Doris Carvalho, an entrepreneur from Tampa, has come up with an original way of combining her two greatest passions – veterinary science and fashion. She recycles dog hair that’s left over from grooming, converting it into high-end designer purses.

Doris loves her new job so much that she hopes to convert it into a business – she’s currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise $15,000 toward that exact purpose. That’s just enough money to make her first line of 30 purses and pay for marketing.

“These handbags prove that high-end can be made eco-friendly from your pet for you,” she pointed out. “I turn this groomed dog fur that would be garbage anywhere else in the world into these handbags. I sterilize and I use them to make the thread, the yarn. It’s reused, recycled.”

Read More »

Devastated by his pet rat’s death, 13-year-old Pepeijn Bruins decided to do something really special for his furry friend. So he turned to Dutch inventors Arjen Beltman and Bart Jansen for help. Soon, Ratjetoe the rat was stuffed and converted into the world’s first radio-controlled ‘ratcopter’.

Bart and Arjen have a special talent for making dead animals fly; previously, we’d written about how they converted a dead ostrich and a cat into weird helicopters. Their last project was a flying jet powered shark. And they’ve done it again, this time helping a young boy overcome his grief over losing his best friend.

“I loved him very much,” said Pepeijn, who had to have the cancer-stricken rat put down. “He always liked to be cuddled and he would run up my clothes and hide. When I learned he had cancer and the vet had to put him to sleep I was very upset. I had seen Bart and Arjen and their flying cat, and I asked my dad if it would be possible to have the rat fly.”

Read More »

You’d expect a chocolate teapot to be completely useless (except for devouring), but believe it or not, this one actually works. Engineered by Nestlé Master Chocolatier John Costello, this fully functional chocolate teapot is meant for brewing tea. It works exactly like a regular teapot – it won’t melt and the tea comes out tasting a bit like chocolate.

Costello and his colleagues decided to make the pot after they were challenged by a BBC TV series called The One Show. They had to prove that the statement ‘there’s nothing more useless than a chocolate teapot’ was false. And they managed to do just that.

So how exactly do you go about making a heat-resistant chocolate teapot? Well, it all depends on the type of chocolate you choose. Costello and his team opted for dark chocolate with 65 percent cocoa solids, because its low fat content would make it more resistant to heat.

Read More »

Indian weightlifting champion Maibam Itomba Meitei probably has the strongest pinky fingers in the world. The 26-year-old from Imphal city in the state of Manipur recently set the Guinness World Record for the most number of ‘pinky pull ups’ – he used his little fingers to pull his chin above the bar 16 consecutive times in 30 seconds.

Maibam broke the world record previously set by an American weight lifter, who was able to do only 16 pull ups in one minute. He completed the stunning feat quite comfortably during an event organised at the Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy. The audience, consisting of several local politicians, was left speechless by Maibam’s display of sheer strength.

A specially designed iron bar was used for the performance – it had two small hooks for Maibam to insert his two little fingers. Once he laced his pinkies through the hooks, he was able to lift his body (weighing 51 kilograms) up with tremendous ease, bringing his chin all the way over to the bar.

Read More »

Martin Tatta, from Argentina, is a self-trained ‘horse whisperer’. The 33-year-old ‘gaucho’ – the Argentinian version of the cowboy -has a remarkable gift for understanding horses – he can get the four-legged beauties to do his bidding with a delicate touch, friendly coaxing, cuddles, and kisses.

“It is something that comes natural to me,” he said. “Nobody taught me, it just came out. There is no struggle with the animal. This is a very soft job, very, very soft.” In fact, Martin is so tender with horses that many people have been reduced to tears while watching him.

Read More »

The paintings of Mexican artist Cristiam Ramos are, quite literally, like a breath of minty fresh air! The 34-year-old creates celebrity portraits using nothing but tubes of ordinary toothpaste. Some of his notable works include paintings of Robin Williams, Miley Cyrus, Emma Watson, Lady Gaga and Sir Elton John. They’ve all been crafted using various brands of the oral hygiene product.

Painting with toothpaste is a lot harder than it sounds, and Ramos spends up to 200 hours and 30 tubes on a single piece. “It is very difficult to make these as the toothpaste becomes very sticky and dries quickly,” he explained. “The smell can also be overwhelming, which was challenging during the long days of up to 10 hours painting.”

Read More »

While some men like to leave their bushy chests intact, others prefer to stay groomed with a trim or a wax. And then there are a few fuzzy fellas who like putting an artistic spin on body hair. Helping the trend ‘grow’ is British celebrity hair stylist Daniel Johnson, who has been wielding his clippers to create skylines and iconic landmarks on the chests of hairy Brits.

Having cut the hair of English football giants like Ashley Cole, Gareth Blue and Erik Lamela, 32-year-old Daniel is now channeling all his talent and experience towards men who want to do interesting things with their chest hair. He calls the art ‘manscaping’, and his project is being sponsored by male grooming brand Braun.

Daniel said that he was inspired to take on the challenge after he came to know of the #chesthairbikini Instagram movement, where men trimmed their chest to resemble to shape of a bikini. Of course, his work is a lot more complicated and intricate. Once he’s done trimming and carving, the finished design consists of hair at five specific lengths – 0mm, 1mm, 2mm, 5mm and 15mm. This is a tough thing to do because chest hair is a lot shorter and curlier than hair on the head.

Read More »

Greg Krueger, from St. James, Minnesota, has spent over 20 years renovating his home – not for his own comfort, but for that of his cats! He’s converted his home into a giant feline playground, with $10,000 worth of elaborate tunnels, platforms, and overhead catwalks.

