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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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A number of black bear cubs in California have been exhibiting unusually friendly, dog-like behavior around humans, and scientists believe a brain illness may be to blame.

Last month, California Department of Fish and Wildlife picked up a bear cub from a residential backyard. The animal had simply moved in there and didn’t seem to be intimidated by people at all. She picked up apples and ate them in front of the humans on the patio, and at one point jumped into a housekeeper’s open car trunk. This was not normal behavior for a brown bear cub, but the most concerning thing was that veterinarians in California had seen it before…

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The South American Leaf Fish is a remarkable predator that relies on almost perfect camouflage and patience to both ambush unsuspecting prey, and escape larger predators.

Native to the Amazon basin in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, the aptly-named leaf fish does a great job of imitating a dead leaf floating near the bottom of the river. Not only has it evolved to resemble a dead leaf almost perfectly, down to tiny details like the filament at the tip of the lower jaw that resembles a leaf stalk, but it also behaves like a leaf. The leaf fish bends and sways, but rarely moves upright, just as a floating leaf would not, and often angle themselves facing downwards, so that it looks like a dead leaf floating in the water.

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At 91 years of age, LC “Buckshot” Smith may just be the world’s oldest serving police officer, but he says he has no plans to retire just yet.

Buckshot doesn’t move around as fast as he used to, but that hasn’t been stopping him from patrolling the street of his home town, Camden, in Arkansas, four days a week. After serving for 46 years as a deputy, he retired, but he couldn’t stay away from the job for more than five months. He doesn’t hunt, doesn’t fish, all he ever enjoyed doing was being a police officer, so he went back to work in his 80s, as a rookie cop. He loves serving his community and only plans to retire for good “when the good Lord tells him to”.

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Streetwear company MSCHF recently teamed up with rapper Lil Nas Z to create 666 pairs of “Satan Shoes”, customized Nike Air Max 97s featuring a drop of real human blood, as well as a number of satanic symbols.

The black-and-red sneakers designed by MSCHF feature a silver pentagram pendant attached to the laces, ‘LUKE 10:18’ (Bible verse reference) printed on the side, as well as the shoe’s number in the collection (e.g. 6/666), and the names of its creators, MSCHF and Lil Nas Z, stitched in red on the heels. But the most controversial detail about the limited edition sneakers was the drop of real human blood used in the making of each of the 666 pairs.

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Mostafa Khodeir, a talented young artist from Egypt, spends up to two months working on a single one of his ballpoint pen drawing, but the result of his labor is nothing short of awe-inspiring.

The first time that 28-year-old Mostafa Khodeir saw hyper-realistic ballpoint pen drawings, he was speechless, even though, in hindsight, the skill level of the artist was pretty low. He decided to try it for himself, so he started practicing, and after a while he started producing some truly impressive material. Khodeir can spent up to two months on certain drawings, but the result are always impressive.

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The Russian Emergencies Ministry was forced to issue a public warning about the mortal danger of getting to close to the crater of an erupting volcano, after photos and videos of daredevils right next to a lava filled volcano cone started showing up online.

Klyuchevskaya Sopka, an active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Russian Far East, recently became a hotspot for adrenalin-seeking tourists, as the spectacular formation of a second volcano hole allowed them to get close enough to actually cook meat and sausages on the hot rock surrounding the erupting volcano. But while the trend may have started with funny pics and videos of sausages sizzling on a natural stove made of volcanic rock, it grew into something a lot more dangerous, with people getting close enough to the cone to film inside it, completely disregarding the lava bombs shooting out of it.

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