I know you’ve heard of a woolly mammoth, but did you know there’s actually such a thing as a woolly pig? Well, there is, and it’s called Mangalitsa.

Seen from a distance, these pigs look like sheep, and it’s only when you spot their snouts and hear their growl, that you realize they’re actually pigs. Commonly referred to as “sheep-pigs” these strange breed is called Mangalitsa, and it’s on the brink of extinction. That’s right, even though their wool makes them very resistant, both in summer and winter time, it doesn’t do a damn thing against man’s appetite.

Mangalitsa pigs originated from Austria and Hungary, and they come in three color varieties: blond, brunette and redhead. Apart from their bizarre appearance, these pigs have another trait that made them even more popular: their meat, apparently, tastes delicious and is considered a delicacy.

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Giant African Snails are the largest species of snails on the planet, with a shell that can grow up to 30 cm long and 15 cm in diameter.

Native to the tropical forests of Ghana, Africa, Giant African Snails live in tropical conditions, with no natural enemies. That, combined with the fact each snail can lay up to twelve hundred eggs per year, makes their large population, a problem. wherever a colony of these giant snails settles down, all other species of tree snails go extinct. Their insatiable appetite for any kind of plants and fruits, makes Giant African Snails pests, in their homeland. Just so you can get an idea, these things eat even the stucco and paint, buildings.

Like all snails, GAS are hermaphrodite and very prolific. Just one pair of snails can turn into an 8 to 10 billion colony, in their 5-7 year life span. Another half cycle like this, and we’re looking at 16 quadrillion giant crawlers. It’s a scary image, especially since they can bury themselves for up to 6 months, if the climate isn’t right for them

While they’re regarded as parasites, in Africa, in the Western World, Giant African Snails are some of the most coveted pets on the market, because of their intelligence and ability to reproduce sounds. Actually, I’m pulling your leg, people just like them because their huge, slimy and hard to come by.

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Bhai Sarwan Singh, the head priest of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh temple, was already acknowledged as the man with the world’s longest beard, but now, his facial hair is even longer.

The Sikh priest was recently invited to take part in a television show, in Rome Italy, where he had his beard measured. After carefully measuring his beard, from the tip of his chin, to the end of his beard, judges decided Bhai Sarwan Singh has beaten his previous record, set in 2008, by two inches. It is now 1.895 m long.

Singh, who has never shaved his facial hair, had never actually known how long his beard really was, until 2008. He has always seen it as a gift from God, and he only agreed to appear on television, to promote the Sikh religion. He has done nothing special to help his beard grow, and calls it his “favorite body part.”

To prevent it from actually touching the floor, Bhai Sarwan Singh wears his long beard rolled up or over his shoulder.

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The small town of Cape West May, New Jersey is currently being “terrorized” by a group of “despicable” people who wrap trees, stop signs and even lamp posts in knitted covers.

You can clearly understand why the local authorities want them brought to justice, right? Of course you can’t, but they do offer a useful explanation: “It’s bright, it’s pretty … but in a community and in law your rules have to be consistent.” In other words, they want the people behind the Mystery Knitter project to come clean. But without the mystery, would something like this even be worth mentioning?

Signs of the Midnight Knitter first appeared in Cape West May, a few months ago, and since then more and more knitted covers keep showing up, over the cover of darkness. No one know who’s responsible for all this, but pretty much everyone loves their work (except authorities, of course).

One of the Midnight Knitter members told the Daily News a trio of knitters is knitting donated yarn and placing their work around the city, at night. He described their work as a form of graffiti, without the destructive effect. And everyone agrees it’s a lot better than someone spray-painting their walls.

via PressOfAtlanticCity

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Daniel Angerer, a young chef from New York, gave in to his curiosity and made some Mommy’s Milk Cheese, out of his wife’s breast milk.

Angerer says that, as a chef, he’s always curious about what different things taste like. The idea of making cheese out of human breast milk came to him while his wife was feeding their 4-weeks-old daughter. They pondered a while on whether it was ethical to use breast milk as the main ingredient, but since their daughter has more than enough frozen mommy’s milk, they decided it was ok.

