We are living in an era of technology when direct human interaction is becoming more and more infrequent. If it weren’t for their jobs, many people wouldn’t even interact with others every day, relying solely on social networks, email, and text messaging services. But human interaction is not only about communicating messages; it is also about exploring our emotional nature, the importance of which is often forgotten.

According to numerous studies, physical contact is crucial to promote attachment between mother and infant but also to ensure the baby’s healthy physical, emotional and intellectual development. Adults also need physical contact to maintain their mental and emotional health which contribute to their overall happiness. It comes as no surprise that people like Jacqueline Samuel have found a way to service those in need of a cuddle or snuggle and make a living out of it. Travis Sigley is the father of professional cuddling. He studied psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and believes that through physical touch, people can learn to overcome the anxiety and fear that often accompanies social situations.  Through cuddling, Sigley hopes to teach people to relax and gain trust in themselves as well as in others.

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They may look like high-resolution photos of delicious foods, but these are actually incredibly detailed paintings by acclaimed hyper-realist artist Tom Martin. All of his pieces is a least one meter wide and can sell for up to £17,000 ($27,000).

We first discovered Tom Martin’s amazing artworks back 2010, when we featured some of his most impressive food-related paintings. The 26-year-old artist has been keeping himself busy in these last few years, creating new stunning masterpieces guaranteed to make viewers drool over them. Most of his works focus on food, but you might notice there aren’t any greasy burgers and pizzas displayed in his paintings. “I focus on food and its content because it plays a very big part in my life at the moment,” the artist explains. “I am a keen fitness enthusiast and along with that comes a healthy diet and the science of learning how your body uses carbohydrates and proteins.” You will however find bowls of delicious-looking fruit cereal, toast and marmalade, and even small guilty pleasures like waffles and ice-cream.

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Most people couldn’t run a marathon if their life depended on it, but world-record juggler Joe Salter ran the whole 26.2-mile Quad-Cities Marathon backward, while doing what he does best, juggling.

32-year old Joe Salter can practice his juggling skills pretty much anywhere. In the past, he swam a half-mile in the Gulf of Mexico, doing the backstroke while juggling three balls, juggled for 16.2 miles on a bike and ran and juggled for four miles. He also holds the world records for the fastest time to run a mile backward while juggling (7 minutes, 32 seconds) and fastest juggling triathlon (1 hour, 57 minutes), but he was hungry for a Guinness World Record, so he challenged himself to run the entire Quad-Cities Marathon, in Illinois, backward, while juggling. Unfortunately, Guinness rules are very strict and for Joe’s unique feat to qualify as a record, every second of the race had to be recorded, which was impossible as videotaping is prohibited along several miles of the course that run through the Rock Island Arsenal. Although slightly disappointed, Salter found an upside to the whole situation. “I actually feel better, not having the stress,” he said before the race, and indeed the lack of added pressure helped him finish the entire 26.2-mile marathon in just 5 hours and 51 minutes.

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The beautiful three-story French Baroque-style house at Chaonei No. 81 is a well-known anomaly of Beijing. Small courtyard properties in this area of China’s capital city sell for millions of dollars, and yet this once lavish mansion lies in a state of decay. The reason no one will go near it? Fear of ghosts and death.

Local legend has it this amazing mansion was built by the Qing imperial family as a church for British residents of Beijing. In 1949, when the Communists had just defeated the Nationalists and were making their way into the city, the high-ranking Kuomintang official living in the house at the time abandoned his wife, leaving her to face the Communists all by her safe. Devastated, she allegedly hung herself from the rafters of their impressive home. Many believe her troubled spirit has been haunting the place ever since, and few dare venture inside by themselves, especially during the night. The once luxurious mansion is now a dilapidated shadow of its former self, covered with graffiti warning daredevils to stay away and full of empty alcohol bottles and cigarette buts. Despite its location in the center of Beijing, where prices for small properties are in the millions, there are currently no plans to do anything with this particular building. Ghost stories keep potential tenants away, and the building is now on a historic preservation list so it can’t be torn down, just renovated. So everyone seems to be waiting for it crumble on its own.

