Daniil Lytkin, a 26-year-old programmer from Novosibirsk, Russia, recently made news headlines for having a compass-like device implanted on his chest. Called “North Sense”, the wearable sensor vibrates whenever the wearer turns north.

The young bodyhacker says that he stumbled across the North Sense project when it was still being developed by a UK company called Cyborg Nest. He thought having a sensor that lets you know which way is north attached to his body was a cool idea, so he pre-ordered the device for $250, and last week he became the first person in Russia, and one of the first in the world to have it implanted. The procedure was carried out by piercing artist Eugene Dyakov, on May 11, and involved the insertion of two specially designed titanium bars under the skin on Daniil’s chest, to which the North Sense device is attached with screws.

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Wouldn’t it be great if you could travel to the most exciting destinations on Earth without the hassle of packing and unpacking, or ever having your dream vacation end? Well, for the few dozen residents of “The World”, this dream is a reality.

“The World” is the largest, oldest and currently only active residential cruise ship on the planet. Collectively owned by its residents, many of whom live aboard the vessel full-time, The World continuously sales on a worldwide itinerary at a maximum speed of 18.5 knots. Residents decide the yearly itinerary, along with the ship’s captain, often planning expeditions in the most exciting and exclusive of places. So far they have visited the tribes of Papua New Guinea, tracked polar bears in the Russian Arctic, kayaked among icebergs and retraced Sir Ernest Shackleton’s historic Trans-Antarctic Expedition, among other memorable adventures. The things most of us only dream about, these people experience day.

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The latte art scene in Korea is growing at an astonishing rate, and young Lee Kang Bin is one of the talented baristas spearheading the movement. The masterful designs he is able to freehand on cups of latte have earned him tens of thousands of fans on Instagram as well as a judge’s seat at numerous latte art competitions around the world.

Armed only with a thin metal rod and a palette of food dyes, Lee Kang Bin can turn a bland cup of latte into a stunning masterpiece. From drinkable recreations of famous paintings, like Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, to detailed cartoon characters and portraits, there’s virtually nothing he can’t draw on milk foam.

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The gynecology ward at the Nong Krot Hospital, in Thailand’s Kamphaeng Phet province, looked more like a masked ball hall a couple of days ago, as both patients and staff wore masks to conceal their faces. The initiative was meant to make women more comfortable about getting a pap smear test.

Named after its inventor, Greek doctor Giorgios Papanikolaou, the pap smear is a medical test that can detect abnormal cells that have the potential to cause cervical cancer. It involves collecting cells with a small brush from the cervix, a procedure that many Thai women apparently find so embarrassing that they would rather risk their lives to avoid. So to make it more comfortable for them, the Sa Kaew sub-district office and the Nong Krot Hospital came up with an unconventional solution – providing masks to both patients and staff.

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For years, experts have suggested that 50,000 volts of static electricity is the highest threshold that the human body can withstand, but one Chinese scientist recently proved them wrong by passing 71,000 volts through his body and living to tell the tale.

Liu Shangshe, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, in Beijing, recently took a very hands-on approach to testing the human threshold for static electricity. In a controversial experiment to determine how much static electricity the human body can withstand, the Chinese researcher passed 71,000 volts of static electricity through his own body. According to Chinese media, Shangshe’s assistants started at 20,000 volts, ramping up the voltage in stages, causing all the hair on his body to stand on end with every discharge.

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Bottle Cap Alley is a unique roadside attraction located at the north edge of the Texas A&M University campus, in College Station Texas. As the name suggests, it is paved with hundreds of thousands – by some accounts, millions – of beer and soda bottle caps.

No one knows exactly how the tradition of paving the 50-meter-long by 2-meters-across alley with metal caps began, but seeing as it is located between the iconic Dry Bean pub and the Dixie Chicken restaurant, some people believe that it started out as a dumping site for the two establishments. Patrons who took their drinks outside followed their example, and as word of the Bottle Cap Alley spread, other local bars started bringing in their nightly haul of bottle caps here as well. It is estimated that the tradition goes back four decades.

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Not everyone’s a morning person, so if having a cup of coffee with your morning bagels just isn’t enough to give you that much-needed boost, maybe these caffeinated bagels can help.

Called “Espresso Buzz Bagels”, the world’s first caffeinated bagels were unveiled last week by the Einstein Bros Bagel chain. Each bagel contains 32 milligrams of caffeine, which is roughly a third of the amount found in an eight ounce cup of coffee, plus 13 grams of protein. That’s obviously not enough to justify replacing your morning coffee with one or even two caffeinated bagels, but as an extra source of energy, the combination of caffeine and carbohydrates might actually help.

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Tattoos have always been considered a visual medium, but thank to an innovative blend of art and technology, you can now listen to your skin art by using a smartphone app. Be it the voice of a loved one, your favorite song or a motivational quote, you’ll be able to take it everywhere with you and listen to it anytime you like.