It was reported that Daniel Angerer even treated customers of New York’s Klee Brasserie to his exotic cheese, and the New York Post quoted him as saying ” it tastes like cow’s-milk cheese, kind of sweet”. After the Health Department warned him about offering mother’s milk dairy in the restaurant, Angerer denied even considering offering his wife’s breast milk to anyone else.

Whether he commercialized it or not, I think making cheese out of human breast milk is strange enough. If you’d like to try out check out Daniel’s Angerer’s blog, for the full recipe.

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The American card-stacking master has just beaten his own previous world record, by completing a model of the Venetian Macau hotel and casino, made completely out of playing cards.

Brian Berg, the man behind the famous key-card hotel, spent 44 days working on the amazing model, using a total of 218,792 playing cards. The fragile piece of architecture, which is now on display in the heart of Macau’s Cotai Strip, was Berg’s most challenging project yet.

The playing card model of the Venetian Macau weighs an impressive 272 Kg, is 35 feet long and 10 feet tall. The most impressive thing about Brian Berg’s masterpiece is it contains no glue of tape.

Photos via Daylife

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A 200-year old willow processing company has recently targeted the coffin business, and apparently had great success.

P H Coate & Son’s English Willow Coffins, from Somerset, England,  has started offering dead people an alternative to traditional wooden coffins. Some individuals are just bored by the same old wooden coffins, as if they died and have been buried in them too many times. Anyway, John Parfitt and company say willow is the more popular pick these days, because of it alluring aesthetics (cough!) and environmental reasons.

Willow coffins are hand-crafted by skilled willow basket masters (that explains why they look more like coffin-shaped baskets), using a traditional method, and clients have a selection to pick from. Environmentalist are going to go mad for these babies, but what about those artistic wooden coffins from Ghana, what happens to them?

Photos by Matt Cardy/Getty Images Europe via Zimbio

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Apparently, one of the globe’s biggest polluters has found an environment friendly alternative to plastic keyboards and mice.

Bamboo keyboards and mice are not exactly new on the market, and I’m sure you’ve come across all sorts of wooden peripheral concepts online. Jiangxi Bamboo Technology Development Co. Ltd., the only bamboo peripherals manufacturer in China, says their products have become increasingly popular at a national level, after they’ve been successfully exported to markets in Europe and America.

Production of bamboo keyboards and mice began in 2008, but until early 2009, they’ve only been shipped to foreign countries. But ever since franchised stores opened in Shanghai and Ningbo, China can’t get enough of its environment-friendly peripherals.

Judging from the photos, the Chinese aren’t stopping at just bamboo keyboards and mice, they’re taking it a step further, with bamboo encased LCD displays.

via Gadgetonian (photos by ImagineChina)

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Invented by a Frenchman who used to make a living fitting kitchens, Snail Caviar is France’s newest gastronomical sensation.

Dominique Pierru, the genius behind Snail Caviar, spent three years perfecting his invention, after abandoning his career as a kitchen fitter. He had to find a way to “convince” his 180,000 snails to lay a large enough quantity of eggs, then soften and condition them. It was a tough-enough task, but now his De Jaeger caviar is one of the most coveted treats in French restaurants.

After selling 200 kg of Snail Caviar in 2008, Pierru estimates he’ll ship 300 kg by the end of the year. And that’s not because it’s cheap, a 30 gram-jar sells for 39 euros, while the 50 gram-one has an 82 euros price tag.

Dominique and his wife decided to invent the bizarre delicacy after reaching the conclusion that traditional snail farming is not a viable business. Now they import snails from Eastern European countries and watch them lay eggs. How’s that for viable?

Snail Caviar is best served on toast or sage leaf, accompanied by a glass of champagne.

via Arbroath

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To celebrate the release of the “New Super Mario Bros” video game for the Nintendo Wii gaming system, a makeshift Super Mario Museum popped up at the Nintendo World Store in Rockefeller Center, in New York.

Remember all that Mario every day stuff that came out throughout the years. we’re talking about Mario shampoo, Mario lunchboxes, cooking pans, paintings and even Super Mario adverts. All were showcased at the temporary Super Mario Museum, outside the Nintendo World Store, in New York City.