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New York Post journalist, Stephanie Smith, truly believes the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. After her boyfriend told her she is 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring, Stephanie got cooking and started a blog to document her progress. She is currently at sandwich #176.

Stephanie says her relationship to her boyfriend, “Alexander Skarsgård look-alike” Eric, has always been centered on food. They met at a restaurant, he cooked her dinner on their second date, and they’ve hosted numerous dinner-parties together, so she knew how important food was to him. And there was nothing he liked more than sandwiches. “To him, sandwiches are like kisses or hugs. Or sex,” the young journalist says. The two New-Yorkers had been going steady for about a year and even moved into a cozy apartment together, but Stephanie was wondering what it would take for Eric to finally pop the big question. She found the answer one day, after she made him her her first a turkey on whole wheat bread, with mustard, lettuce and swiss cheese. “Honey,  this is the best sandwich ever!” Eric told her in between bites. When he was done, he dropped the bomb on her: “You’re, like, 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring.” That was it, the secret to the marriage proposal she had been dreaming of. Stephanie didn’t really know hot to cook, but she was willing to learn and she wasn’t one to back down from a challenge.

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For most people, an ideal holiday involves gorgeous natural surroundings, famous landmarks and fun activities, but for 38-year-old Mark Dabbs the perfect vacation is all about visiting celebrity graves. So far he has spent around £40,000 ($65,000) traveling across six continents and visiting the final resting places of over 200 famous people.

From the grave of kung-fu legend, Bruce Lee, in Seattle, to the glass coffin of communist leader Mao Tze-Tung, in Beijing, Mark Dabbs, a male nurse from England, has trekked every continent, except Antarctica, in search of famous tombs. He say it all began 20 years ago, when he visited the final resting place of American president John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in Virginia, USA. He just found it fascinating and since then he has traveled the world in search of more celebrity graves, dragging his siblings and sometimes even his girlfriends along with him. Mark admits most people don’t share his passion for tracking down and visiting the macabre attractions, but says he can’t think of a better way to spend his summer vacations. He considers each tomb a museum that tells the story of a person’s life and he doesn’t mind spending around £2,000 ($3,200) every year on at least 2 or 3 trips to satisfy his curiosity. Mark estimates he has spent at least £40,000 ($65,000) on his macabre hobby since he first started visiting graveyards.

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After their daughter cancelled her nuptials just 40 days before the big event, Carol and Willie Fowler decided not to let the upscale meal they had planned for her wedding go to waste, so they went ahead with it, albeit with a new list of guests. On September 15, two hundred of Atlanta’s homeless were invited to enjoy a four-course meal at one of the city’s upscale restaurants.

When the people at the Hosea Feed the Hungry charity in Atlanta got a call from someone offering to donate a lavish meal at the upmarket Villa Christina restaurant to the needy, they thought it was a prank. But Carol and Willie Fowler were dead serious. Their daughter Tamara had just cancelled her big weeding, but they weren’t about to let all the food they had ordered for the big event go to waste. “It was my husband’s idea,” Mrs. Fowler told WBUR. “We prayed about it. And when he woke up the next morning, he said, ‘We’re going to call Hosea Feed the Hungry and ask if we can donate it to the needy.” They set the whole thing up with the help Elisabeth Omilami, CEO of Hosea Feed the Hungry, and on September 15, 200 of Atlanta’s less fortunate were treated to fine dishes and drinks in an event dubbed “The First Annual Fowler Family Celebration of Love”. Talk about turning lemons into lemonade, right?

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Have you ever fantasized about starring in a real-life Saw-like scenario where you’re forced to look for clues in order to escape a locked windowless room before time runs out? Apparently many Chinese have, as more and more of them flock to various real-life room-escape game locations across the country.

