Who knew that a child’s meaningless doodles could have so much potential? Toronto-based artist Ruth Oosterman takes creativity to a whole new level by converting her two-year-old daughter Eve’s scribbles into beautiful paintings.

Ruth is so artistic that she is able to transform Eve’s random lines into recognizable shapes. A random curve becomes an elephant’s ear, and crooked lines become the gnarled branches of a tree. Nothing seems to escape her eye – she can spot the outline of a woman’s face or the hooked nose of a bird where most people would just see haphazard scratches.

It all started by accident when Eve discovered her mother’s ink pen and loved using it. “That was part of the reason I used watercolor on that very first drawing because I knew the beautiful effect it would have on the paper. The ink pen marks immediately become a type of paint once you touch it with a wet paintbrush. It makes it easier to blend into the colors I add and also adds a dark intensity that I wouldn’t be able to create otherwise.”

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Gothic castles aren’t commonplace in America, so this impressive real-life Hogwarts in Woodstock, Connecticut, definitely stands out. ‘Chrismark Castle’ is only a decade old but with its moat and turrets, it has all the markings of a genuine medieval castle.

Chrismark Castle presents itself as a perfectly preserved medieval structure on the outside, with all sorts of modern amenities and technology concealed on the inside. It stands on a 354-acre property, encompassing 22,000 square ft. and consists of a massive lower-level garage, eight bedrooms, ten bathrooms, 12 fireplaces, a maid’s room, a library, a pool, and several massage rooms.

The star of the castle’s opulent interiors is perhaps the 1,200 square ft. circular kitchen – it has windows all around the walls, offering a 180-degree view of Lake Porter. The dining room spells grandeur as well – it has a unique ceiling design and can accommodate a huge dinner party. The master bedroom also offers gorgeous views of the grounds, and the granite-fitted master bathroom has its own whirlpool. All the doors in the castle are custom-fit and handmade, as are the hardwood floors.

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Dr. Jeff Wilson, a professor of environmental science at a university in Austin, Texas, is living in a 33-square-foot dumpster for a year. He kickstarted the unique project in February, and his efforts have earned him the nickname ‘Professor Dumpster’ among his students. Harvard-educated Wilson says that his goal is to show people that it is possible to have a pretty good life even in austere conditions.

The dark green dumpster is currently parked behind the women’s residence halls in a corner of Huston-Tillotson University’s campus. Wilson describes it as ‘the most thoughtfully designed, tiniest home ever constructed’. Before he moved in, Wilson’s students cleaned and fixed the dumpster for him, making sure that it wasn’t smelly or unfit for living. And to make the dwelling as energy efficient as possible, they plan to set up solar panels and an energy producing toilet.

Having previously lived in a sprawling 2,500 square foot house, Wilson started downsizing his life after going through a divorce. He moved into a 500 square foot apartment, and sold all his spare clothes and furniture for $1 per item. He soon realized how little he needed to survive, and dumpster-living sounded like a great idea.

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Devastated by his pet rat’s death, 13-year-old Pepeijn Bruins decided to do something really special for his furry friend. So he turned to Dutch inventors Arjen Beltman and Bart Jansen for help. Soon, Ratjetoe the rat was stuffed and converted into the world’s first radio-controlled ‘ratcopter’.

Bart and Arjen have a special talent for making dead animals fly; previously, we’d written about how they converted a dead ostrich and a cat into weird helicopters. Their last project was a flying jet powered shark. And they’ve done it again, this time helping a young boy overcome his grief over losing his best friend.

“I loved him very much,” said Pepeijn, who had to have the cancer-stricken rat put down. “He always liked to be cuddled and he would run up my clothes and hide. When I learned he had cancer and the vet had to put him to sleep I was very upset. I had seen Bart and Arjen and their flying cat, and I asked my dad if it would be possible to have the rat fly.”

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The paintings of Mexican artist Cristiam Ramos are, quite literally, like a breath of minty fresh air! The 34-year-old creates celebrity portraits using nothing but tubes of ordinary toothpaste. Some of his notable works include paintings of Robin Williams, Miley Cyrus, Emma Watson, Lady Gaga and Sir Elton John. They’ve all been crafted using various brands of the oral hygiene product.

Painting with toothpaste is a lot harder than it sounds, and Ramos spends up to 200 hours and 30 tubes on a single piece. “It is very difficult to make these as the toothpaste becomes very sticky and dries quickly,” he explained. “The smell can also be overwhelming, which was challenging during the long days of up to 10 hours painting.”

