When it comes to recreating the characters of Japanese horror manga artist Junji Ito in real life, there’s no one better for the job than dedicated fan Mamakiteru.

Mamakiteru’s Twitter bio reads “I want to live in the world of Junji Ito”, and since living in the artist’s manga is impossible, she decided to do the next best thing – bring Ito’s characters into the real world, using face paint and a bit of digital editing. Most of her work involves expertly applying makeup to turn herself into almost perfect renditions of Junji Ito manga characters, with digital editing only being used to recreate surreal images which could not otherwise exist in our world. She’s been at it for four years now, and has amassed quite a following on social media.

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A 29-year-old woman in Kazakhstan stunned doctors after she gave birth to her twin babies no less than 11 weeks apart, an extremely rare abnormality with one in 50 million odds of occurring.

When Liliya Konovalova, from the town of Uralsk in northern Kazakhstan, walked into the maternity clinic to see the doctors about her second pregnancy, they already knew that she suffered from a rare condition known as uterus didelphys, which basically means she has a double uterus. Doctors had noticed this seven years ago, during her first pregnancy, which had gone smoothly and resulted in the birth of a healthy daughter. This time around the pregnancy was more difficult as she had twins, each of which developed in separate wombs.

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Portuguese street artist Odeith is widely considered the pioneer of anamorphic graffiti, and looking at his latest works, many would say he is still ahead of the curve.

Seen from all but the perfect angle, Odeith’s anamorphic masterpieces look strange and distorted, but when properly aligned with the artwork viewers are treated to larger-than-life creations that seem ready to leap off of their concrete canvas. Take the artist’s latest project, a realistic-looking wrecked bus spray-painted on a giant concrete block. Unless you saw the “before” photo, you could swear that was a real bus.

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A resident of Chelyabinsk, in western Russia, recently got his five minutes of online fame after his apartment sale ad went viral on social media for featuring renowned film director Quentin Tarantino.

The last thing you would expect to see while looking at photos of apartments to buy is an internationally famous director seemingly inspecting the premises and giving a thumbs up. That’s exactly why Alexander Kainov, from the Russian city of Chelyabinsk thought that adding some cutouts of Reservoir Dogs director Quentin Tarantino to his real-estate photos to make it look like he had actually visited the apartment would be a great way of attracting attention. Making a property stand out among hundreds, if not thousands of similar ones, isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but apparently adding some Tarantino works like a charm.

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Chinese facial-recognition startup Megvii has been making news headlines for an app that allows people to track down their lost dogs using photos of their unique noses.

The idea of using AI-powered facial recognition technology to identify pets isn’t new, but what makes Megvii’s solution special is that instead of analyzing several facial features, like the eyes or snout, it focuses solely on dogs’ noses. Apparently, the patterns on a dog’s nose are just as unique as the ones on out fingertips, allowing the company’s app to track down pooches by matching their noses against a database with 95 percent accuracy. Megvii claims that its method is both cheaper and less invasive than inserting identification chips under the animals’ skin.

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You’ve probably seen wood artists carve impressive sculptures out of giant logs, be it with a chainsaw or hammer and chisel, but you probably haven’t seen anything quite like what Spanish artist Gerard Mas is capable of.

By tirelessly chiselling away at logs cut from mature tree trunks then smoothing out his artworks with fine sandpaper, Gerard Mas is able to produce these almost perfect animal sculptures that literally look like photos of living creatures. And as if his works weren’t impressive enough, the dark tones used to expertly recreate the fur of a doberman or the black snout of a German shepherd are achieved only by charring the wood with an open flame. The results are simply breathtaking.

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34-year-old David Dowell, a father of three from Brisbane, Australia, tragically lost his life after becoming infected with salmonella, which friends claim was the result of him eating a small gecko lizard as a party dare.

