Using a technique she calls Acrylic Mosaic Fusion, artist Sandhi Schimmel Gold takes junk mail and other paper waste and turns it into beautiful portraits.

Phoenix-based Sandhi Schimmel Gold has been fascinated by art for as long as she can remember. In her youth, she spent most of her days sitting quietly in the bedroom, drawing, and she remembers cutting school to spend her days in museums and art galleries around New York City. Although she studied art in school, Sandhi says she is pretty much self taught, and most of her works are influenced by her extensive travels.

The artist first felt inspired to create mosaic portraits years ago, when she was in Venice, Italy. She saw a portrait made of small colorful glass fragments ans since it was to heavy to transport home, by train, Sandhi decided to create one just like it. After a period of trial and error using glass and tile, she decided to change her art medium to ephemera.

Now, using upcycle junk mail, post cards, photos, calendars and other paper junk together with water-based, non-toxic paint, Sandhi Schimmel Gold creates the most amazing mosaic portraits. She doesn’t use any kind of technology or dies in her art; everything is hand-cut, hand-applied, hand-embellished and hand-finished. “My vision is to create beautiful yet thought-provoking images of beauty” says Sandhi, and she manages to do it by using paper waste most people throw away.

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Let’s hear it for Genghis Khan everyone, his bloody conquests just earned him the title of greenest invader in the history of man.

‘It’s a common misconception that the human impact on climate began with the large-scale burning of coal and oil in the industrial era. Actually, humans started to influence the environment thousands of years ago by changing the vegetation cover of the Earth’s landscapes when we cleared forests for agriculture.” said Julia Pongratz, who headed Carnegie Institution’s study that measured carbon impact of a number of historical events that involved a large number of deaths.

Apparently, the armies of Genghis Khan killed so many people that huge cultivated areas  were once again covered with thick forests that absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. According to historical data, during the rule of this famous leader, the Mongol Empire was responsible for the deaths of over 40 million people, which in turn helped remove around 700 million tons of carbon dioxide from the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Paul Janssen spent over 1,000 hours and around 1,000,000 LEGO pieces to build an incredible replica of the Ohio State Buckeyes Stadium.

In order to build a realistic model of Ohio’s The Horseshoe Stadium, Janssen studied original measurements and satellite images, often using his trusty camera to take photos of interior details, during ball games. Originally from the Netherlands, this LEGO master didn’t even understand the game of American football,at first, but over time he grew to like it, and is now a big fan of the Ohio State Buckeyes and a season-ticket holder.

Paul Janssen spent three years just collecting the necessary LEGO pieces for his amazing replica, and had to improvise quite a bit on some details. For example, the Rotunda decor is made out of  Dragon horns from a LEGO castle kit, while chrome truck parts serve as pipes extending from the stadium bathrooms. President of the Central Ohio Lego Train Club, Janssen traded for most of the necessary LEGO pieces, and thinks that if he had to purchase all of them, it would have set him back $50,000 to $75,000.

The 8 foot by 6 foot replica of the Ohio Stadium took 42-year-old Janssen over 1,000 hours to build, over the course of two years. And he did it all in his home basement, in Dublin, Ohio.

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33-year-old Paul Luke, a retired milkman from Essex, England, was forced to build a mini museum for his impressive collection of over 10,000 milk bottles.

Paul collected his first milk bottle in 1987, when he was just nine years old, but as times went by, his passion got out of hand, and he is now the proud owner of 10,000 milk bottles, with the oldest ones dating back to the 1890s. His parents encouraged him to pursue his hobby, because they thought it kept him busy and out of trouble, and he actually started his collection on his parents’ window sill.

In the meantime, he has had to build a miniature museum in his back garden, because his house simply wasn’t big enough for his collection, anymore. All of his milk bottles are either embossed or pyroglazed by a milk company and some of them are the only ones left in existence, which makes Paul Luke think of his collection as a record of the milk industry.

The unique bottles in Paul’s collection, from companies that went out of business decades ago, certainly have financial value, but the dedicated milkman never thought about its monetary value. He is still actively collecting milk bottles.

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Nguyen Van Vien is a talented artist who collects all kinds of discarded piece of timber and uses them to create incredibly beautiful wooden mosaics.