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While some men like to leave their bushy chests intact, others prefer to stay groomed with a trim or a wax. And then there are a few fuzzy fellas who like putting an artistic spin on body hair. Helping the trend ‘grow’ is British celebrity hair stylist Daniel Johnson, who has been wielding his clippers to create skylines and iconic landmarks on the chests of hairy Brits.

Having cut the hair of English football giants like Ashley Cole, Gareth Blue and Erik Lamela, 32-year-old Daniel is now channeling all his talent and experience towards men who want to do interesting things with their chest hair. He calls the art ‘manscaping’, and his project is being sponsored by male grooming brand Braun.

Daniel said that he was inspired to take on the challenge after he came to know of the #chesthairbikini Instagram movement, where men trimmed their chest to resemble to shape of a bikini. Of course, his work is a lot more complicated and intricate. Once he’s done trimming and carving, the finished design consists of hair at five specific lengths – 0mm, 1mm, 2mm, 5mm and 15mm. This is a tough thing to do because chest hair is a lot shorter and curlier than hair on the head.

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When 22-year-old Australian car-crash victim Ben McMahon woke up from a week-long coma, the only language he could speak was fluent Mandarin. So fluent, in fact, that he is now a popular TV star in China!

The incident took place in early 2012 – Ben was in a terrible car crash in Melbourne that left him battling for his life. While his survival seemed like a miracle, nobody was prepared for the bizarre twist that occurred when he finally regained consciousness a week later – his brain simply decided to switch from English to Mandarin.

“Most of it’s hazy, but when I woke up seeing a Chinese nurse, I thought I was in China,” recalled Ben. “It was like a dream. It was surreal. It was like my brain was in one place but my body was in another. I just started speaking Chinese – they were the first words that left my mouth.”

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The city of Chiba, in Japan, is home to a real-life superhero who looks almost exactly like the famous Dark Knight of Gotham city. He even wears Batman’s iconic suit and travels on a custom-made Batpod, but his mission is rather different – to bring happiness to the people of Japan.

‘Chibatman’, as our superhero has come to be known, prefers to keep his identity a secret. But we do know that he’s a 41-year-old local welder who likes to fight crime – or in this case, unhappiness – in his spare time. While his costume is store-bought, he built the three-wheeled ‘Chibatpod’ himself, with imported parts worth around $5,700.

Photographs of the caped crusader have been doing the rounds on Twitter for the past three years now. Everytime the citizens of Chiba catch a glimpse of their very own Chibatman, they immediately post a photograph or video of him on various social networks.

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Sister Louisa’s Church of the Living Room & Ping Pong Emporium – otherwise known as ‘Church’ – is a controversial, one-of-a-kind bar in Atlanta. Located on Edgewood Avenue in Old Fourth Ward, the bar is famous for the religious art that covers its walls, a retrofitted confessional that serves as a photobooth, an organ for live karaoke, complimentary choir robes, and, oddly enough, ping pong tournaments. But the similarities to a real church end right there – instead of communion-sized glasses of grape juice, the Church serves up $3 beers in adult-sized glasses.

In the four years that it’s been open, the Church has seen tremendous success. Right from the opening night in 2010, the church bar has received national media attention. It is a popular tourist attraction in Atlanta, and a hotspot for hipsters and Hollywood stars such as Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, and Lady Gaga. “From Day One, it’s been a money-maker,” said artist and bar owner Grant Henry.

Henry, who previously worked as a bartender for 10 years, single-handedly created the 200-odd pieces of religious art that adorn the bar. He’s actually been making these eclectic pieces since the late 1990s, under the wacky pseudonym ‘Sister Louisa’. And it turns out that the Church is actually an excuse to showcase the work. “I did it more from an artistic point of view because I’m more of an artist than a bartender,” he admitted. “I turned it into a bar basically for my art. It’s more like an art gallery that sold alcohol.”

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In a bid to ward off evil spirits, an Indian girl from a remote village in Jharkhand State recently got married to a dog. The ceremony was a traditional one, and the bride – 18-year-old Mangli Munda – was dressed in lovely wedding attire. But everyone at the wedding had eyes only for the groom – a stray canine named Sheru.

Sheru was brought to the wedding venue in style; he was escorted in a chauffeur driven car and greeted by well-wishers upon his arrival. The dog was chosen by Mangli’s father, Sri Amnmunda, who was quite happy about the whole event. “The village elders told us that we should organize the wedding as soon as we can,” he said. “We had to make sure that the evil spell is destroyed. And marrying a dog is the only way to get rid of the bad luck.”

