A mysterious mummified monk found almost perfectly preserved in a lotus position last month is causing controversy after a well-known Buddhism expert claimed he isn’t actually dead but in a deep meditative trance.

Interestingly, the monk came to the attention of the authorities after a man was attempting to sell him on the black market in the Songinokhairkhan province of Mongolia. Mongolian police have arrested the man, and the mummy is now being guarded at the National Center of Forensic Expertise at Ulaanbaatar. They believe that the man might have stolen the mummy from another part of the country – a cave in the Kobdsk region – and then hid it in his home. Scientists are currently conducting forensic examinations on the 200-year-old mummy that was found wrapped in cattle skins. They are trying to determine how the body was so well-preserved, although they do suspect that the nation’s cold weather could have played a part. Read More »

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, lots of single people are probably dreading an onrush of uncomfortable questions from parents and other nosy relatives. Thankfully, there’s a new app called the ‘Invisible Boyfriend’ that could help them get through the awkward situation with ease.

The genius app, which recently went from private to public beta, allows users to pay for “believable social proof” that they’re actually in a relationship. The app generates everything that would exist in a real-life relationship, like photos, text messages, and even voicemails – all fake, but realistic.  “It really helps people tell a better story about a relationship they’re not in,” said Matthew Homann, who created the app along with Kyle Tabor. 

He revealed that he first purchased the domains ‘invisibleboyfriend’ and ‘invisiblegirlfriend’ nine years ago, just after a divorce. He didn’t do much with them for a long time, but at a 2013 Startup Weekend in St. Louis, he decided to pitch the idea. Matthew and his team won first place, after which there was no looking back. 

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‘Instabreasts’ is a revolutionary new procedure that gives women the chance to temporarily experience the effects of breast augmentation before deciding whether to go for permanent implants. Offered by New York plastic surgeon Dr. Norman Rowe, the procedure involves injecting saline solution right into the breast.

“I don’t think there is any way currently available other than the Instabreast to give a patient an adequate representation of what a breast implant would feel inside of the body,” Dr. Rowe explained. The procedure is rather simple – he inserts a needle directly through the areola and injects about eight ounces of saline into each breast.

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Limb-lengthening operations are a growing trend in the field of cosmetic surgery. The procedure is generally viewed as a godsend for people whose short stature affects their lives and psychological well-being, as the operations can add a good two to three inches to their height, but they do come at a cost. Not only are they ridiculously expensive, but they also involve having your legs broken!

The painful surgery was once reserved for people with dwarfism or children with uneven limb length. But now it seems that men and women with below-average height are willing to brave the torment for purely cosmetic reasons. The arduous and prolonged procedure begins with a doctor breaking the patient’s shin bones and inserting a telescopic rod into them. Over time, as the bones heal, the rod pulls the bones apart gradually – approximately one millimeter per day. As the bone is stretched, new bone, nerves, arteries, and skin grow to fill in the gap. The process is complete in about three months time, adding two to three inches to overall height. After this, the patient would need several months of physiotherapy to recover completely.
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While many cafés and bars choose to display their patrons’ praise on sticky notes or paper napkins, a watering hole in Homer, Alaska, has every last inch of its walls and ceiling covered with dollar bills signed by its satisfied customers. Because of its quirky interiors, Salty Dawg Saloon is in fact a cherished landmark of Homer Spit – a 4.5-mile piece of land jutting out from Homer on the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula, into Kachemak Bay.

There is no shortage of bars in the town of Homer, but locals prefer driving all the way to the Spit and into Homer Boat Harbor, just to visit the peculiar Salty Dawg. Some of the patrons who visit the bar don’t even drink alcohol, but the place is so famous for its money plastered interior that many tourists just stop by to see it for themselves.

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When South Korean café owner Lee Kwang-ho decided to add a couple of sheep to his payroll, it was the best business move of his life. Since 2011, the fluffy employees at Nature Café have been attracting hordes of animal lovers and tourists. The shop serves all the café staples such as coffee, tea, and cake, but it all seems sort of extra-special when enjoyed in the company of a couple of fluffy sheep.

According to Lee, the café’s popularity has spiked recently because according to the lunar calendar 2015 is the Year of the Sheep. So lots of people want to see sheep, and the café is more convenient than seeking them out on a ranch. 21-year-old Lee Hyeon-ji agreed: “We were planning to go to a sheep ranch , but it’s too far and we didn’t have enough time to go there. Then we heard about this place where we can see sheep in Seoul and came to this sheep cafe.”

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There are several creatures that possess a certain tolerance to subzero temperatures, but none as amazing as the Alaskan Wood Frog. This tiny amphibian can survive being almost completely frozen during winter, only to miraculously come back to life as soon as spring arrives!

For days, even weeks weeks at a time during its period of winter hibernation, over 60 percent of the frog’s body freezes;  it stops breathing and its heart stops beating. Its physical processes like metabolic activity and waste production come to a halt. “For all intents and purposes, they are dead,” said Don Larson, a Ph.D. student at Fairbanks, Alaska. As per his research, wood frogs can survive long winters where temperatures range between -9C to -18C. In fact, it can go through 10 to 15 freeze/thaw cycles over the course of a single season.

