Bikini Beans Espresso is a coffee shop chain with branches in Arizona and Washington where patrons can have their favorite coffee prepared and served by beautiful women wearing bikinis, g-strings or just three strategically-placed stickers.

Thanks to its attractive dress code, Bikini Beans Espresso has become hugely popular, especially among its male clientele. Apparently, a simple visit to one of these coffee shops has a way of brightening up a man’s day, and it’s definitely not just the coffee. But despite encouraging sales, impressive 5-star ratings on Yelp and thousands of followers on social media, Bikini Beans Espresso has its fare share of critics, most of which claim that the mandatory dress code of the staff is degrading for women.

That’s definitely not how the owners of Bikini Beans Espresso shops see it, though. They claim that the girl’s skimpy “uniforms” actually empower women, helping them feel comfortable in their own skin.

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69-year-old Julieta Lorenzo, a frail old lady in the Philippines, has recently melted the hearts of thousands around the archipelago after photos of her carrying her 30-year-old disabled daughter to the bank to collect her pension went viral online.

The heartwarming photos were snapped by Facebook user Gilbred Cargason Alsagon Jr, who was at a branch of the Development Bank in the city of Roxas when Julieta and her daughter walked in. The sight of a small 69-year-old woman hunched over with a full grown woman on her back made a big impression on everyone present, Alsagon reported, but even though many offered to help them, the woman politely declined, saying that her daughter, Mary Jane, didn’t trust anyone else to carry her.

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Due to the unique topography and high construction density of Chongqing, one of the most populated cities in China, architects and city planners had to come up with a unique way of developing a vital monorail line. Their solution – having the train pass straight through a 19-floor apartment building.

With the Daba, Wushan, Wuling, and Dalou Mountains to its north, east and south, most of Chongqing’s terrain is made up of hill slopes. That coupled with the lack of space due to the high building density and a population of around 49 million people, makes working on infrastructure a real challenge for architects and city planners. In 2004, when the Rail Transit No.2 was approved, they only had two choices – either tear down the whole apartment building to make room for the monorail, or clear up two floors and make a tunnel, so the train can pass through it. As unconventional as it seems, experts went for the second option, and 13 years later they are still convinced it was the right thing to do.

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Unable to find a prosthetic hand that fit him him properly, Leonardo Viscarra, a 14-year-old boy from Bolivia, decided to build one himself, using 3D-printing technology.

Leonardo was born with an undeveloped left hand. As a fetus in his mother’s womb, the boy’s right hand was caught in the placenta and unable to develop properly. He was diagnosed with amniotic band syndrome at birth, and could never use his left hand for basic tasks like picking up or grabbing objects. However, an incident during his childhood sparked an interest in assembling and building things, which ultimately helped him achieve his goal of one day gaining almost full use of his undeveloped hand.

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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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Don’t you just hate it when you have to take an important phone call and you’re surrounded by potential eavesdroppers? You either have to whisper or go outside to keep the conversation private, which is not exactly ideal.Now, a new gadget aims to fix this problem by muffling your voice and making you look like Bane in the process.

Hushme is a bizarre high-tech mask that blocks the sound of the wearer’s voice so that people nearby can’t hear what is being said. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and comes with a pair of earbuds. When you get a private call, all you have to do is put the muzzle-like mask on and it will do the rest. The pair of thick cushy pads over your mouth do a good job of muffling your voice, but to ensure nothing gets through, Hushme also features external speakers that play a variety of sounds when you speak.

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For most people discovering the secret to eternal life, or reaching heaven and living forever in a blissful afterlife is the ultimate goal, but for some, concepts like life without end and infinity are apparently terrifying to the point where they cannot lead a normal life. These people suffer from a little-known and even less talked-about condition called “apeirophobia”.

You won’t find many scientific or medical information about apeirophobia online. It doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia entry, and popular medical information websites like Mayo Clinic or WebMD have no mention of it either. But when it comes to anecdotal evidence of its existence, the hundreds of forum threads, social media posts and blog entries by people sharing stories of their struggle with the fear of eternal life or infinite space, and asking for help in coping with anxiety, sleeplessness and depression, are enough to convince anyone that apeirophobia is more than a made-up medical condition.

Unlike other phobias, aperirophobia is a lot harder to explain, which is why most people tend to keep it a secret. It’s one thing to tell that you’re afraid of snakes, or heights, and another that you’re afraid of living forever or of the infinity of the universe. While most people find the fear of death perfectly understandable and even relatable, the fear of infinity and eternity is apparently much harder to grasp.

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Proposing with a diamond ring is nice, but it’s been done millions of times, so, in a n effort to be more original, a Chinese man decided to pop the big question to his sweetheart with a different kind of rock – a 33-tonne “meteorite”.

Liu Fei, a young man from Urumqi, China, recently made national headlines after proposing to his girlfriend with a large boulder that he claimed was a “33-tonne meteorite”. On March 14, Liu took his beloved to a public square, where he got down on one knee in a heart made of rose petals and asked her to marry him. As soon as she answered “yes”, a couple of the man’s friends unveiled a strange boulder strategically placed in the middle of the square. Apparently, this wasn’t just any rock, but a meteorite that Liu had bought for 1 million yuan ($145,000), money he had originally saved for a new apartment.

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Many people have one or two really old mobile phones from before the smartphone revolution happened, but 26-year old Stefan Polgari has a collection of over 3,500 of them, made up of 1,231 different models.

