New Service Has Couples Walking Barefoot on Broken Glass on Their Wedding Day

Couples looking for a unique and unforgettable wedding day experience can now add walking barefoot on broken glass on their list of options. A Spanish company recently introduced the service as a metaphor for marriage.

Some people wouldn’t dare walk barefoot on pieces of broken glass even if somebody paid them to do it, but a Spanish company believes that couples will actually pay them for the opportunity to do exactly that on the day of their wedding. Wedding Glass is the first company in Spain, and probably the world, to offer walking on broken glass as a wedding ritual, but they believe that it will soon become a trend in the business, as couples these days are no longer happy with just the classic church ceremony and subsequent party.

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Mexican Woman Wearing Long Skirt and Rubber Sandals Wins 50 Km Ultramarathon

People usually train for years and invest in professional running gear just to be able to complete an ultramarathon, but María Lorena Ramírez, a native Rarámuri woman from Mexico who had not have any professional training or even basic gear, not only managed to finish a 50 km race, but actually win it. And she did it wearing a traditional long skirt and sandals made of recycled tire rubber.

High quality running shoes, compression socks, Lycra suits, energy drinks, all these are considered essential by most runners participating in an ultramarathon, but they were of no importance to 22-year-old María Lorena Ramírez, a sheep herder from Chihuahua, Mexico, who showed up at the starting line of a women’s ultramarathon in Puebla in traditional clothing and equipped with just a bottle of water and a handkerchief. She stood out like a sore thumb among the 500 or so other runners from 12 countries around the world, but she didn’t seem to care.

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Exceptionally Talented Artist Takes Hyperrealistic Oil Painting to Near Perfection

Swedish artist Anna Halldin Maule spends several months glazing layer upon layer of oil paint to create these stunning works of art that can easily pass for high-resolution photographs to the untrained eye.

Born in Gothenberg, Sweden, Anna took an interest in painting at a very young age, honing her skills under the guidance of her grandfather, celebrated artist Bror Halladin. Today, she is one of the world’s most respected hyper-realist painters, and looking at her breathtaking work, it’s easy to see why. Although she works with a limited palette of toned-down and muted colors, Halladin Maule is able to replicate human features so well, that her oil paintings often pass for photographs.

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Tattoo Artist Creates “Soundwave Tattoos” That You Can Actually Listen to

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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India’s ‘Mother of Orphans’ Has Raised Over 1,400 Abandoned Children

The story of Sindhutai Sapkal is one of incredible determination in the face of adversity, rebirth and love of children who nobody else wanted. The 68-year-old has raised over 1,400 orphans, offering them not just food and shelter, but also the love of a real family. Her amazing work has earned her over 750 awards, and the nickname “Mother of Orphans”.

Sapkal runs four orphanages in her home town of Prune, India’s Maharashtra state – two for girls and two for boys – with the help of her biological daughter, Mamta, and her eldest adopted children, some of whom have become lawyers, doctors and professors. The children under her care were found trying to fend for themselves in railway station, abandoned in dustbins, or even dragged by stray dogs in the streets. New ones are brought to her orphanages all the time, and as long as they are eligible for adoption, she never turns them away. But unlike state-run orphanages, the Mother of Orphans doesn’t give her children up for adoption with other families, and doesn’t turn them away when they turn 18.

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Horsing Around Is a Competitive Sport in Finland

Imagine a sport much like equestrian show jumping, but where the horse is replaced by a wooden stick with a plush toy at one and the rider actually does all the jumping over increasingly difficult hurdles. That’s the popular sport of Competitive Hobbyhorsing in a nutshell.

The hobby horse is one of the oldest children’s toys still used today. Many of us remember prancing around in the yard on a stick imagining that it was a noble steed, but for the tens of thousands of members of the hobbyhorsing community in Finland, riding a toy horse is more than just a game. Many of them train for hours and hours on a daily basis and regularly take part in large-scale show jumping competitions where they try to impress judges with their posture, footwork and jumping.