The Vietnamese village of Khuc Toai has long been famous for its traditional carpentry, but a local artist is taking things to a whole new level with his original painting-like mosaics made from various types of recycled wood. Born in 1957, Nguyen Van Vien has always had a passion for the arts, and at age 19 he left his home village to study at the Indochina College of Fine Arts, in Hanoi. But it was a very difficult period for the Vietnamese, so after just two years of school, he had to return home and support his family. He turned to traditional carpentry, which barely earned him enough to put food on the table, but everything was about to change for the better.

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Barnaby Marmaduke Aloysius Benjy Cobweb Dartagnan Egbert Felix Gaspar Humbert Ignatius Jayden Kasper Leroy Maximilian Neddy Obiajulu Pepin Quilliam Rosencrantz Sexton Teddy Upwood Vivatma Wayland Xylon Yardley Zachary Usansky – this is the soon-to-be world’s longest name, 197-letters-long.

36-year-old Barnaby Usansky, an unemployed Brit from Edinburgh, Scotland, says he has always been fascinated with words and old traditional names, and since the law doesn’t forbid it, he decided to take on all his favorite names. One of which, believe it or not, is Marmaduke. But his attention-grabbing scheme failed to impress most of his friends and acquaintances, who insist on calling him by his old name, Nick. “Everybody ignores my new name. They insist on calling me Nick, which isn’t one of my names any more.” states Barnaby.

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Michigan-based artist Laura Bell has created a unique replica of Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, exclusively out of colored laundry lint. The fluffy masterpiece measures 14 feet long by 4 feet tall.

The amateur artist from Roscommon, Michigan, was inspired to create this amazing artwork 10 years ago, when she saw a laundry lint portrait at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Wisconsin Dells Odditorium. In 2009, encouraged by her husband, Laura began working on her one-of-kind replica of The Last Supper, for the 2010 Art Prize competition, held in Grand Rapids.

As you can imagine, making a painting from laundry lint couldn’t have been easy. Laura Bell spent seven months just collecting the laundry lint she needed for her special project. The lint she collected from her own dryer was always the same color, so she tried laundramat lint, but that always had shades of gray. Eventually, she ended up buying different color towels and washing and drying them separately, to get just the right colors for her masterpiece.

Laura estimates she spent 700-800 hours just doing laundry to collect the needed material, plus another 200 hours putting it together in her unusual replica of The Last Supper. The artist says most people who see it are amazed it was created out of basic laundry lint that hasn’t been colored or dyed, while for some, seeing such a unique work of art is a spiritual experience.

Laura Bell’s The Last Supper made from lint was recently acquired by Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, and will soon find its place in one of the company’s 32 odditoriums around the world.

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Sadie, a four-year-old Terrier-cross has learned to do pretty much everything her paralyzed owner can’t do anymore, including shopping and washing laundry.

Sue Line was paralyzed from the waist down, 40 years ago, after she was thrown from a car during a New Year’s Eve smash. Her family has always been very supportive, always helping her with daily chores, but four years ago she thought about getting a dog, for companionship. She brought Sadie home when she was just a few weeks old, and noticed her intelligence right from the start. But it wasn’t until she received training at dog charity – Dog AID (Assistance in Disability) that Sadie reached her full potential.

In just two years’ time, this amazing canine learned an almost endless list of ways to help her owner and improve her quality of life. When they go shopping together, Sadie always carries the bag, picks up groceries, and even reaches for the money in Sue’s purse, and hands it over to the store clerk. She also fills the washing machine, separating the loads into whites and darks, and locking the machine door before the washing cycle begins. She gets Sue her phone whenever it starts ringing, brings her the mail and even helps her undress.

Ms. Line says the hardest thing to teach Sadie was to ignore the smell of food when they go into restaurants. At first she was drooling all over the place, but after a few training sessions she’s now in complete control. The 61-year-old retired health trust manager, from Coventry, Britain, says Sadie has helped her regain some of her independence and gave her loved ones some time to breath, knowing Sadie’s on the job.

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Kayla Martell, a 21-year-old beauty pageant contestant, proved you don’t need natural hair to win a beauty contest, when she brought home the title of Miss Delaware and qualified for Miss America.

