A one-one-of-a-kind handbag fashioned out of the pelt of a dead cat and featuring the feline’s intact head as part of the decor has sparked quite the debate online after its listing on an online auction site wen viral.

Created by Clare Hobbs, a professional taxidermist from Christchurch, New Zealand, the bizarre accessory is currently for sale at a starting price of $1,400. Described as an expression of Hobbs’ “artistic passions and desire to engineer the surreal, particularly using feral and domestic felines,” the cat bag is certainly not for the faint of heart.

Although the product description mentions that no animals were hurt or killed for the creation of the unique piece, and Hobbs herself added that it was made from a feral cat that had been “hit by a car on backwash country road,” it still managed to attract some negative comments.

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Graham Smith, an engineer from Lancashire, England, was recently in the news for performing surgery on himself to remove eight millimeters of stitches left by surgeons inside his body years ago, after operations to correct it were cancelled twice.

Smith had underwent bowel surgery 15 years ago, and was left with stitches protruding through the skin on his abdomen. He first brought up the issue with the hospital where he had the original surgery in 2011, but he was put on a waiting list and an operation to fix the problem was cancelled twice. Rather than waiting for his turn and risk of dying of septicaemia, the crafty engineer decided to operate on himself, using modified titanium instruments he sourced from a dentist friend.

“I tried to do it through the normal channels… but I had septicaemia,” Mr. Smith told the BBC. “I didn’t make the decision lightly – I was desperate, but I had to take control of it and I was not prepared to sit and die on a waiting list.”

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The Whole Shabang chips reportedly taste like heaven, but until recently, you literally had to commit a crime to get your hands on a bag. That’s because they are jail chips available exclusively to inmates and jail visitors.

To say that former inmates are obsessed with The Whole Shabang chips would be an understatement. For years, people who got to try these crunchy delicacies behind bars have been scouring the internet for them, posting messages on the Facebook page of Keefe Group – the company that supplies them to jails – and setting up groups to petition for their availability on the outside. But apart from rare eBay auctions, getting your hands on a bag of The Whole Shabang was an almost impossible task, unless you actually went to jail or visited someone there. Until not too long ago, the only place you could find them was the prison commissary.

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Japan Pom Pom is a unique cheerleading troupe made up of 28 vivacious members whose ages range from 55 to late 80’s. These energetic grandmas have been engaging in their glamorous hobby for the last two decades and show no sign of stopping anytime soon.

84-year-old Fumie Tanako is the founder of Japan Pom Pom and an active member of the group. She says that she would not have had the confidence to pick up cheerleading in her youth, but became emboldened by major life changes that occurred during middle age. When she was 53, Fumie decided to travel to Texas to study. It was against her dying mother’s wishes, but her children supported her decision. Then, in her early 60’s, her relationship with her husband began to fall apart, and ultimately ended. It was around this time that she found her calling in life – cheerleading. Mesmerized by the impressive array of moves performed by professional American cheerleaders, she immediately rounded up five elderly girlfriends and started practicing. Two decades later, their troupe is still going strong.

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Gylve Nagell, a member of a Norwegian rock band, only agreed to run for local councilor in his hometown of Kolbotn only as a backup, thinking it would help boost voter turnout. He never wanted to win, and to make sure he didn’t, Nagell’s campaign posters showed him holding his pet cat, with the caption “Please Don’t Vote for Me”. It didn’t work the way he had planned.

Gylve, better known as Fenriz, half of Norwegian heavy metal band Darkthrone, will be required to attend important council meetings and listen to his constituents’ complaints, after winning a seat on the Kolbotn local council. The news came as a huge surprise to the young musician, as he claims he only agreed to run after officials in Kolbotn asked him to do it in an effort to boost voter numbers. “Basically, they called and asked if I wanted to be on the list [of backup representatives]. I said yeah, thinking I would be like 18th on the list and I wouldn’t really have to do anything,” he told music site Clrvynt.