“I just love trails and paths, and cats, of course,” said 50-year-old Krueger. “And so I’ve just linked those passions together.” His unique home improvement project began years ago, when he made a place for his four pet cats to sit on top of a China cabinet, because they liked to be high up.

Next, he built a kitty-sized staircase to help them get up to the cabinet. And his cats loved it so much that Krueger just decided to keep going. Soon, he had put up over 100 yards of catwalks and bridges through every room in the house, and set it all up so that his cats never have to touch the floor.

Read More »

‘Balaknama’, or ‘Children’s Voice’, is a quarterly publication that’s completely written and run by children living in New Delhi’s slums. With a readership in the tens of thousands, the newspaper is being hailed as one of the most impressive in the world.

Backed by the Indian non-profit organisation Chetna, Balaknama publishes contributions from a federation of Indian children who work for a living and live off the street. It started with only 35 child-contributors, but the stories come from various Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh.

Written in Hindi, the paper covers a range of serious subjects that highlight the problems faced by Indian street children. A typical issue would contain articles related to topics like police brutality, child marriage, and illegal child labor. It’s not what you’d expect from a children’s newspaper, but Balaknama is known for reporting hard truths and harsh realities.

Read More »

Through her work, artist and illustrator Yulia Brodskaya demonstrates that you don’t need complicated tools or expensive materials to create brilliant art. She works with simple materials used in everyday life – paper and glue. Using a technique known as quilling, she weaves multi-colored strips of paper into breathtaking three-dimensional patterns.

Yulia, who started her career as a graphic designer and illustrator in 2006, quickly abandoned computer programs to work with paper. “I believe that one of the main reasons I enjoy the paper craft, is due to my love of the material: paper,” she explained.

“I’ve always had a special fascination for paper, it has taken me a while to find my own way of working with it. Now I draw with paper instead of on it. And then it took a little longer to find out that the technique I have been using so intensively is called quilling – it involves the use of strips of paper that can be rolled, shaped, and glued to the background.”

Read More »

They say money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can buy empathy in China. Lonely businessmen are actually paying women up to $5 a day, just for a few kind words and a bit of understanding. A similar service is available for women as well.

Many young men and women are making quick money by offering the service through Taobao – China’s leading e-commerce website. They call themselves ‘virtual girlfriends/boyfriends’, and they’re willing to listen to their clients complaining about a tough day at work.

Male clients have a range of virtual girlfriend personalities to choose from, including ‘doll-like girls’, ‘mature women’, and ‘the girl next door’. For women, the choices include ‘men in uniform’, ‘CEO’, ‘handsome men’ and ‘comforting men’.

Read More »

When 22-year-old Australian car-crash victim Ben McMahon woke up from a week-long coma, the only language he could speak was fluent Mandarin. So fluent, in fact, that he is now a popular TV star in China!

The incident took place in early 2012 – Ben was in a terrible car crash in Melbourne that left him battling for his life. While his survival seemed like a miracle, nobody was prepared for the bizarre twist that occurred when he finally regained consciousness a week later – his brain simply decided to switch from English to Mandarin.

“Most of it’s hazy, but when I woke up seeing a Chinese nurse, I thought I was in China,” recalled Ben. “It was like a dream. It was surreal. It was like my brain was in one place but my body was in another. I just started speaking Chinese – they were the first words that left my mouth.”

Read More »

British artist Chris Wood creates breathtaking pieces of art using only two simple things – light and glass. He is an expert at painstakingly arranging small squares of delicate glass that reflect light in a certain way, thereby creating exquisitely colorful light patterns that dazzle the eye.

Chris uses dichroic (two-color) glass, containing a special coating that alters the wavelength of light. So when he directs light through his wall-mounted glass structure, the glass alters the color and direction of the reflected light, resulting in a complex array of colors in continually changing patterns.

Read More »

Even though a lot of restaurants are now pet friendly, there aren’t too many places that actually have a separate menu for dogs. So Filipino chef and dog lover Giannina Gonzalez decided to fix that with her unique Whole Pet Kitchen – a small café that caters to dogs as well as humans.

Located in San Juan city, Whole Pet Kitchen is the first pet bakery and dog café in the Philippines. Gonzalez, 29, said that she wanted a job where she knew what went into her dog’s food, and she also wanted a place where she could share a table with her four-legged pet. She started the place in 2011, and it’s been doing pretty ever since.

“We wanted to reach out to a niche market; that’s why the place is small,” she revealed. “When Whole Pet Kitchen was opened, there were so many dog lovers who checked out the place, and now, the café has its own set of regulars who hang out and spend bonding moments with their pets.” The café has two sets of menus – one for pets and one for humans.

Read More »

The city of Chiba, in Japan, is home to a real-life superhero who looks almost exactly like the famous Dark Knight of Gotham city. He even wears Batman’s iconic suit and travels on a custom-made Batpod, but his mission is rather different – to bring happiness to the people of Japan.

‘Chibatman’, as our superhero has come to be known, prefers to keep his identity a secret. But we do know that he’s a 41-year-old local welder who likes to fight crime – or in this case, unhappiness – in his spare time. While his costume is store-bought, he built the three-wheeled ‘Chibatpod’ himself, with imported parts worth around $5,700.

Photographs of the caped crusader have been doing the rounds on Twitter for the past three years now. Everytime the citizens of Chiba catch a glimpse of their very own Chibatman, they immediately post a photograph or video of him on various social networks.

Read More »