Bryanna ‘Bry” Marie is an Arizona-based artist who specializes in painting on coins, preferably pennies. She’s only been doing it for four years, but looking at the tiny details she’s able to reproduce on such tiny canvases, you’d think she’s been doing it her whole life.

Painting is the only thing Bry Marie has loved doing ever since she was a child, but she only started painting on coins four years ago, as a challenge she set for herself. She had always loved using oil paints on copper, but she wanted to see if she had the steady hand required to paint tiny details on a very small surface, so she chose the penny. After finishing her first miniature painting, she felt a sense of accomplishment she had never had with her previous works, so she decided to paint with oils on coins exclusively.

Read More »

Dave Asprey is mostly known as the man behind the “Bulletproof” lifestyle brand and the guy who came up with the idea of adding butter to coffee, but he’s also one of the world’s boldest biohackers. By constantly tweaking his diet and exercise, as well as experimenting with all kinds of new technology to improve his general well-being, Asprey expects to live to at least 180.

45-year-old Asprey’s quest to live longer than any other human in history started during the 1990s, when he was a young, overweight tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. He tried the standard ways of losing weight – lowering his calorie intake and working out for 90 minutes – but although he was stronger and healthier than before, he still weighed the same. So he stopped listening to doctors – who thought he was sneaking Snickers bars into his diet anyway – and started experimenting with less conventional options. This kickstarted his appetite for bio-hacking.

Read More »

Vishweshwar Dutt Saklani took his last breath on January 18, 2019, but he will live on in the memory of his countrymen as the “Tree Man of Uttarakhan”, a dedicated conservationist who planted over 50 lakh (5 million) trees and turned his once barren homeland into a lush forest.

Saklani had been fond of trees all his life. He planted his first sapling when he was eight years old under his uncle’s guidance, and kept at it for the next seven decades of his life, until he lost his sight and succumbed to the hardships of old age. However, by that time, the once barren hills in and around his native village of Pujargaon had already become home to a lush forest. Vishweshwar Dutt Saklani’s love for trees is well known, as he often used to call them his children or his closest companions, but few know that the legendary conservationist planted millions of trees to cope with the tragedies in his life.

Read More »

An Irish man who swallowed an expensive diamond ring at a jewellery store in Turkey recently told prosecutors that he wasn’t himself when he did it, because he “fell into a trance” the moment he saw the beautiful diamond.

Ian Campbell, who was vacationing in the Turkish seaside resort of Marmaris, was arrested on October 4, 2018, after swallowing a $40,000 diamond ring at a local jewellery store. Eyewitnesses later told police that Campbell swallowed the jewel in desperation, after realizing that he was going to be caught trying to steal it. Prosecutors instructed police to take the would-be-thief to the local hospital, where he was administered laxatives to help him “return” the 2.5-carat diamond ring by natural means. Turkish media tracked the “journey” of the jewel through Campbell’s stomach almost in real time, but sadly it got stuck and had to be surgically removed.

Read More »

An 18-year-old boy recently shared the story of his impressive physical transformation to inspire other teenagers who consider themselves unattractive to start taking care of themselves and not to be ashamed to use makeup to improve their looks.

They say a person’s personality is more important than their physical looks, but try telling that to a high-school student who constantly gets ridiculed for their his acne, geeky glasses and poor fashion sense. The protagonist of this story knows all about that, but unlike most other teens in his situation he actually did something about it and recently took to the internet to share the details of his transformation, hoping to inspire other “ugly ducklings” to enhance their appearance.

Read More »

Leo Blanco, a 22-year-old man from Buenos Aires, in Argentina, has reportedly spent over $30,000 on plastic procedures over the last seven years, in an attempt to mimic Michael Jackson’s look.

Blanco is one of the thousands of Michael Jackson impersonators around the world, but what sets him apart from all the rest is is his obsession with looking just like his idol. He started watching the King of Pop as a young child and knew very early on that he wanted to be just like him. At age 15, Leo turned to plastic surgery to fulfill his dream of becoming a lookalike of his idol, but seven years and 11 plastic surgeries later, he is still not content with his look, and plans to alter his appearance even more.

Read More »

Authorities in the Chinese province of Hebei have created a smartphone app that allows users to see if they are within 500 meters of a person in debt so they can report or publicly shame them.

Failing to pay off your debts is generally frowned upon all over the world, but one country has been cracking down on the practice harder than any other. In the last couple of years, Chinese authorities have used a variety of techniques to coerce debtors to pay up, with public shaming being the most popular one. Last year, the local government in Hejiang county, Sichuan, started showing their faces and names during short clips played in cinemas before the main screening, and now authorities in Hebei have announced an app that detects debtors in a 500-meter-radius, allowing users to report or shame them.

Read More »

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that the name of Maruyama’s boyfriend was Li Huayu, and that the girl still lost her memory every day, when in reality this only occurred only in the first two months after her accident.  

The touching love story between an amnesia sufferer whose memory was wiped clean every morning and the loyal boyfriend who makes her fall in love with him every day has touched the hearts of millions in Japan.

