The Nossa Senhora da Consolação church, in downtown Sao Paolo, Brazil, used to have a serious pigeon problem. The pesky birds would fly through the place during sermons, poop on  the benches and leave feathers everywhere, but ever since they had these colored circle panels installed in the windows and doorways, no pigeon gets close anymore.

Regular parishioners at Nossa Senhora da Consolação describe the pigeon situation as a “real hell”. Dozens of birds had made the place of worship their home, flying in and out whenever they pleased, making a lot noise during mass and dropping stones and bits of plaster on people. Every morning, the floor and wooden benches had to be cleaned of bird droppings, and at one point it all became too much to bear. The church wanted to find a humane way of driving the pigeons away, but they never imagined hypnosis would be the answer.

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Like many other cities around the world, Indian urban communities have large numbers of stray dogs living alongside their human inhabitants. But canines are not India’s biggest stray problem, cows are. They cause thousands of road accidents every month, block traffic and spread disease. The Government has long been aware of the many issues caused by cows roaming free on busy city roads, but no one seems to know what to do about them.

Stray cows have been a part of Indian urban life for as long as anyone can remember, but they’ve become increasingly problematic in recent years, with the development of infrastructure and the increase in the number of cars driving on Indian roads. Urban cows don’t fear traffic, so it’s not unusual to see them loitering, in the middle of the road, unperturbed by honking or drivers trying to scare them away. Violence is not acceptable, as cows are considered sacred, and harming them in any way would enrage Hindus, so people have to keep their frustration in check, no matter how bad things get.

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26-year-old Helena Fernandes likes to draw, but she is not particularly good at it. But did that small detail stop her from opening her own tattoo shop and permanently inking people with her mediocre designs? Of course not! If anything, her poor drawing skills actually contributed to her success.

Helen did her first tattoo about a year ago, when she inked her boyfriend for fun. Apparently, their friends found her work appealing, because it was natural and different, and some of them asked her to work her magic on them as well. She bought her own tattooing kit on the internet, and due to the high cost of materials, she started charging for tattoos, investing all the proceeds into better quality supplies. She started working as a professional tattoo artist in March, inking people at a studio she set up at her home.

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They say posting new and interesting photos is a surefire way to success on Instagram, but one German man is proving that content doesn’t always matter. Rapper Maxim Kaizett has been posting the same picture of himself every day for a month, and the number of followers on the popular social network skyrocketed.

Maxim Kaizett, a member of the German hip hop group K.I.Z., only set up his Instagram account at the beginning of last month, but he already has over 40,000 followers. That’s not very impressive for a celebrity, but Maxim’s profile is a bit different. While stars usually flood their pages with new content to keep their fans satisfied, this guy only posts one photo a day, and it’s the same photo every day.

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Carolyn Hartz, a 70-year old entrepreneur and mother-of-three from Perth, Australia, recently shocked the world with her shockingly youthful looks. She claims that it’s all do to a healthy lifestyle and cutting sugar out of her diet 30 years ago, but a lot of people believe that her wrinkle-free face and bikini body are the result of cosmetic procedures.

Photos of Carolyn Hartz have been doing the rounds online for over two months now, and for good reason. At 70 years of age, she looks much better than most women do at 50, and we know how obsessed people are with turning back, or at least slowing down the clock. But while most are in awe of her youthful looks and describe her as an inspiration, there are also those who accuse her of not being completely honest about how she manages to look so good at her age.

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Jacqui Kenny has always wanted to travel the world, meet new people and discover different cultures, but she suffers from agoraphobia – an anxiety disorder characterized by fear of public spaces, public transportation, open spaces and/or large crowds – so she rarely gets to leave her house. Luckily, modern technology allows her to live out her dream, sort of.

Jacqui was diagnosed with agoraphobia 8 years ago, but she has been dealing with extreme anxiety and panic attacks for over 20 years now. Last year was a particularly trying time, as a company  that she had co-founded for many years had just closed, and dealing with the stress of it, on top of her mental issues, was tough. She didn’t know what she was going to do with her life, and leaving the house to face the world was not an option. She needed something to keep her busy, and somehow, she discovered Google Street View.

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Cally Loridas, the owner of a pet grooming salon in Victoria, Australia, may have just sparked the latest trend in feline fashion – colored acrylic claw sheaths that keep your beloved pet from scratching the furniture.

Cat owners from all over Victoria have been pouring in at Cally’s Scratch & Sniffs Pet Grooming Salon, in Cheltenham, after word got out that she was applying stylish silicone nails that not only look good but have a very practical purpose. They keep the cats from scratching at the furniture, or your leg, whatever the case may be, without impeding their movement in any way. The fake nails come in 40 different colors and are guaranteed to give cat owners 6 to 8 weeks of scratch-free time with their pet.

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Families in Ghana are increasingly turning to troupes of dancing pallbearers to send their loved ones off in style, and bring some joy to what is usually perceived as a very sad event.

