At just 23-years-old, Dr. Veeragandham Teja had already worked in 16 private hospitals, conducted several medical camps and had volunteered with Bengaluru police and local migrant workers during the pandemic. Not a bad record for any doctor, let alone a 5th grade dropout with no medical education and little training…

Veeragandham Teja had been working as a doctor for over four years when his luck finally came to an end. It was a double whammy that got him in the end: his second wife filed mental and physical harassment against him, and he made the mistake of making a recommendation to police to cancel a person’s rowdy sheet (criminal record), only to then be spotted driving that person’s registered SUV. All it took was a bit of digging and police uncovered a web of lies going back over a decade, false degrees and certificates and several aliases. Their conclusion was that Teja’s career and pretty much all of his life, for that matter, was a fabrication…

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Hannah Bullen-Ryner creates beautiful ephemeral artworks by arranging twigs, leaves, flower petals, and berries into detailed bird portraits.

A trained painter and a photographer, Bullen-Ryner found that going back to nature and channeling her creativity into ephemeral, botanical art was the perfect escape from her anxiety and the “chaos in her brain”.  Using only natural materials found locally and no permanent fixings, the artist creates hauntingly beautiful portraits of birds, complete with feathers made of twigs and tree leaves and eyes made of various berries.

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After struggling to stay open during the Covid-19 pandemic, a sushi restaurant in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture, has found success with an ingenious “macho delivery” service that involves using buff bodybuilders as delivery boys.

Masanori Sugiura, a third-generation owner of the 60-year-old sushi restaurant Imazushi in the city of Anjo, started working out at the gym when he was in his 20s, but he never imagined that his hobby would one day help him keep his family business afloat. The trained chef had seen his profits plummet from the usual 100 million yen ($940,000) for the April-June quarter, to just 10 million yen, because of the coronavirus, and at one point had cut his staff from 50 to just four. But then he had a wacky idea to put his muscles to work as a way of attracting new business, and the “Delivery Macho” service was born.

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Over the years, we’ve featured some exceptionally talented tattoo artists on Oddity Central, but when it comes to surrealism and face morph tattoos, few can match Arlo DiCristina.

DiCristina, who goes by @ArloTattoos on social media, has been practicing tattooing since he was a teenager, and now runs his own tattoo shop, Elysium Studios, in Grand Junction, Colorado. He rose to fame a few years ago, when one of his projects, a portrait of iconic Batman villain, Joker, with his face interwoven into a skyline of Gotham City, went viral on social media, gaining praise from both tattoo enthusiasts as well as other inking masters. The name Arlo DiCristina has been linked to surrealist and face morph tattoos ever since and he has accepted the association as a badge of honor, specializing in the the two tattooing styles.

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A 10-year-old Vietnamese boy has been turning heads on Asian social media after photos of his unusually muscular physique went viral.

Nguyen Hoang Nam’s parents claim that he was always more muscular than other kids his age. Even at birth, doctors noticed that he had more developed muscles than other babies, and by age 6, his body was so unusually toned that his parents took him to a hospital for a checkup. It’s here that Vietnamese media reports get blurry, as they mention “superman syndrome” as the cause of Hoang Nam’s impressive physique, but that is a chromosomal disorder with very different symptoms. The articles also claim that other than muscle stiffness and a general lack of flexibility, the 10-year-old boy is in perfect health.

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Oleg Shepelenko, a talented tattoo artist from Rostov-on-Don, Russia, has been getting international recognition thanks to his insanely detailed portrait tattoos.

The self-taught artist who works out of the Lucky Style Tattoo Shop knew he had a talent for art when he began painting in school, but never got any formal training. He got into tattoos naturally, and used YouTube tutorials as inspiration, trying to imitate masters of the art and developing his own techniques along the way. Developing an interest in hyper-realism, Shepelenko channeled his entire ambition into producing photo-realistic portrait tattoos, and is now considered one of the top hyper-realist tattoo artists in the world.

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Edson Brandao, an online influencer, personal trainer and writer from Brazil, has been getting a lot of attention because of his age-defying appearance. Despite being in his early 50’s, Brandao constantly gets mistaken for a 20 or 30-year-old.

Looking at photos of Edson Brandao from when he was in his thirties and forties, and comparing them to his looks at age 53, you could say the Brazilian-born has only been getting younger. While he doesn’t deny that his youthful appearance have something to do with good genes, the 53-year-old credits his positive attitude, healthy lifestyle and daily skin care as the main reasons for his impressive looks. Brandao also swears that he has never undergone any cosmetic procedures to retain his youthful appearance.

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With tourism at an all-time low, a struggling Japanese railway operator is trying to avoid going under by selling canned stones from its railway tracks.