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Heavy Metal Yoga Is Actually a Thing, And It’s Pretty Intense

Heavy metal music and yoga may seem incompatible, but one New York yoga instructor with a passion for metal has mixed them together in a series of classes that help people relax and unleash their inner beast at the same time.

Headbanging, death growls or “devil horns” hand gestures, all executed to a background of loud metal music, aren’t exactly elements associated with yoga, but it’s exactly what you can expect while attending a Metal Yoga Bones class run by Saskia Thode. It’s not the most Zen experience in the world, that’s for sure, but the Brooklyn-based yoga instructor claims that her classes are just as liberating, if not more so, than regular yoga.

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China’s Top Trump Impersonator Is Probably the Worst One Ever

From Saturday Night Live’s Alec Baldwin to professional impersonators like John Di Domenico or Anthony Atamanuik, people have been trying their hardest to emulate Donald Trump for comedic or promotional purposes. But no one does it quite like 64-year-old Li Liangwei, China’s top Trump impersonator. And I don’t  mean that in a good way…

The retired chief editor of a magazine in Hunan, Li Liangwei took up the job of Donald Trump impersonator after a friend told him that he acts just like the President of the United States. He has since been picked up by a big talent agency and is earning a pretty penny promoting products and events as the 45th US President.

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7-Year-Old Boy Suffering from Rare Condition Runs Triathlons to Stay Alive

Jake Vella suffers from a rare hormonal condition that causes him to rapidly gain weight despite eating healthy and doing regular exercise. There is nothing anyone can do to stop the weight gain, but in order to stop the process and stay alive, the 7-year-old boy competes in triathlons.

Jake’s parents first noticed there was something wrong with him three years ago, when he gained about 20 pounds in just six months. He kept putting on weight despite eating only salad. In 2015, Jake was diagnosed with ROHHAD (Rapid-onset Obesity with Hypothalamic dysfunction, Hypoventilation and Autonomic Dysregulation), a rare condition that affects the nervous system and causes rapid weight gain, as well as an inability to regulate body temperature and maintain normal water levels. It can cause tumors to develop, and Jake already has one on his back. Unfortunately, the condition is currently incurable and the life expectancy of sufferers ranges between 5 and 9 years.

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Meet the Female Mechanic Challenging the Male-Dominated Auto Repair Industry

Sick of being taken for a ride by male car mechanics whenever she went to an auto repair shop, Patrice Banks became a certified mechanic herself. The ambitious woman is now educating other women on car maintenance and running an all-female car repair business in Philadelphia.

Born poor to a single mother, Patrice Banks has done very well for herself. She was the first in her family to graduate from high school and after engineering at Lehigh University, she went on to work as an engineer in a cellular analysis lab at DuPont for over a decade. It’s safe to say that she was a very ambitious and confident woman, but there was always one thing that made her feel insecure – having to take her car to a repair shop. The mechanics would either try to overcharge her, be condescending or make her wait simply because she was a woman.

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This Chinese Boy Band Is Actually Made Up of Androgynous Girls

One of China’s newest pop sensations, a group called Acrush, puts a new twist on the concept of “boy band”, as its five members are in fact androgynous women.

Acrush is set to release their debut music video at the end of this month, but the band is already causing a stir online with its unique concept. The group was recently showcased to the public in a “Husband Exhibition” – an event organized by social media giant Tencent to promote pop stars who appear on its online streaming site – and the group’s popularity simply skyrocketed. With no single to their name yet, the girls already have 900,000 followers on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. That’s a pretty big deal, considering established stars like Katie Perry have around one million fans.

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The Anarchists Illegally Fixing the Streets of Portland

Sick of waiting for the local authorities to fix the streets and roads of their pothole-riddled city, a group of self-described anarchists decided to patch the pesky holes themselves, even if it means breaking the law.