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Dutch artist Stephan Brusche is an expert when it comes to transforming humble bananas into stunning artworks. The 37-year-old graphic designer carves the skin and flesh of the fruit to transform it into a variety of characters and animals – right from Marilyn Monroe and Homer Simpson to cute animals like giraffes, elephants or fish, and even biblical scenes.

Stephan says he began working with bananas on a whim. “It all started a few years back when I just started using Instagram. I was at work and I just wanted to post something,” he told the guys at Bored Panda. “I then noticed my banana and I figured it would make a nice post if I just drew a little happy face on it. I took a ballpoint pen and just started drawing. I was pretty amazed how pleasant a banana peel is to draw on. So the next day I did it again, now a pissed-off face.”

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If you’re looking for a quirky futuristic hairstyle, you may want to give “Xpresionpixel” a try. This new trend basically involves dying the hair in block-like sections of varying colors to create a digital-inspired pixelated image.

Created by Spanish colorists, Jose Luis Almendral, Marco Antonio Restrepo and Jorge Cancer, of Madrid’s  X-presion Creativos salon, pixelated hair has gotten a lot of attention on social media, both from true fashionistas and girl geeks looking for a new hairstyle to best suit their personality. Many in industry seem convinced the futuristic style is set to become the next big thing in hair styling, a prediction apparently shared by cosmetics powerhouse Revlon, who used pixelated hair in an ad for last year’s autumn campaign.

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Looking to teach your misbehaving children a lesson?  Well, a barbershop in Snellville, Atlanta, seems to have hit upon the perfect solution – old-man haircuts that make kids look like they are balding.

Aptly named the ‘Benjamin Button Special’, the haircut involves shaving the crown of the head and leaving the sides long to make them resemble a balding elderly person. The service is offered free of charge three times a week by Russell Fredrick and his team at their suburban salon A-1 Kutz.

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Shanghai-based artist ‘Red’ Hong Yi has made a name for herself in the art world by creating larger-than-life portraits of celebrities using unconventional materials. For her latest masterpiece Red used 20,000 teabags to depict a tea maker practicing his trade.

To create the incredibly complex portrait, Hong Yi stained the tea bags individually by steeping them in hot water, to create 10 different shades of brown. Hong managed to achieve this level of color variation by changing the boiling temperature for every teabag and the amount of water used. For the really dark tones, she used food dyes. Once the tea bags were ready, she carefully arranged them to form the portrait, then stapled and attached them to wiremesh before hanging them from a wooden frame.

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‘Dead Drops’, a five-year-old project created by Berlin media artist Aram Bartholl, is probably the world’s most amazing file sharing network. It consists of USB flash drives embedded into walls, buildings and curbs all over the world. Anyone is welcome to hook up their laptops or smartphones to these drives, to drop or download files, or expand the network by embedding USB memory sticks in any old, crumbling wall in their own city.

The premise of the project is rather simple – just cement a USB stick into a wall with the port protruding, and post its location with photographs on the central Dead Drops database. Bartholl said that he created the project as a way to ‘un-cloud’ file sharing. “Dead Drops is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space,” the project manifesto states.

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While most proud parents hang up their kids’ art on their refrigerators, this Canadian dad has found a permanent way of celebrating his son’s work – by turning them into tattoos!

Keith Anderson, from Peterborough, Ontario, has been tattooing his son Kai’s drawings and doodles on his arms, ever since Kai was four years old. Now that Kai is 11, Keith has one tattoo to show for each year – parts of which were inked by Kai himself.

“Each one of these tattoos on my right arm my son has drawn over the years,” the proud father said in an interview with photographer Chance Faulkner. “The first tattoo is from when he was four; he is now 11. We add once a year from his drawing.”

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In a desperate attempt to cure himself of his internet addiction, a Chinese teenager simply chopped off his own left hand. The 19-year-old, from the city of Nantong, in Jiangsu province, took the drastic measure last week.

“We cannot accept what has happened,” said the kid’s mother, who refused to be identified. “It was completely out of the blue. He was a smart boy.” She had gone to her son’s bedroom at 11pm last Wednesday, only to find him missing from his bed. Instead, she found a handwritten note that said: “Mum, I have gone to the hospital for a while. Don’t worry, I will definitely come back this evening.”

In the meantime, the boy had snuck out of the house with a kitchen knife. Once safely out of sight, he severed his left hand at the wrist. He then called a taxi to take him to a nearby Emergency Room, leaving the hand lying on the ground.

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If you’ve been complaining about having to drive long hours to and from work, wait till you hear about this Detroit worker’s commute. For the past 10 years, James Robertson has been walking 21 miles a day, just to get to work. What’s even more remarkable is that he hasn’t missed a single day of work so far.

For five days a week, 56-year-old Robertson walks from his home in Detroit to the factory where he works in Rochester Hills, Michigan. He began the arduous commute ever since his 1988 Honda Accord conked out over 10 years ago. He claims that his $10.55-an-hour wage is not sufficient for him to buy another car, and there’s no decent bus service either. So he just covers the 21-mile round trip to and from work on foot.

“I set our attendance standard by this man,” said Robertson’s boss Todd Wilson, a plant manager at Schain Mold & Engineering. “I say, if this man can get here, walking all those miles through snow and rain, well, I’ll tell you, I have people in Pontiac 10 minutes away and they say they can’t get here. He’s never missed. I’ve seen him come in here wringing wet.”

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