Dowell, who would have turned 35 last week, was brought in to Brisbane’s Mater Hospital in “absolute agony” on December 3, 2018, three days after some friends reportedly saw him eating a gecko at a party. He never mentioned it to his partner, Allira, and to this day no one really knows for sure if he actually ate it, but a few days after that Saturday party, he was in the hospital fighting for his life. At first, doctors thought he was suffering from gastroenteritis, but in reality he had become infected with salmonella, a foodborne bacteria, that causes diarrhea, stomach cramps, fever, and, in rare cases, even death.

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Danny Schleibe, the creator of a unique art form called “tapigami”, spent a whopping 200 hours making an awe-inspiring portrait of actor Bill Murray exclusively out of hundreds of rolled pieces of vinyl tape glued to a wooden panel.

Sacramento-based artist Danny Schleibe has spent the last 14 years of his life refining the contemporary art of tapigami, which looks very similar to quilling, only with vinyl masking tape instead of rolled pits of paper. He recently perfected his technique to a level that allows him to create portraiture, and his first project was an amazing portraits of Bill Murray made out of tiny strips of rolled tape. It’s only when you get up-close and see how he nailed all the subtle details, like the actor’s beard and eyes, that you really start to appreciate all the work that went into the artwork.

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Smartphone addiction is getting so bad that restaurants are offering customers free food if they agree to part with their handhelds for the duration of their meal.

Curry Pizza Company, a pizza place in Fresno, California, is offering customers a “Talk to Each Other Discount”, which requires customers to agree to have their smartphones locked up while they are in the restaurant and simply talk to each other during their meal. The discount is only applicable to groups of four people or more, all of whom must be carrying a working smartphone. If they qualify for the offer, diners will receive a free large pizza that they can enjoy on their next visit, or, if they’re in a giving mood, donate to the homeless in downtown Fresno.

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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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Ku-san, a hobbyist barista and bird lover from Japan, meticulously draws detailed portraits of various bird species on cups of coffee, using colored milk foam.

The amateur latte artist was inspired to create drinkable bird portraits on coffee by her own pet, Sakura, a pink Bourke’s parrot. She started posting the fruits of her painstaking labor on social media, and soon people started asking her to do portraits of their own birds. Her impressive portfolio of bird portraits on coffee includes cockatiels, sparrows, and parrots, but a more detailed look at her Instagram page reveals that she’s more than able to take on other animals, like wolves, bunnies and even cute cartoon characters.

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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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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’re fascinated with computer viruses and happen to have $1.2 million to spare, you can buy this 2008 laptop infested with six of the most infamous computer viruses ever created.

“The Persistence of Chaos” is a unique art project by Chinese internet artist Guo O Dong in collaboration with cybersecurity company Deep Instinct. It consists of a 2008 Samsung laptop running Windows XP SP3 and infected with six of the most dangerous pieces of malware ever created – ILOVEYOU, MyDoom, SoBig, WannaCry, DarkTequila, and BlackEnergy. Together, these six online threats have caused over $95 billion in damages all around the world, over the last two decades. That didn’t stop Guo from putting it up for auction and selling it to the highest bidder.

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We’ve featured some impressive body art on Oddity Central, like Luca Luce’s face-painted optical illusions or the colorful chest artworks of Georgina Ryland, but nothing quite like the detailed lip art of Ryan Kelly. The talented makeup artist paints tiny yet intricate portraits of celebrities and popular characters on her lips.

Looking at the kind of detail Ryan Kelly is able to produce on such a tiny and unusual canvas, it’s hard to believe that her lip art started out as a joke. Four years ago, Ryan and her husband were on the couch watching Katy Perry’s Superbowl halftime show, when their attention was caught by one of her dancers, who later went viral as “Left Shark”. He was fumbling through the choreography, but looked cool doing it, and they both found him hilarious. It was the makeup artist’s husband who suggested that she paint a shark on her lips and the fins on her fingers so she could puppet her very own Left Shark performance. She did just that and posted a photo of her facial makeover on social media. The response was overwhelmingly positive and inspired her to delve deeper into lip art.

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