Dancing pallbearers not only lift the casket at a funeral, they also lift the mood of attendees by putting on a show. They parade the casket on their backs and shoulders, while at the same time executing a complex choreography that often involves spinning around, dropping to the ground and even pretending to drop the casket, all to the delight of the audience. It’s definitely an unusual display, but families in Ghana are increasingly paying for the services of such troupes to give their loved-ones an upbeat send-off.

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Woody Woodpecker’s exploits only seemed possible in the popular Looney Toons cartoon, but one real-life woodpecker recently proved that the birds can some pretty incredible things, if they put their mind to it, like peck through an entire wooden power pole.

Last week, a photo posted by the Snohomish County Public Utility District did the rounds on social media, garnering dozens of shares and comments, and for good reason. It showed a wooden power pole barely hanging on by a thread, after having been pecked by a hard-working woodpecker. How the pole was still standing, considering the damage that had been done to it, is anyone’s guess, but a few more pecks or a strong gust of wind would have probably brought it down in a day or two. Luckily, Snohomish County staff managed to change it in time.

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Elisabeth Anderson-Sierra, a 29-year-old mother-of-two from Beaverton, Oregon, suffers from a rare condition known as Hyperlactation Syndrome. She produces about 1.7 gallons of breast milk per day, almost 10 times as much as most lactating women, and spends around 10 hours every day nursing and pumping her milk. She has so far donated 600 gallons (2.5 tonnes) of breast milk to milk banks and families in need of it.

Ever since falling pregnant with her older daughter, Isabella, who is now two and a half years old, Elisabeth estimates that she has fed thousands of babies with her breast milk. She virtually spends her whole day pumping the liquid gold, which she then stores in four large freezers in her home, for local mothers who cannot breastfeed their newborns, gay couples and breast milk banks for premature babies. Despite the huge amount of time and the discomfort that goes into pumping the milk, the 29-year-old considers it a “labor of love”.

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Can you imagine receiving dozens of letters from strangers every day, having your utilities cut off, or not being able to unsubscribe from certain services, all because of an unfortunate address? That’s what life is like at 1234 AB, 123 (changed for privacy reasons), the address that most hackers, as well as everyday people in the Netherlands, use when filling out online forms. They do it out of laziness, or to protect their own privacy, without realizing that some of the things they do online actually affect the people at that address.

Motherboard Netherlands recently learned that 1234 AB, 123 was the most spammed address in the country, and decided to investigate if such an address actually existed. A Google search revealed that there was a indeed a place in the Noord Holland province with that exact address, and it even showed up on Streetview. They were soon able to find some phone numbers of the people living there, to ask them if living at the most spammed address in the country affected their lives in any way. Turns out it does, “bigly”!

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The Bespoke Coloring Book is being hailed as the “world’s most luxurious coloring book” and has a price tag to match – $30,850 for 10 bespoke illustrations created by famed illustrator Ian Beck, based on your personal preferences.

Adult coloring books have become insanely popular in the last few years, with more and more grownups turning to them as a way to relax, combat stress and let loose their inner child. You can find them in virtually any bookstore, and there are literary thousands of themes to choose from. But luxury goods&services company Very First To did some research and found that there was no luxury coloring books for rich people, so they decided to make one. And boy did they come up with something special.

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Alberto Gutierrez Giron has been living alone in the mountains of Nicaragua for nearly 40 years, sculpting a 300-foot long cliff into a giant artwork, just like the one he saw in a dream, when he turned 9-years-old.

Popularly known as the “Hermit of Nicaragua”, “Stone Man” or “Sculptor of the Mountain”, Alberto Gutierez claims he was born on October 17, 1944 – although he doesn’t have a birth certificate anymore – in a village near Esteli City. He had always loved exploring the forests around his home, and at age 33, he decided he wanted to live his whole life surrounded by nature, creating an epic stone artwork he had dreamed of as a young boy. He had been thinking about it for years, but during the war that swept Nicaragua at the time, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get away from it all.

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A man from Surrey, UK, lost consciousness and had to be hospitalized after he and a few friends shared a bottle of Satan’s Shot vodka, a special liquor infused with Carolina Reapers, the hottest chillies in the world.

Emma Mirrington, 42, from Farncombe, bought a bottle of Satan’s Shot vodka at Guildford Cheese and Chilli Festival, on Sunday, and decided to share it with some friends. They all gathered at at The White Hart pub to sample the rare spirit, ignoring the label warning “Only Satan himself is brave enough to drink this vodka neat, if you feel fearless and want to drink with Satan, you will feel like you are burning in hell itself.” It turns out the bottling company wasn’t exaggerating one bit.

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Armenian-based startup Volterman has recently unveiled a smart wallet that takes security to the extreme. It comes with a built-in alarm system, a global GPS tracker, and even a front facing cameras that takes photos of whoever tries to open it, and sends them to the owner.

Wallets almost seem obsolete in this digital age, but the Volterman Smart Wallet is not your average wallet. Apart from the screen, it packs about as much technology as your smartphone, including 512MB of RAM, a built-in camera, power bank, GPS tracker, alarm system, RFID protection and even Wi-FI hotspot capabilities. It may look like a simple leather wallet on the outside, but it’s a whole different beast on the inside.

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