True to the saying “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, a Russian driver turned a badly dented car door into a beautiful map of the Altai mountains.

The details of the accident are unclear, but by the looks of things, the artistically-gifted driver got a bit to close to a parked BMW SUV and dented one of the car doors pretty badly. According to Slavorum, Russia doesn’t have mandatory car insurance, so in most cases, drivers have to pay for repairs themselves. But instead of getting a fresh paint job, our man went for a much cooler alternative – turning the car car door into an artistic map of the Altai Mountains. As you can see in the photos below, the dent actually blend into the artwork perfectly, either enhancing the shading effect of the mountains or acting as lines in the map.

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Smartphone addiction is a growing problem that often interferes with our personal and professional lives. DistractaGone is an ingenious solution that allows you to lock up your phone in a box that only opens after a set period of time, offering you a period without constant distraction.

Trying to get some work done, enjoying dinner conversation or even watching a movie can be pretty tough with your phone serving up distractions in the form of various notifications, but even if you’re the kind of person who just can’t stop checking their handheld every few minutes, there is still hope. Introducing DistractaGone, a smart box that locks up to four phones at a time and keeps them inside for as long as you decide.

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Signl is an innovative gadget that allows users to take phone calls by simply touching their ear with their fingertip. It then transmits the sound through the body, essentially turning their hand into a phone.

Signl, formerly “TipTalk”, was developed by South Korean company Innomdle Lab, a new startup founded in 2015 by three ex-Samsung employees. It’s a smart strap that can be worn by itself, with a classic watch or any kind of smartwatch ((Apple, Samsung, Pebble, etc.). It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and thanks to a built-in “body conduction unit”, the strap sends sound through your body, allowing you to hear the caller just by touching your ear with a finger. A microphone of the strap lets you have a conversation just like you would on a mobile phone.

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Looking at the majestic wolf below, it’s hard to imagine that it’s not actually a real live animal, but a handmade wool felt sculpture created by talented Japanese artist Terumi Ohta.

Born in Hokkaido, Ohta grew up surrounded by flowers and animals, and her love for nature has transcended into her amazing wool felt art. Although she can use a simple needle and a handful of wool to create anything she puts her mind to, her hyper-realistic sculptures of wild and domestic animals are definitely the most impressive items in her extensive collection.

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The iBag2 is a digitally programmable handbag designed to flash and vibrate when “danger spending zones” are hit and even self-lock if these discreet warnings are ignored by shopaholics.

Launched by personal finance website Finder.com, the iBag2 is the result of a joint effort from a female-led team of engineers from robotics firm Colmac Robotics Ltd in Ireland and renowned New York-based fashion designer Geova Rodriguez. The first were in charge of the robotics of the accessory while the latter came up with the couture design. Finder claims it has created the unique products to help monitor and curb impulsive spending and avoid buyer’s remorse.

The iBag2 comes with a series of built-in features that remind shoppers of their spending goals whenever they reach for their wallet and even self-locks when it believes that they are most vulnerable. For example, the GPS tracking feature lets the iBag2 know when you are approaching one of your pre-programmed vulnerable spending zones, so it can warn you via flashing amber lights. An RFID system connected to LED lights and vibration motors also sends discreet warnings whenever you reach for your wallet, to remind you of your spending goals. But perhaps the most notable feature of this smart handbag is the self-locking mechanism. A magnetic field is used to snap two steel plates together to lock the bag whenever the built-in timer signals your most vulnerable spending moments during the course of a day or when you enter one of the vulnerable spending zones mentioned above.

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Toronto-based artist Alexis Fraser, a.k.a. Lipstick Lex, is giving the phrase “makeup artist” a whole new meaning. She creates incredibly detailed portraits by kissing the canvas and leaving lipstick prints in just the right places.

Fraser specializes in oil painting, but has also mastered a unique art form that she calls “kiss print pointilism”, which has her applying lipstick to her lips and repeatedly kissing the canvas until the desired image is formed. For the finer details, she draws with the lipstick directly onto the canvas, but most of the work is definitely done by her lips.

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In 2014, Israeli artist Sigalit Landau submerged a 19th century-style gown into the lifeless waters of the Dead Sea, for a unique photo project. The dress was retrieved after three months, and as you can see in the photos below, the transformation is quite significant.

For her latest project, an eight-part photo series called Salt Bride, Landau checked in on the dress multiple times over the three month period, capturing its slow transformation into a magical salt crystal. As the salt in the water adhered to the fabric, the black dress gradually became stiffer and changed its color from charcoal black to pearly white. “It looks like snow, like sugar, like death’s embrace,” the artist poetically said in a statement.

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A formerly-obese man from Arizona managed to shed 300 pounds of excess weight in three years after he challenged himself to walk to the nearest Wallmart every day to collect his food.

31-year-old Pasquale “Pat” Brocco used to weigh a whopping 605 pounds, but after his doctor warned him that his high blood pressure and high cholesterol were putting his life in serious danger, the Avondale man decided it was time to do something about his weight. He went home from his doctor’s appointment and took a photo of himself in the mirror. “My stomach was down to my thighs. My chest was hanging down here,” he told ABC News. “I was disgusted”.