Inspired by a computer game called “Takagism”, in which players had to find a way out of virtual locked room by searching their surroundings and manipulate objects in search for clues, real-life escape-the-room games have rally taken off in China during the last few months. A team of players is locked in a maze of dark, eerie rooms and have to work together in order to find clues to help them escape before the allotted times runs out. They are not allowed to use smartphones or any kind of gadgets or books to solve the rooms’ puzzles and must rely solely on their knowledge and skills to beat all challenges. Real Takagism club operators say teamwork, a good leader and the ability to keep calm and focused under pressure are key to escaping the locked rooms within the time limit, but the puzzles can be really tough and only the best succeed. For example, at Freeing Hong Kong, an escape game location in Hong Kong, only one in five teams make it out of the rooms before their time runs out.

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Jane Petkov, a 59-year-old Bulgarian man, tried to set a new Guinness record by swimming across a lake while wrapped in a bag with his arms and legs tied up. Known as “amphibian man” in his native country, Petkov says he relies on concentration and a special breathing technique to pull off the amazing feat.

The record-breaking attempt took place on September 10, on Lake Orhid, in Macedonia, and had Jane Petkov jumping out of a boat in the middle of the water trying to somehow make his way to shore. His arms and legs were tied once before putting on the thick bag, and again over the bag, to make sure he couldn’t use them during his death-defying feat. What’s even more astonishing is doctors who examined him before the challenge found he was severely anemic, which, given his age, made the task even more dangerous. Nevertheless, on the morning of September 10, the amphibian man jumped in the cold water of Lake Orhid and began to swim on his back like a dolphin.

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35-year-old Lea-Ann Ellison, from Los Angeles, has managed to start an online storm after a photo showing the eight-and-a-half-month pregnant woman lifting what seem like heavy weights was posted on Facebook.

Heavily pregnant Lea-Ann Ellison doesn’t believe in taking it easy ahead of the big day. Instead she is following an intense fitness regime designed for professional athletes and members of the police and military. “I have been CrossFitting for 2½ years,” the woman posted on Facebook. “and … strongly believe that pregnancy is not an illness, but a time to relish in your body’s capabilities to kick ass.” The photo of her preparing to lift a weight bar this far into her pregnancy prompted a series of comments, both positive and negative. Some Facebook users accused Lea-Ann of risking her baby’s well-being just to stay in shape and described the photo as “shocking”, while others showed their admiration for the weightlifter’s decision, calling her “amazing” and “an inspiration”. One person wrote: “I think that we should all be more concerned about a mom who eats McDonalds everyday of her pregnancy, and doesn’t exercise one bit. This woman is not just concerned about herself, she is concerned about her child future and the example she sets for her other children about overcoming adversity.”

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French businessman Gauthier Toulemonde plans to isolate himself on an uninhabited island in Indonesia for 40 days and run his company via solar and wind-powered computers and satellite phones.

Fascinated by the novels of Jules Verne and the expeditions of famous explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, during his childhood days, Gauthier Toulemonde always dreamed of going on his own little adventure in an exotic paradise. He’s definitely not the only person in the world to have such a dream, but while others would consider the experience a break from their everyday lives and, more importantly, their jobs, Toulemonde plans to work a full 8 hours a day, managing his company 10,000 km away. On October 8, the 54-year-old French entrepreneur, who runs Paris-based philatelic publication services company Timbopress, will be transported to a 700 meters long, 500 meters wide island somewhere in Indonesia, where he will spend the following 40 days alone, keeping in touch with the world via the internet and a satellite phone. For safety purposes, the modern-day Robinson Crusoe has decided not to reveal the exact location of his temporary home.

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Japanese music group AKB48 currently holds the Guinness record for the world’s largest pop group, with an impressive 88 female members split into various teams. But fitting all the girls on a single stage is tricky, so every time they launch a new single, AKB48 members hold a knockout rock-paper-scissors tournament to select a limited number of singers.