Thousands of fans gathered outside the establishment waiting to admire all the priceless memorabilia, compete in Super Mario video-game challenges and get their hands on a copy of the new video-game starring the popular Mario and Luigi duo.

If you haven’t had the chance to check out the Mario Museum on site, Wired offers you a set of photos revealing most of the Mario items on display:

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Fred Crzybowski, a 20-year-old from Los Angeles, is known as “the Tony Hawk of the pogo world” for the extreme pogo-stick jumps he can perform.

Fred, who started using a pogo-stick at the age of eight, is the current record holder for the most consecutive backflips, which stands at nine. He has appeared in motion pictures like Mister Magorium’s Wonder Emporium and hopes he will get new gigs in television and movies.

This young pogo-stick master‘s dream is to bring pogo-stick jumping at the same level as other extreme sports like skateboarding or rollerblading. He says technology has made significant improvements and pogo-sticks are no longer just toys, but powerful tools that can help jumpers perform serious stunts. He uses a Flybar pogo-stick, designed by SBI Enterprises, that can lift a 250-pound man five feet in the air, but he gets way more out of it.

Like all extreme performers he has had his share of accidents, including a split lip that took 30 stitches to repair. But that won’t stop him from jumping over cars, staircases or other obstacles, any time soon.

Photos by AUSTIN HARGRAVE/BARCROFT MEDIA

via Telegraph.co.uk

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Sultan Kosen, a former basketball player from Turkey, has been acknowledged as the world’s tallest man, by the Guinness Book of Records.

26-year-old Kosen is 2 meters 46.5 cm tall and he also holds the record for the world’s biggest hands (27.5 cm) and the world’s biggest feet (36.5 cm). He grew as a normal child until he turned 10, then, due to a dysfunctional pituitary gland, his body developed at an accelerated rate.

During the presentation of the 2010 Guinness Book of Records, in London, Sultan Kosen declared he hopes this new found fame will make him more successful with the ladies. Because of his unusual stature, women have always been afraid of him, but now he hopes he will finally find his soul-mate and get married.

The former world’s tallest man, Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk, allegedly measures 2.57 meters, but refused to have his height officially measured, saying fame brought him nothing but problems and he needs peace and quiet.

via Zimbio

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Very different than traditional bullfighting, bull dallying is a lot more fun and doesn’t involve killing the bull at the end.

People in San Sebastian, a small town in central Spain, have come up with a way of having fun and keeping the bull as a part of their ancient tradition. Instead of torturing and finally killing the animal to show off their matador skills, the brave Spaniards simply taunts the bull and try to dodge its attacks.

That’s it, no swords, no blood, no animal cruelty, just pure guts and, they say, a lot of fun. I have to say I like bull dallying a lot better than old fashioned bullfighting and I just wish they had thought about this sooner.

Photos by Xinhua/Chen Haitiong

via Xinhua

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Wouldn’t it be great if you could take your trusty Xbox 360 with you anywhere and play your favorite games at any time? Well, thanks to Ben Heck, now you can.

Called the Xbox 360 Portable, this little gadget was created by Ben from a scratch redesign and has the following features:

* Built-in Ethernet port
* Built-in WiFi adapter
* Digital pushbutton volume control rather than a clunky knob
* Flush-mount DVD door and side panels
* IR sensor for the remote control
* Two user USB ports
* More air holes
* Jasper motherboard.

The two units Ben built so far are already spoken for, but check his website as he plans to get back to building these beauties as soon as he gets back from vacation.

Make sure to check out the video of the Xbox 360 laptop at the bottom.

More and more Chinese women turn to pole-dancing to keep in shape.

Great news for Chinese men, an increasing number of their women are registering for pole-dancing classes, to keep fit. These photos, taken in Luoyang, central China, show women learning to master the pole, under the guidance of professional instructors. It appears this is the latest trend in Chinese exercising and practically every gym and dance studios is offering classes.

Damn I hope this trend goes international real soon, I know a few guys who would gladly pay for their wives’ classes.

via CCTV.com