Pat knew he needed to start exercising, but the gym was not an option. “I mean, at 600 pounds, I couldn’t even go to the gym,” he said. “I didn’t fit on the machines.” So instead, he decided that every time he was hungry, he would walk 1 mile to his closest Walmart to buy his food, then back home to eat the meal.

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Looking at the detailed leopard portrait below, you’d be inclined to think Franziska Treptow is a photographer. Every detail, from the tiny hairs of the animal’s fur to the reflection in its eyes, is so perfect that it’s almost impossible to believe that the young German artist paints or draws every one of her artworks.

Franziska’s ideas start as sketches and photos of wildlife. Using her skills in digital photo manipulation technology (Photoshop), she creates a digital model for her works, which helps her become aware of the composition and accentuation of light and shadow. She then sketches that model on paper or canvas and uses pencils or paints to create the ultra-realistic animal portraits exclusively by hand. The whole process, can take anywhere from a few hours to more than a month, depending on the complexity of the project. The end result is always breathtaking.

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Described as “the most sophisticated ring in the world”, the Touch HB Ring is a smart wedding band that lets you feel the rhythm of your partner’s heartbeat in real time.

Phone calls and apps like Facetime or Skype are great in long-distance relationships, but they can only do so much. The internet may connect the world like never before, but it still can’t offer an alternative to physical affection. Or can it? Wearable-tech company Touch has recently unveiled a revolutionary set of rings that rely on advanced technology to make wearers feel closer to each other even when they are hundreds or thousands of miles away.

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Wang Xiaojiu, a 31-year-old barber from Jilin city, China, doesn’t simply sweep shorn hair off the floor of his hair salon and dump it in the trash. At least not before painstakingly arranging it to create highly detailed works of art.

Seen from a far, Wang’s masterpieces look drawn with a pencil or charcoal, but a closer inspection reveals that they are made out of carefully arranged clipped hair. The talented barber told China Daily that he always thought throwing away leftover hair seemed like a pity, so one day he decided to do something creative with it instead. Armed with a hair brush and a plastic card, he started the piles of sheared hair on the floor of his salon into intricate portraits of popular cartoon and comic characters and, mythological heroes, and more.

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Onions may be one of the healthiest, most flavorful vegetables on the face of the Earth, but they’re definitely no fun to chop. However, your days of getting teary-eyed in the kitchen may be coming to an end as Japanese company House Foods Group prepares to launch the world’s first tear-free onion to the market.

Aptly named “Smile Ball”, because it puts a smile on your face rather than make you cry, this new type of onion is the result of two decades of research. In 2002, House Foods Group scientists published a paper in which they hypothesized that tear-inducing enzymes in onions could be weakened while retaining their full  flavor and nutritional value. Their research actually won an Ig Nobel Prize – an award handed out to honor achievements organizers consider unintentionally funny – but last year the company announced that their theory had finally become reality. Although the announcement mentioned that House Foods Group had no intention of producing Smile Ball onions commercially anytime soon, it appears the wonder vegetables will hit Japanese stores this fall.

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New Zealand-based tattoo artist Steve Butcher specializes in hyper-realistic tattoos that look like they’ve been printed on the skin instead of hand inked with a tattoo gun.

Working out of Matt Jordan’s Ship Shape Tattoo studio, in West Auckland, Butcher is one of the most in demand tattoo artists at conventions all around the world, and looking at his work, it’s easy to see why. Whether he’s doing portraits of NBA stars, animals or flowers, the end result is always breathtaking. His designs are perfect down to the smallest details, as he always seems to nail even the toughest elements like tiny drops of sweat, hair or reflections in the eyes of his characters.

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Artist Song Peilun is being hailed as “The Father of Yelang Valley” after spending the last two decades turning a forested patch of land into an artistic village as a tribute to the ancient civilization that once thrived in the area.

Yelang was an ancient political entity first described in the 3rd century BC centered in what is now western Guizhou province, China. Experts believe that many ancient cultures were rooted here, but there are unfortunately no architectural remnants left standing in the great valley. Inspired by Crazy Horse, a mountain monument dedicated to a Native American warrior, in the US state of South Dakota, after visiting the United States, Chinese artist Song Peilun dedicated his life to building a memorial to the artistic heritage of Yelang Valley and restoring part of its former glory.

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You don’t need to go to the beach to enjoy a little sunbathing. People do it on their balconies or on top of their apartment buildings all the time, but one woman in the Russian city of Novosibirsk has managed to enrage her neighbors by exposing her bikini-clad behind at her window every day.

The woman, who lives on the city’s Kropotkin Street, sunbathes by hanging her legs and butt out the window of her second-story apartment, every day from 10 a.m. to about 1 p.m., and her neighbors have had enough. They claim that the bizarre spectacle is visible to small children playing in the area, and they are criticizing police for not taking any action against the extreme sunbather. Read More »