Young Kayla suffers from alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that attacks her hair follicles and practically causes baldness. Despite her condition, Miss Martell competed in the beauty contest several times, but was finally thinking of giving up her dream of winning the Miss Delaware title. A meeting with five-year-old Lilliana Hakim, who suffered from the same condition she did, changed her mind and inspired her to keep on trying. And this time around, her dream came true as she was named Miss Delaware and got to represent her home state in the Miss America beauty pageant.

Some say Kayla Martell won the title because, unlike the previous times she competed, she wore a wig to conceal her condition. Asked how she feels on the matter, the bubbly beauty queen responded “not at all. I hope the judges picked me because I knew I could fulfill the jobs of Miss Delaware.” She added that she only wears the wig on occasions, because it makes her feel more approachable, but she usually prefers the natural look.

Kayla started losing her hair when she was just 10 years old. She noticed her part was widening, and when that turned into a bald spot, doctors diagnosed her with alopecia areata. Though it wasn’t easy going through her teen years with a disease like this, she handled it with grace, and is now using her position as Miss Delaware to find and help other people who have alopecia.

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Terje Isungset, one of the world’s most talented percussionists, creates ice music with instruments he carves out of pure glacier ice.

Born in the Norwegian village of Geilo, Isungset grew up surrounded by a family of musicians, and grew up to be one of the most innovative percussionists of our time, Over the years, he has created musical instruments out of natural materials like arctic birch, granite, slate, but the thing he is most passionate about is making ice music, a style that he pioneered through the creation of ice instruments.

Isungset first fell in love with ice music in the year 2000, when the commission for the Lillehammer Winter Olympic Games asked him to compose and play in a frozen waterfall. He was already renown for creating musical instruments out of other primitive materials, but he had never worked with ice. He took it as a challenge and managed to compose a greatly appreciated minimalist composition with just whatever the river provided – ice, water, stone and some wood.

Terje Isungset describes the process of making ice music and ice instruments as hard work and a continuing learning process. Most of his tools are made of pure glacier ice, so clear you can see through meters of it. He just cuts the ice cubes with a knife and carves them into instruments. Most of his creations are percussion tools, but he has been known to make an ice guitar, an ice harp, a trumpet and even a fiddle.

While Terje Isungset’s ice music can’t exactly be referred to as radically new (considering man actually started making using with whatever materials nature provided him with), it’s definitely a breath of fresh air, in this modern age.

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Cathy Ward, a 49-year-old die-hard fan of the Twilight franchise,  got a full-back tattoo of the main characters, to show appreciation for helping her lose weight.

That’s right, Twilight actually helped someone lose weight, which is kind of ironic, because watching movies and reading books doesn’t exactly strike me as an active lifestyle. But in Cathy’s case, the interest in the vampire saga kept her away from stuffing her face all the time and helped her shed 14 dress sizes in just six months. All it took was for her to watch the first movie in the series, and she was hooked. She went out and bought all the books and DVDs, and dedicated most of her spare time to Twilight.

After losing the weight, Cathy wanted a permanent reminder that it was all thanks to the Twilight saga, so she got a small tattoo, which eventually turned into a full-back artwork. She spent 22 hours in the tattoo artist’s chair and paid over $3,000 for the custom Twilight work of art. But money was never an issue for Cathy Ward, because, as she sees it, she could have spent her money eating and drinking, instead she chose to do it on something she’s passionate about.

While many people would say she has more than enough ink covering her body, this Twilight fan says she’s not about to stop here. Cathy plans to cover her entire torso and arms with Twilight-inspired tattoos, hopefully before she celebrates her 50th birthday. A big fan of Robert Pattinson, she wants to get a tattoo of his character, Edward Cullen, on her abdomen.

Cathy Ward hopes to, one day, meet the cast of Twilight, so she can show them her impressive body art.

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The hippo is regarded as he most dangerous animal in Africa, but that hasn’t stopped a South African animal lover from making friends with one.

40-year-old Marius Els breeds around 20 different animal species, on his wildlife ranch, near Petrus Steynlakes, South Africa, but he has a real soft spot for Humphrey, a 6-year-old hippo that’s like a son to him. While all of his friends are too scared to go near the animal, and his wife told him not to get too close, Marius climbs on Humhprey’s back  as he swims across a 200-meter-wide lake.