The Portland Anarchist Road Care (PARC) was founded by a small circle of friends in response to the deteriorating road conditions in the Oregon city, which they believed made driving or cycling more costly and dangerous for citizens. They grew tired of waiting for the city to fix this pesky problem, and decided to do it themselves, using a well-known technique called cold patching. The anonymous anarchist have fixed potholes on three Portland blocks so far, but are constantly on the lookout for new crevices to fill.

“The roads in Portland were getting worse and worse, and like everyone else, we were just waiting for someone else to fix it,” a member of PARC told The Huffington Post. “We sort of reflected on the situation, and asked ourselves the questions made famous by John Lewis: ‘If not us, then who? If not now, then when?’ Two days later we were patching holes.”

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Cuddling with Cows Is the Cutest Form of Therapy

If you’re looking for a unique but sure way to let loose and forget about the stress of your daily life, head off to the Swiss country side for a session of cow cuddling therapy. It’s sure to do the trick!

Sibylle Zwygart’s family runs a dairy farm in Tenniken. Switzerland’s Basel-Landschaft canton. Three years ago she and her father were watching over one of their cows during calving, and while the birth of three adorable calves was usually a joyous event, this time was different. Her father’s trained eyes immediately noticed that two of the calves were sterile females, and the third was a bull, so none of them were of any use for their dairy business. Sibylle’s father planned to sell them all to the slaughterhouse, but she pleaded with him to let her keep them.

It took some convincing, but the farmer finally gave in to his daughter’s heartfelt pleas, on one condition – that she somehow find the money to cover the cost of their feed and veterinary bills. Sibylle agreed, and has spent most of her time since then looking after and training the three animals, which she named Svea, Sven and Svenja. As soon as they were old enough, she started putting them to “work”.

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Man Named Saddam Hussain Struggles to Find Work in India

Saddam Hussain, a marine engineer from Jamshedpur, India, claims that having the same name as the notorious former dictator of Iraq has made it impossible for him to secure a job in the field he has trained so hard in.

When Saddam’s grandfather chose his name, 25 years ago, he had no idea that it would one day become a huge burden. After all, the name is very popular among Indian Muslims, but due to his career choice it is proving an insurmountable hurdle.

Two years after graduating from Tamil Nadu’s Noorul Islam University as a marine engineer, Saddam Hussain is still struggling to find work, despite ranking second in his batch of 2014. All of his former colleagues have secured jobs with companies around the world, but he keeps getting rejected. He has showed up for interviews with multinational shipping companies some 40-odd times, but they all ended in rejection.

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The Amazing Story of an Indian Man Who Cycled to Europe for Love

On January 22, 1977, 24-year-old P.K. Mahanandia set out on a four-month bicycle ride from Delhi, India, to Boras, Sweden, to be with the woman he knew was his soulmate. Their amazing love story became the subject of a best-selling book by Swedish author Per J. Andersson.

Mahanandia met Charlotte Von Schedvin in 1975, completely by chance. He was working as a sketch artist in Connaught Place, a shopping and business hub in Delhi, and Ms. Von Schedvin, from Sweden, was visiting India as a tourist. One day, as she was walking around the city, she noticed a curly young man with a sign that read “a portrait in 10 minutes for 10 rupees” and decided to test the claim. She sat down for a portrait, but something made the man nervous, as his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Disappointed with the result of his drawing but intrigued by the man, she decided to return the next day for a new one, but the result was no better.

The Swedish tourist would later learn that P.K. Mahanandia had very good reason for being nervous. The moment he had laid eyes on her, the artist remembered a prophecy his mother had made when he was only a boy. Mahanandia was a Dalit, the lowest caste in Indian society, and faced discrimination from upper-caste students growing up, so whenever he was said, his mother would tell him that he would someday marry a woman “whose zodiac sign would be Taurus, she would come from a far away land, she would be musical and would own a jungle”. As soon as he saw her, he knew she was the one.

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