AKB48 is the brainchild of producer Yasushi Akimoto, who wanted to create a girl band that, unlike other pop groups who are mostly seen on TV and hold concerts sporadically, could perform for its fans live, every day, at their own theater. The band debuted in 2005 with 20 members chosen from almost 8,000 girls. In April of 2006, another group of 18 girls were chosen to form Team B of AKB48, and there are currently four different teams making up the 88-strong all-female idol group, as well as various sister groups Japan and various Asian countries. The team concept of AKB48 was meant to take load off of its members, since daily concerts at the group’s theater in Akibahara, Tokyo, are performed by only one of the teams, and also allow the others to make appearances at different locations around the world. In the eight years since its inception, AKB48 has become a social phenomenon, with record sales of $226 million in Japan alone. The girls have become so popular that tickets for their daily performances are not even sold anymore, but distributed by lottery. Even their unique rock-paper-scissors tournament to select lead singers for each new single is a sold-out event held at the giant Nippon Budokan arena.

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The Jar Bar, in Kiev, Ukraine, is the only place in the world where every item on the menu is served in glass pickle jars. To make sure patrons understand the concept, there’s even a sign on the door that shows bottles, glasses, bowls, cups and any other kind of dishes are strictly forbidden.

Although there are a handful of cafés and bars that use glass jars as dishes, the founders of Kiev’s Jar Bar claim no other venue in the world has taken such a radical approach to the concept as to serve every single item on the menu in jars. From soup, to ice cream, coffee and cocktails everything at this unique venue comes in glasses of various sizes. According to the bar’s official site, eating from a jar reminds people of home, taking them back to their childhood days when they tasted the delicious pickles made by their grandmothers, straight out of the jar. The unusual dishes also make it easy for customers to order their favorite foods and drinks to-go, or take leftovers with them. All they have to do is ask waiters for a jar lid. Apart from being the only available dishes, jars are also used for decoration purposes. The light fixtures are all large glass jars, the bar is lined with pickle jars, and the wallpaper is also jar-themed.

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The annual Eurovision song competition has had its share of controversial contestants over the years, like transgender singer Dana International, or monstrous-looking heavy metal band Lordi, but the Austrian Television’s decision to nominate Conchita Wurst, a bearded transvestite artist, as the country’s official contestant for next year’s event has caused more public outrage than ever before, in Austria.

Conchita Wurst sets herself apart from other other artists not only through her voice, but also by wearing women’s clothing, makeup and a full beard. The thick facial hair is the artist’s way of drawing attention to herself, because, well, the world responds to a woman with hair on her face. The beard of this “racy Colombian” is very real, for it belongs to the man behind the mask, 24-year-old Tom Neuwirth. He first appeared in the spotlight in 2006, when he came second in a televised talent show called Star Mania, but completely disappeared from the public life after that, until 2011 when he returned with a whole new look, under the name Conchita Wurst. She has become Tom’s alter-ego and he says there are now two hearts beating in his chest, one of an Austrian man and the other of a hot-blooded Colombian performer. After he puts on the makeup and women’s clothes, Tom really becomes Conchita and demands that he be addressed as such. He acts like a woman and even uses the ladies’ room, but once the performance is over, he goes back to being Tom. Asked if it’s not too confusing splitting his life in two, the artist said he actually recommends having an alter-ego because it’s great fun and it allows you to live out every fantasy you ever wanted.

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The bad news is the delicious-looking hunk of roast beef, burrito or fish fingers featured in the photos below are not what they seem. The good news is they are actually cakes designed by English amateur baker Louise Caola.

Ever since she was a little girl helping her mother around the kitchen, Londoner Louise Caola loved to bake. After studying fashion marketing at university, she landed a job in advertising, but continued to make cakes during her free time. The 23-year-old designed her first sausage and potato mash cake for a friend’s birthday and received praises from everyone who got to see it before it was devoured, which fueled her passion for novelty desserts. She immediately started working on even more impressive cakes in her free time and posted photos of them on social networks like Twitter and Instagram. Soon Louise was flooded with orders from all over the internet and she started taking her hobby more seriously. A few weeks ago, the amateur baker finally decided to quit her job and focus all her attention on her newly-created novelty cake brand called Poppy&Lulu (after a couple of close childhood friends). For the time being she only offers hand-delivery around London, but hopes to one day expand nationwide and have a team of bakers helping her make fun cakes.

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