Marius has raised Humphrey since he was just five months old, and over the years, the two have developed a special relationship that people just don’t understand. Most of the world may look upon hippos with fear, but he considers Humphrey to be like a son, although the 1,200 ton creature could chew through him with ease. But, apart from occasionally throwing Marius off his back in the water, Humphrey acts very friendly around his owner, especially after Marius offers him a feats of his favorite treat, apples.

Despite the special friendship with Marius, Humphrey feels very lonely at this point in his life. He had another good friend, a goat, but she got eaten by a jackal, so now he’s all by himself. Marius says he’s been trying to get a tamed female companion for Humphrey, but there’s no such thing in Africa right now, and bringing in a wild one would be too dangerous. If the untamed female isn’t younger than he is, they would just kill each other. On the other hand, he can’t release Humphrey in the wild, because the other male hippos would almost definitely kill him in a fight. At least Humphrey will also have Marius to keep him company

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One of Nevada’s most popular roadside attractions, the Old Shoe Tree, near Middlegate has been cut down by vandals.

The Old Shoe Tree on highway 50 (known as the loneliest road in America) was one of the quirkiest tourist spots in Nevada, featuring hundreds of old shoes hanging from its branches. Its origins aren’t exactly clear, but locals say people started throwing their shoes in it, in the early 1990s.

According to a local legend, the first people ti throw their shoes in the Nevada Shoe Tree were a couple of newlyweds passing through the desert on their way to California. They began to argue, so the groom pulled over near a big cottontree and left his wife there to cool down, and he went to the Middlegate Station Bar, to get a beer. When he came back, his bride was still in a fighting mood, so he took her shoes and tossed them into the tree, than left t get another beer. This time, when he returned, they were able to patch things up, but the shoes remained stuck in the tree, so they just left them there.  Over time, people who stopped to cool off under the cotton tree saw the shoes and threw their own, thus transforming it into a roadside tourist attraction.

Unfortunately, no one will have the opportunity to throw shoes in the Nevada Shoe Tree, or even take photos of it, as it was cut down by vandals, right on New Year’s Eve 2011. Locals are outraged, since the 70-foot cottonwood wasn’t just a symbol of the area, but a big help for local businesses which relied on the tourists it brought in.

The Churchill County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the matter, but sadly, nothing is going to bring back the Old Shoe Tree of Nevada. Check out the photos below, if you’ve never seen it before.

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After passing the Microsoft Certified Professional test, when she was just eight years old, young M. Lavinashree has now become the world’s youngest Red Hat Certified Engineer.

M. Lavinashree was born in rural Tamilnadu, India, but her parents noticed her incredible mind, when she was just a baby. At just 1 and a half, her mother taught her the English alphabet by playing with colored letters. She would dictate the alphabet letters and Lavinashree pointed at them accurately. Then she began learning national symbols, songs, Indian personalities, shapes, fruits, and many other things. When her older sister started studying Thirukural (a Tamil poem written by a sage, over 2,000 years ago), Lavinashree begged her mother to teach her the kurals, and at the tender age of three, she won her place in the Limca Book of Records (Indian equivalent to the Guinness Book of Records) for her photographic memory. She managed to recite 1,330 couplets of Thirukural…

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Jin Songhao and Chen Kecai, two of China’s most seasoned icemen, managed to beat the previous world record for the longest ice bath.

Wim Hof, the Dutch known as “Ice-Man” spent New-Year’s Eve covered with ice cubes, and claimed the title of the longest ice bath, with 115 minutes. But the previous record holder, Chen Kecai, wasn’t about to just sit by and watch his title get snatched right from under him. Together with fellow iceman Jin Songhao, they staged their own cold-enduring event, on January 3rd, in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province.

The two daredevils immersed themselves in plastic boxes and were covered with ice cubes, up to their necks. Kecai started shivering after “just” 40 minutes, but he insisted the doctors let him see his challenge through to the end. Eventually, he managed to stay in the box for 118 minutes, thus beating his Dutch rival’s record. Unfortunately for him, Jin Songhao lasted 120 minutes and is the new holder of the record for the world’s longest ice bath. Well, at least Chen Kecai can take comfort in the fact that he lost to a fellow Chinaman.

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