Polgari, from the small Slovakian town of Dobsina, has always been kind of a tech-head, and at 15-years-old, he started doing online reviews of new mobile phones. Before long, he had already amassed a small collection of Nokia, Alcatel, Sagem, Ericsson and other brands that were available in Slovakia at the time. But it was 2 years ago that Stefan’s collection really took off, after he bought someone’s collection of 1,000 old phones for a few thousands of euros. He has been hunting for missing models to add to his already impressive collection ever since, and today he is the proud owner of 3,500 “ancient” mobile phones, about half of which still work.

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If you’re into crazy taste combinations like peanut butter&jelly or pineapple pizza, you’re probably going to love this wine-infused coffee that combines the taste and health benefits of two of the world’s most popular drinks.

Molinari Private Reserve artisan coffee is the brainchild of Rick Molinari, the owner of Molinari Caffè in Napa Valley, California. He claims to have come up with the idea for a wine-infused coffee in 2013, after talking with his friend and fellow coffee roaster, John Weaver, of Wild Card Roasters LLC. Born and raised among the vineyards of Napa Valley, Molinari was convinced that bringing together “the best of both worlds” in one unique drink was bound to be a success, so he started researching ways of making it happen.

Molinari came up with a working formula within a year, and in 2014 he actually started selling his unique blend of roasted coffee and red wine, but a magnitude-6.0 earthquake that shook Northern California that year forced him to put the process of perfecting his idea on hold. He never gave up on it, though, and after teaming up with several vineyeards around Napa Valley, the cafe owner recently launched an improved version of his wine-infused coffee, and is already struggling to keep up with demand.

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A luxury flower company in London is selling “one hundred percent natural” ‘Beauty and the Beast’ roses that it claims last forever if kept in their original glass domes, or up to three years if exposed to air, without requiring sunlight and water.

Like the magical flower that became synonymous with the 1991 Disney animation movie ‘Beauty and the Beast’, the roses sold by London-based Forever Rose seem to defy all logic. As long as they are kept under their protective glass covers, they never whither, regardless of the conditions they are kept in. They don’t require any water or sunlight.

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A reinterpreted article in Colombia’s Labor Code was recently approved by the country’s Constitutional Court, thus allowing people to show up for work drunk or under the influence of narcotics as long as their productivity is not affected.

As in most countries around the world, going to work under the influence of alcohol or narcotics was prohibited in Colombia, but the modified article now protects workers from contract termination or disciplinary action, as long as these substances don’t affect their performance on the job. The recent ruling on the Constitutional Court puts alcohol consumption and narcotic addiction at the same level as occupational illness and argues that “these substances don’t always hinder how one performs at work”.

It all started last year, when two students at the University of Uniciencia in Bucaramanga challenged the country’s labor law at the Constitutional Court, arguing that it was in violation of two articles of the constitution: one which states that “all people are equal before the law and asserts that the state has an obligation to provide special protections for people who, owing to their economic circumstances or physical or mental condition, find themselves in a manifestly weak position,” and another that guarantees “equality of opportunity for all workers”.

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Are you ever too old to become a parent? Well, the Italian justice system seems to think so, and the tragic story of Gabriella and Luigi De Ambrosis, an elderly couple who had their natural daughter taken away and put up for adoption because they were deemed too old to take care of her is proof enough.

In 2009, 57-year-old Gabriella and 69-year-old Luigi, of Casale Monferrato, Italy, decided to have a baby, and traveled abroad to undergo an advanced in-vitro procedure. In May 2010, Gabriella gave birth to a healthy baby daughter, and the couple made national headlines. They became known as the “grandparent parents”, and faced discrimination from people deeming them too old to take care of a baby. The two recall that, while they were still in the hospital after their daughter’s birth, someone alerted child services about their age and their ability to properly tend to the infant.

Luckily for them, there was no Italian law that prevented people over a certain age from having and raising children, so they were able to take the baby home and live a normal life. However, the joy of parenthood was short-lived, as in 2011, just 15 months after their daughter was born, the De Ambrosis were accused of “abandonment” for leaving the baby unsupervised for only a few minutes. What followed was a nightmare that continues to this day.

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Want to brag about your active social life on Facebook, when you really have no friends? Trying to make your ex jealous by posing with an attractive new partner, but can’t find a date? No need to worry, this Japanese company will happily send you some fake friends or lovers for a fun photo shoot that will make your online friends green with envy. You’ll have to pay for it, though.

Keeping up appearances on social media is apparently very important to a lot of people, and Japanese company Family Romance is committed to helping its clients do just that. Whether they are looking to show co-workers that they are much more fun to be around than they appear to be at the office, or trying to impress a special someone with their active social life, the company’s Real Appeal service aims to help them succeed, by providing some fake friends for impressive photo shoots. Clients can then post these pics on their Facebook or Instagram pages to show everyone how fun their life is, without anyone knowing it’s all a paid-for illusion.

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Migingo, a tiny rock island on Lake Victoria, in Kenya, measures just 0.49 acres, but is officially home to 131 residents – although some sources put the population at around 1,000 – making it the most densely populated island in the world.

The so-called “Iron Clad Island” of Migingo (after the metal shack shanty town covering it almost entirely) has a very unclear history. According to some accounts, it was originally settled by two Kenyan fishermen, Dalmas Tembo and George Kibebe, who came here in 1991 and laid the foundation of today’s community. Others say that it was a Ugandan, Joseph Unsubuga, who came here first and then brought more of his fishing friends. It was this kind of contradicting stories, and the battle over the island’s fish-rich waters that created a long-standing conflict over the ownership of Migingo between Kenya and neighboring Uganda.

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