“50 First Dates”, a 2004 romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, tells the story of a young woman whose short term memory was affected by a car crash. Every morning, her memory resets to the day of the accident, but that doesn’t deter Sandler’s character from making their relationship work, even if it means making her fall in love with him every day. It’s one of the best romantic comedies of all times, in my opinion, but I never imagined that such a love story could exist in real life. Well, a Japanese couple reportedly lived their very own “50 First Dates” romance for to months.

Read More »

Getting a house cat to exercise can be quite a challenge, but a Korean company claims that it’s smart exercise machine can keep felines in tip-top shape even when their owners are away. There’s just one catch – it costs $1,800.

Korean startup Pet Ding unveiled its smart treadmill for cats earlier this month, at CES Las Vegas. The Little Cat relies on LED lights to motivate cats to exercise, allows owners to check on the cat’s activity when they’re away and record encouragement voice messages for their pet, and a companion app lets users set fitness goals for their purring felines. The smart exercise machine features an auto mode that promises to “provide the ideal workout program for your cat, and manage workout patterns,” but also lets users who want to get more involved in their cat’s workout control the speed of the treadmill.

Read More »

Scamp, an English springer spaniel sniffer dog, is so good at his job that criminal organizations have put a sizable reward on his head.

During his five-year career as a sniffer dog for BWY Canine, in Pembrokeshire, UK, Scamp managed to detect around £6m ($7.8 million) worth of illegal tobacco, causing significant headaches for criminal organizations specialized in tobacco smuggling. But while Scamp’s powerful sense of smell has earned him praises from both his handler and police, it also made him a target for the nasty people whose plans he keeps foiling. According to Stuart Philips, who runs the BWY specialist detection dog service, Scamp has a bounty on his head.

Read More »

Two teenage sisters in India were recently honored for their grit and determination after it was discovered that they disguised themselves as boys for four years in order to keep their father’s barbershop open after he became ill.

Jyoti Kumari, 18, and her 16-year-old sister, Neha, from Banwari Tola, in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, took over their father’s barbershop in 2014 after he suffered a severe paralytic attack that left him bedridden. The girls were only 13 and 11-years-old at the time, but the barbershop was the family’s only source of income, so they had to do something to put food on the table. At first, the barbershop was closed, but as the family savings evaporated, Jyoti and Neha reopened it and started running it themselves. But things didn’t go well at first, as some men were skeptical about having girls shave their beards and trim their mustaches, while others treated them badly. So they started disguising themselves as men.

Read More »

Most people would never use a tissue that someone else sneezed in, let alone pay $80 for one, but one Los Angeles startup claims to have already sold close to a thousand sneeze-filled tissues to people who want to catch a cold virus now so they don’t get sick with the same cold later. Does that make any sense?

Vaev bills itself a “wellness brand” although technically it’s helping people get sick by selling them tissues that complete strangers sick with the cold have allegedly sneezed into. But who in their right mind would pay $79.99 on a germ-contaminated used tissue? Well, that would be “open-minded people” who appreciate the luxury of being able to get sick “on their own terms”. Vaev founder Oliver Niessen, 34, claims that these expensive used tissues should be viewed as alternatives to conventional medicine, in that they allow you to purposely catch a cold whenever you want, in order to decrease the risk of catching that same cold at a later date. It’s basically all about choice and getting “sick on your own terms”.

Read More »

A woman in Northern Ireland lived with a plastic painkiller packet stuck in her throat for 17 days, after unknowingly swallowing it in the middle of the night.

The 40-something woman, who preferred to remain anonymous, reportedly swallowed a Tramadol pill in the middle of the night, without first taking it out of its plastic packaging. The morning after the incident, she woke up with a foreign body sensation in her throat, and went straight to the hospital where she complained of discomfort and difficulty swallowing. However, the ear, nose and throat doctor at the hospital found that she was tolerating fluids, had no difficulties breathing and could mobilize her neck without feeling any pain.

Read More »

A public utility company in the Russian city of Irkutsk has come up with an ingenious way of reminding people to pay their bills if they want to continue using their indoor toilets.

In November of last year, the Irkutsk Northern Housing and Utility Systems Directorate installed a wooden cabin toilet outside an apartment building with a sign that read “Toilet for Debtors” on the front door. This was the company’s unique way of reminding residents that it could cut off their utilities if they didn’t settle their debts. The measure was apparently so successful that the company has been moving the outdoor toilet to problem areas of the city for the last couple of months.

Read More »

Imagine looking up to gaze at the moon on a clear summer night only to see the sky full of glowing advertising billboards. That’s the future envisioned by a Russian start-up which plans to launch billboard advertisements into low-Earth orbit as early as 2021.

Russian company StartRocket announced plans to introduce orbital advertising billboards made up of a grid of tissue box-sized satellites called CubeSats. These tiny satellites will orbit 400-500 kilometers above the Earth and use reflective Mylar sails around 30 feet in diameter to catch and reflect sunlight, creating a pixelated matrix. The ads would only be visible at night but could be seen from just about anywhere on the planet. The company already has a CubeSat prototype, and could start testing its sky advertisements next year.

Read More »