He never made any effort to win, but as the actual election approached, Fenriz says he started to get a feeling that he might actually end up a councilor against his will. So he tried to very openly sabotage his own campaign by using a photo of himself holding his pet cat with the caption “Please Don’t Vote for Me” as a poster. But his hometown was apparently so impressed by his lack of interest for the official position that they voted for him overwhelmingly. “People just went nuts,” as he puts it.

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An 18-year-old girl from Austria is taking her parents to court for posting over 500 photos of her on Facebook since 2009, without her permission.

The unnamed girl from Austria’s Carinthia state has apparently become fed up with her parents refusal to take down intimate and embarrassing photos of her dating back to when she was a toddler, and is now seeking justice in court. She told Ganze Woche magazine that even though she was 11 years old when her parents started sharing photos of her with several hundreds of Facebook friends, they went as far as to post pics of her as a toddler, without ever asking if it was alright with her. “They knew no shame and no limit – and didn’t care whether it was a picture of me sitting on the toilet or lying naked in my cot – every stage was photographed and then made public,” the young plaintiff said.

Referred to as Anna Meier (name changed by magazine editors under Austrian privacy laws), the girl added that she was only able to see the photos posted on Facebook by her parents when she was 14, after setting up her own account on the world’s most popular social network. Angry and upset, Anna asked her mother and father to remove the over 500 photos of her immediately, but they refused. She kept asking them over the years, but faced with constant refusal, she felt that she had no other way to coerce them than taking them to court. Which she did as soon as she turned 18, this year. “I’m tired of not being taken seriously by my parents,” she said.

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The USB Killer is a commercially available USB stick that can fry almost any computer in seconds by rapidly collecting power from the USB power lines and then repeatedly discharging 240V into the host device until it dies. The whole process only takes a few seconds.

USB sticks have long been used infect unsuspecting users’ computers with all kinds of malware and spyware, but last year, a Russian hacker by the name of Dark Purple showed the entire world a new way USB drives can be used to effectively destroy virtually any PC or laptop equipped with a USB port. When it was first revealed, last year, the “USB Killer” was described as a proof of concept aimed at security researchers and folks who work on USB standards, to help them make devices immune to high voltage attacks. A few days ago, however, the USB Killer became a commercially available product that anyone can order online for just $56.

The USB Killer looks as harmless as any other pen drive, but it’s actually lethal for around 95% of consumer laptops and PCs. It is equipped with small capacitors that draw power from the USB power source to which it is connected, and when they are completely charged – it can take less than a second – the stick discharges over 200 volts of DC power to the host device multiple times per seconds until the machine is fried or the USB Killer is unplugged.

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Last year, a couple of Japanese digital artists shocked the world when they revealed that their daughter Saya, a young beautiful Japanese schoolgirl, wasn’t actually a real person, but an ultra-realistic computer generated model. The two have been working on making Saya look even more life-like ever since, and a recently revealed photo of their “daughter” has once again blown people’ minds.

Saya 2016 takes computer-generated realism to new heights. Everything about her, from the strands of her dark hair and the reflection in her eyes, to the life-like look of her skin is almost perfect, and I find it difficult to believe that most people could tell that she wasn’t a real person if they didn’t know her story beforehand.

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The colonial-era District Central Jail in Sangareddy, India, is giving people the chance to live like an inmate for a day, in exchange for a small fee.

“Feel the Jail” is an innovative initiative created by the the Prisons Department of Telangana district that allows people to experience the feeling of being under detention for a period of 24 hours. During their stay, voluntary inmates are provided with prison uniforms, steel meal plate and glass, soap as well as other facilities according to the prison manual, and are expected to follow the day-to-day routines of regular prisoners, including spending time in their cells and eating prison food.

Although there is no official work schedule for visiting inmates, they have to earn their keep during their stay, so when they are allowed to leave their grated cells, they are required to clean the barracks and plant saplings.

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A 70-year-old man recently tried to rob a Kansas City bank to allegedly get himself arrested, because being in jail beats living with his wife.

