatiable sweet tooth, you may want to invest in this “anti-temptation” safe that allows you to lock away things you love for set periods of time.

Sold as a “Kitchen Safe” on Amazon Japan, this ingenious gadget was originally designed to keep users away from stuffing their face with calorie-rich treats, but people have found it to be very effective at curbing their procrastination habits as well. One Twitter user recently posted some photos of his smartphone and Nintendo Switch controllers locked away in this thing, which apparently allowed him to focus on productive tasks.

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Cape Vyatlina, one of the most picturesque places in the Russian Far East, has come to be known as the Russian Stonehenge in recent years, after people started building stone towers on its rocky beach. Today, there are hundreds of them, and new ones are erected almost every day.

The tradition of building towers at Cape Vyatlina by stacking stones of various sizes on top of each other started in 2015, when a group of activists from Vladivostok built 155 such monuments in celebration of the city’s 155th anniversary. Many of these original towers, some up to 3.5-meters-tall, were destroyed by the collapse of a nearby grotto, but other locals and tourists took it upon themselves to restore them and even add to their number. Today, there are several hundreds of these hand-stacked stone towers covering the beach at Cape Vyatlina and building them has become somewhat of a superstition.

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