Founded in 1923, the Choshi Electric Railway company, in Japan’s Chiba Prefecture, had to overcome adversity several times during its 97-year history, but the situation has never been more dire than it is now. The railway operator relies on tourism to support its operations, but with the novel Coronavirus wreaking havoc all over the world, business has never been worse, so management had to come up with alternative ways of generating income. Among these, starting a YouTube channel and selling canned stones have been proving unusually successful.

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A trained software engineer, Sachin Sanghe spends most of his free time sculpting sticks of chalk into beautiful artworks, from portraits of celebrities, to depictions of Hindu gods.

As a high-school student, Sachin Sanghe was  always called to the front of the class to write notes on the blackboard, so it’s no surprise that he formed a special connection to the humble chalk. He started carving sticks of chalk with his geometry tools as a hobby, and as time went by, he got better at it. But then he got into an engineering college, and his art had to take a backseat to his academic responsibilities. However, after finishing school and getting a job, Sachin was free to return to his special hobby again. He did so, and became so good at it that the self-taught artist is now being hailed as one of the world’s best chalk sculptors.

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Su ‘Moh Moh’ Naing, a 23-year-old girl from Myanmar shot to online fame earlier this week after being featured by a popular English tabloid for having an incredibly thin waist.

The Burmese student claims to have a waist circumference of only 13.7 inches, which would make it one of the tiniest waists in the world, but even more shocking is the fact that Naing insist her waist size is only linked to genetics. Despite being accused of digitally editing the photos she posts on her Instagram, and even of having some of her ribs removed or constantly wearing a tight corset to achieve such a tiny figure, Su Naing says she is all natural.

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The Gate Tower Building is one of the many several tall office buildings that make up Osaka’s impressive skyline, but there is something about it that makes it unique in the world – it has a functional highway going right through it.

Photos of this architectural anomaly have been doing the rounds on social media for over two decades now, and it’s easy to see why. 16-storey buildings don’t usually have highway off-ramps going right through them, but the Gate Tower Building does, and the traffic doesn’t affect the people working inside it one bit. The elevators are located on the side of the building, and the highway itself doesn’t touch the tower, which is properly insulated against traffic noise and vibrations anyway. It’s still quite a sight to behold, and if you’re ever in Osaka you should definitely pass by, or rather, through.

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Textiles aren’t the main means of contamination for the SarsCov-2 virus, but studies have shown that it can survive on clothes for various periods of time. That’s why several companies are planning to launch lines of virus-killing denim.

Last month, Swiss company HeiQ announced that its Viroblock NPJ03 textile treatment had been tested against the SARS-CoV-2 virus strain and proved to be 99.99% effective in killing it. Virpblock had previously been tested against coronavirus 229E, another strain of virus in the Coronavirus family, but this latest test showed that the combination of silver salts with a vesicle technology was effective against the Covid-19 causing virus as well. HeiQ has since announced collaborations with several denim brands to create SarsCov-2-resistant clothes.

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A Japanese former busker turned Zen Buddhist monk has been getting a lot of attention because of his unique music which combines beatboxing, sampling and a wide range of chants.

Before being ordained as a monk in 2015, 37-year-old Yogetsu Akasaka traveled the world as a full-time busker, making a living on his beatboxing skills. A friend had introduced him to the oral art of sound and instrument imitation in his early 20’s, and he was so impressed that he decided to give it a go himself. It turned out that he was pretty good at it, so good in fact that he was able to make a living as a busker in several countries, including the United States and Australia. After following his father’s example and becoming a monk, he realized he missed his music, so he came up with a way to blend his calling and his beatboxing talent in a unique way.

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Judit Czinkné Poór, Judit Czinkné Poór cake-decorating shop in the Hungarian city of Ajka, is famous for her ability to turn simple gingerbread cookies into edible masterpieces.

Mézesmanna (~Honeyed manna) drew international attention back in 2016, when popular blogs like Bored Panda and This Is Colossal featured Judit Czinkné Poór’s stunning gingerbread creations. Her incredibly detailed embroidered-like treats received the most attention, and for good reason, but the talented pastry chef has since moved on to other types of decorations, from embossed animals to intricate cartoon characters.

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While the rest of the world struggles to find a cure or even a treatment for Covid-19, Indonesia’s Agriculture Ministry  claims to have found a solution – wearing a eucalyptus necklace developed by one of its agencies.

The so-called “antivirus necklace” was developed by Balitbangtan, the Agriculture Ministry’s Health Research and Development Agency, and will go into mass-production next month. According to minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo, the necklace was made using a species of eucalyptus that can kill the novel coronavirus. Simply wearing the accessory for 15 minutes allegedly kills 42 percent of coronavirus, while upping the time to 30 minutes doubles its effectiveness. The eucalyptus necklace is just one of a whole line of all-natural products designed to prevent or treat Covid-19.

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