Lawrence John Ripple walked into the Bank of Labor at 756 Minnesota Ave., in Kansas City, and passed a note to the teller, which read “I have a gun, give me money.” According to court documents, the teller complied, but instead of making a quick escape, Ripple simply took the money and sat down in the bank lobby. When a security guard approached him, the quirky bank robber simply said he was “the guy he was looking”. After relieving Ripple of the stolen $3,000, the guard notified the police, who arrived on the scene shortly, considering their headquarters are located on the same block.

During questioning, investigators learned that Ripple had argued with his wife and he “no longer wanted to be in that situation.” In the affidavit filed in support of the robbery charge, and FBI agent wrote that “Ripple wrote out his demand note in front of his wife … and told her he’d rather be in jail than at home.”

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Using giant tires from an old fertilizer spreader and lots of scrap steel, a German cycling enthusiast recently built the world’s heaviest bicycle.

49-year-old Frank Dose, from Schleswig-Holstein, has been working on his two-wheeled behemoth since March, and reckons he has spent around $4,700 putting it together. Was it worth it? Well, he seems to think so, and his wife, Astrid, definitely agrees. “I think his bike is sensational,”she said during an unveiling event, last month. “I am proud and pleased that he has done it.” As of September 3rd, Astrid has an extra reason to be proud of her husband, after his creation set a new world record for the world’s heaviest rideable bicycle.

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After noticing that her eight grade students had problems focusing during math class, a North Carolina teacher decided to channel their energy in a different way – cycling.

It doesn’t sound like the most common thing to do during math class, but Bethany Lambeth, a teacher from Wake County, says that ever since she installed cycling machines under her students’ desks, the quality of their work has improved greatly, they are more focused, and, most importantly, they are no longer fidgeting all the time.

“Before, they were drumming on their desks, they were touching other people, they don’t do that anymore. Their feet are getting the movement out,” she said. “There has been a huge increase in the quality of our student’s work and a decrease in the amount of missing work.”

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A Filipino teen who once paid just 500 pesos ($10.74) for cosmetic procedures on his nose and chin has been regretting his decision ever since, as the intervention left him disfigured.

Ever since he was 16 years old, Ellowe Alviso had been using his good looks as a source of income, by landing various modelling jobs. About three years ago, he decided to increase his chances of being selected for modelling gigs by enhancing his facial features. However, he also wanted to save some money, so instead of going to a certified plastic surgery clinic, he got in touch with Kasheca Magallanes, a transgender nurse who was allegedly well-versed in cosmetic procedures. She agreed to work on his face for just 500 Philippine Pesos, which was apparently too good an offer to pass up. Unfortunately, Ellowe would live to regret his decision. Read More »

The name “Goat Yoga” can be a bit misleading, but no, it’s not yoga for goats, but yoga for humans on a picturesque farm in Oregon where practitioners can relax in the presence of adorable friendly goats.

Lainey Morse, who owns the No Regrets Farm, in Willamette Valley, Oregon, had worked as a photographer for 10 years, but last year, after dealing with some health problems, she decided to quit shooting portraiture and focus on starting a business around her farm. She has been hosting various outdoor events, and at a recent children’s birthday party, one of the parents, who happened to be a yoga instructor, asked if she could hold a class there. Morse agreed, and the class turned out to be a huge hit, with some people driving over 100 miles from Portland just so they could take part.

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Located near Ismailia, about two hours from Egypt’s capital, Cairo, Serapium Forest is nothing short of an environmental miracle – a 240-hectare forest of both native and non-native trees thriving in the middle of the desert.

Advancing desserts have become a serious problem throughout the African continent, but a team of German and Egyptian researchers has come up with a very efficient way of stopping desertification and even reclaiming land from the dry sands. While forests have been used to stop the spread of deserts into fertile land for a very long time, the absence of rainfall makes nurturing the trees and keeping them healthy an almost impossible task in most African countries. But it turns out we don’t have to rely on water falling from the sky, as waste water works even better for plants and trees not intended for human consumption.

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