Los Angeles-based tattoo artist Nate Siggard came up with the idea for audible tattoos when two friends came in to get the opening line from Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” inked into their skin. The artist’s girlfriend casually said that it would be cool if you could actually listen to it, and her comment was apparently enough for Nate to pursue this seemingly crazy idea further.

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After losing his entire family a long time ago, a Chinese doctor built his own mausoleum in the mountains of Hunan Province and has been living in it ever since, waiting for his eternal rest.

92-year-old Liang Fusheng had a beautiful family once, but he lost both his wife and his three children to disease, years ago. Left with no one to take care of him in his old age and unwilling to become a burden for the villagers he had spent a lifetime looking after, the grieving doctor started building his own mausoleum in the 1990s. He paid the villagers to carry construction materials up the rocky terrain all the way to a steep cliff overlooking the deep valley he called home, and spent 14 years and 260,000 yuan ($38,000) building his eternal resting place.

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Photos of a large fish caught in the southern Philippines that appears to have its skin covered with artistic tattoo-like markings has sparked quite a debate on social media, with people offering the most outrageous explanations for the intricate design.

The fish was caught by fishermen in the province of Lopez Jaena, Misamis Occidental, who immediately noticed that much of its skin was marked by artistic designs, including what looks like a crest made up of a crown sitting on top of a shield, some letters and intertwining plant leaves. The strange design also attracted the attention of passers-by as well, some of whom were quick to snap some photos of the fish and upload them to social media. They were soon picked up by large news networks and eventually went viral.

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Luis Padron, a 25-year-old fantasy fan and cosplay enthusiast from Argentina, has spent tens of thousands of dollars altering his looks in his desire to become a real-life elf.

Luis says he became obsessed with fantastic beings like elves and angels after being bullied as a child. He used to get picked on because he dyed his hair and had a different dress style than most boys his age, and since he didn’t have many friends growing up, he spent all of his free time reading fantasy books and dressing as his favorite characters. By the end of high-school, his unusual looks and natural quirkiness let to him becoming admired, and that just fueled his desire to be different. Now, he’s trying to make the changes permanent with the help of cosmetic medical procedures.

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It turns out we no longer need cows to produce cow milk, we can just brew it with yeast, just like beer. Well, it’s actually a bit more complicated than that, but that’s how a company called Perfect Day explains the basics of their innovative new product – a “synthetic milk” that looks and tastes a lot like cow milk.

Perfect Day was co-founded by Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandh, two young scientists with a background in biomedical engineering. Three years ago, one was working on next-generation vaccines in Boston, and the other on tissue engineering, in New York. They didn’t know each other but they had a mutual acquaintance who knew that they both had this crazy idea about making milk without cows, and he put them in touch. They hit it off and started working on a way of making their dream a reality.

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A 28-year-old woman recently ended up in the emergency room at University Hospital of Santander (HUS) in Bucaramanga, Colombia, after swallowing over $9,000 in $100 bills to make sure that her ex didn’t get half of it.

The bizarre incident took place on April 22, when Sandra Milena Almeida showed up at the hospital complaining of severe stomach pain. Doctors quickly realized that the 28-year-old woman had a gastric obstruction so she was rushed into the operating room for emergency surgery. When they opened her up, doctors were shocked to find that Almeida’s stomach was full of rolled up $100 bills. They managed to extract most of the money from the small intestine, with the rest making its way through the colon to be evacuated naturally.

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Jeans are usually synonymous with denim, but British fashion company Topshop seems to think plastic works too. Its 100% polyurethane see-through jeans went on sale last months for a whopping $100, and got some not so-positive reactions online.

Why would anyone ever think that plastic pants, be they jeans, leggings or what-have-you, are a good idea? Well, nobody knows, and Topshop has yet to comment on what inspired the unusual garment, but somehow it seems to be a huge hit with shoppers. A few weeks after showing up on the Topshop online store, the MOTO Clear Plastic Straight Leg Jeans are currently out of stock.

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Harry Kalenberg has a unique hobby – he turns pieces of popcorn into tiny works of art using only colored felt markers and pens. From miniature models of celebrities like Elvis or Donald Trump, to popular cartoon characters and animals, Harry has a gift for spotting the craziest things in a bowl of popcorn.

It all started 28 years ago, when Harry Kalenberg and his wife Esther were sitting on the couch one evening, eating popcorn. At one point, the artist spotted a strange-looking piece of popcorn that resembled a gorilla. His wife wasn’t interested in the discovery, but he wouldn’t let her lack of enthusiasm curb his. He took out a ballpoint pen and started painting the details he saw with his mind’s eye, eventually bringing the popcorn gorilla to life. And that’s how his career as a popcorn artist started.

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