Mangli, on the other hand, was not exactly a happy bride. She later revealed that she was quite nervous about the whole affair, but she went through with it in the hope that it would change her luck. “I am marrying a dog because the village elders believe that my evil spell will be passed on to the dog,” she explained. “After that is done, the man I will marry will have a long life.”

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It’s not easy to apologise, and most people would like to avoid it entirely if possible. Well, it turns out it is possible, if you happen to live in Japan. They have these ‘apology agencies’ through which you could simply pay someone to say sorry on your behalf.

I can see why these businesses are so successful – it’s really tough to face the person you’ve wronged and tell  them that you’re sorry. It’s a highly uncomfortable situation, especially if you’ve made someone angry or hurt their feelings.

By hiring an expert, not only do you get to avoid the discomfort, you also make sure that the person gets a proper apology. These agencies train their employees to handle things based on the gravity of the situation. These people are professionals, and it looks like they can get you out of all sorts of sticky situations.

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The Ardbeg Distillery is getting ready to test a drink that’s literally out of this world – the first whiskey to have ever been matured in outer space. After spending three years on the International Space Station, the vial of single malt is finally returning to Earth. It is expected to land on solid ground in Kazakhstan on September 12, before making its way to Houston.

The project is part of an experiment to study the impact of gravity on how alcohol matures. The whisky was launched into outer space in an unmanned cargo spacecraft in October 2011, along with particles of charred oak. The vial containing the alcoholic drink was specially designed for the mission, and has been orbiting the earth 15 times a day for 1,045 days, on the ISS.

When the vial returns, the alcohol won’t be consumed right away. It has to be tested by scientists first, and compared with regular whisky from another bottle that was corked around the same time. They plan to examine the interaction of the Ardbeg-crafted molecules with charred oak, to measure the differences between earth-whiskey and space-whiskey.

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Avtar Singh Mauni, from Punjab, India, is the proud owner of the world’s largest turban. The devout Sikh’s enormous headgear consists of no less than 645 meters of fabric, weighing 100 pounds. It took him a staggering 16 years to assemble, and he needs to spend six hours just to put it on. And you thought you had problems getting ready in the morning!

The 60-year-old is rather proud of his unusual, multi-colored turban; he declared that he will continue to wear it until he has no strength left in his limbs to carry it. “I don’t consider it a burden. I’m most happy when I wear it,” he explained.

In fact, Avtar Singh is so used to the turban that he finds it odd when he isn’t wearing it. “On the rare times I don’t have my turban on, I keep getting this feeling of being incomplete, that some part of me is missing,” he said. “I get afraid that I may fall and I keep wondering ‘have I lost something, where is my turban?’”

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When Krystina Butel was 15 years old, she went on a holiday and decided to get her caricature done. And then she fell in love with the drawing so much that she has spent the past 15 years and over $200,000 trying to look just like it.

Krystina, now 30, has gone through five boob jobs, lip injections, botox, teeth whitening and semi-permanent makeup just so that she could resemble the drawing of herself. “When I saw the caricature for the first time on holiday, I was jealous of it,” the salon-owner from West Yorkshire revealed. “She was so glamorous. She was everything that I wanted to be. It was like holding a carrot out to me, showing me what I could be.”

While most people would have chosen to simply keep the drawing as a souvenir, Krystina decided to actually make herself resemble it. So she spent a large fortune on beauty treatments and surgery to achieve her goal. And it appears that she is far from being done.

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When Indian teenager Bhaskar Shri passed away in a car accident, his loyal dog Tommy refused to leave his graveside for two whole weeks. The sweet old canine reportedly went without food the entire time, guarding the grave in the outskirts of Chennai city through 15 hot days and freezing nights.

Bhaskar was a construction worker who loved dogs dearly – he had adopted Tommy five years ago and the pair of them quickly became inseparable. When Bhaskar became victim to a terrible road collision, Tommy was heartbroken. The dog simply refused to part with his master and mourned by his graveside for 15 days.

Emaciated Tommy was finally rescued a fortnight later by Dawn Williams, an animal rescue officer at the non-profit Blue Cross of India. “I first spotted the brown dog sitting on a fresh grave one evening as I happened to walk past in the first week of August, but at the time I didn’t think anything of it,” she said.

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