The unusual event took place last Saturday, when Sergei Kaunov and his fiancee Irina Kuzmenko got married in the ice-cold waters of the Enisei River, in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, at a temperature of -30 degrees Celsius.

Sergei, also known as “The Walrus”, is a member of the local ice-swimming club, always dreamed of getting married in such extreme conditions, but his fiancee was never a big fan of winter and low temperatures. Still, her love for The Walrus was so great that she agreed to go through this heart-stopping challenge. So after taking a nice bath to warm up, Irina followed her beloved into the frozen waters, where their friends were already waiting. They formed a half circle around the happy couple, and since no priest was brave enough to marry them at -30 degrees, Sergei simply put a ring on Irina’s finger, while the crowd cheered.

Luckily, friends and family of the happy couple who were to cold to stand by them during the offbeat ceremony, got to join the festivities in a nice warm wooden cabin, where they danced the night away.

I tell ya’, nothing says “I love you” like getting married at -30 degrees, because that’s what your fiancee wanted. I wish my wife had been so understanding and agreed to have the wedding at a strip club…

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Using a technique she calls Acrylic Mosaic Fusion, artist Sandhi Schimmel Gold takes junk mail and other paper waste and turns it into beautiful portraits.

Phoenix-based Sandhi Schimmel Gold has been fascinated by art for as long as she can remember. In her youth, she spent most of her days sitting quietly in the bedroom, drawing, and she remembers cutting school to spend her days in museums and art galleries around New York City. Although she studied art in school, Sandhi says she is pretty much self taught, and most of her works are influenced by her extensive travels.

The artist first felt inspired to create mosaic portraits years ago, when she was in Venice, Italy. She saw a portrait made of small colorful glass fragments ans since it was to heavy to transport home, by train, Sandhi decided to create one just like it. After a period of trial and error using glass and tile, she decided to change her art medium to ephemera.

Now, using upcycle junk mail, post cards, photos, calendars and other paper junk together with water-based, non-toxic paint, Sandhi Schimmel Gold creates the most amazing mosaic portraits. She doesn’t use any kind of technology or dies in her art; everything is hand-cut, hand-applied, hand-embellished and hand-finished. “My vision is to create beautiful yet thought-provoking images of beauty” says Sandhi, and she manages to do it by using paper waste most people throw away.

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Juan Manuel Barrientos, a talented young chef from Colombia, has created two fully edible wedding gowns and showcased them during the Colombiatex fashion show in Medellin.

Barrieto admits he didn’t know much about fashion, let alone edible fashion, until someone asked him about clothes that you could eat. He started doing some research on the subject and didn’t stop until he was able to create two beautiful wedding gowns exclusively out of edible materials.

Wedding dresses are usually just something pretty for people to look at, so Juan Manuel Barrieto decided to use his newly acquired knowledge to give them a whole new purpose. Instead of just eye-candy for the wedding guests, his beautiful creations are real candy for the groom to enjoy on his wedding night.

The original wedding dresses are made of 2,000 sugar-glazed rose petals and champagne clothe and come with edible accessories such as bracelets, earrings, necklaces and rings made of candy, and a bouquet made of edible flowers.

Barrieto showcased his sugary gowns during a textile fair for professionals that takes place between Januarry 25 and 27, in the Colombian city of Medellin.

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Let’s hear it for Genghis Khan everyone, his bloody conquests just earned him the title of greenest invader in the history of man.

‘It’s a common misconception that the human impact on climate began with the large-scale burning of coal and oil in the industrial era. Actually, humans started to influence the environment thousands of years ago by changing the vegetation cover of the Earth’s landscapes when we cleared forests for agriculture.” said Julia Pongratz, who headed Carnegie Institution’s study that measured carbon impact of a number of historical events that involved a large number of deaths.

Apparently, the armies of Genghis Khan killed so many people that huge cultivated areas  were once again covered with thick forests that absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. According to historical data, during the rule of this famous leader, the Mongol Empire was responsible for the deaths of over 40 million people, which in turn helped remove around 700 million tons of carbon dioxide from the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Although he only just graduated from art school in 2009, Brighton-based artist Kyle Bean already has a very impressive portfolio under his belt. Throughout his yet short but successful career, Bean has collaborated with important names like the BBC, New York Times Magazine, Selfridges or Hermes.

His latest collection, “Stick Insects”, features a series of insect models created entirely out of matchsticks.

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Dr. Marie Catherine Klarkowski, a dentist from Munchen, Germany, has found the perfect way to open her patient’s mouths as soon as they enter her practice – she and her staff wear low-cut dirndl dresses.

Doctor Klarkowski says she came up with this unusual idea when she noticed how men looked at the waitresses wearing this kind of traditional gowns, at the annual Oktoberfest. The most important thing for us is to take away the patients’ fear. The sight of cleavages gets patients narcotised and distracted from the pain rather quickly.” says this witty dentist, who ordered 10 dresses for herself and her staff.

Believe it or not, this unusual investment paid off  as doctor Klarkowski says she receives a third more patients since the change, all male. “Competition doesn’t sleep – I know colleagues who have decorated their whole practice with Mickey Mouse and one even in Star Trek style.” the good doctor said. She also changed her 250 square meter practice into an “Alpine Lounge”, complete with an open fireplace, wooden benches and deer antlers on the walls.

“Some patients’ mouths are already wide open on entering the practice – and that is just what a dentist wants.” dr. Marie Catherine Klarkowski concluded.

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They make people look like they’ve been chewing on glow sticks, but the LED smiles created by designers Motoi Ishibashi and Daito Manabe are the new rage in Japan.

Originally created as an experiment, the LED smile is currently used in a commercial for the winter sale of a popular Japanese clothing store, and are quickly becoming one of the most sought-after fashion accessories in Japan. LED smiles are easily fixed to one’s teeth and glow different colors when you smile. Best used in the dark, these unusual gadgets change color wirelessy, through a computer interface.

Although LED smiles aren’t yet available for purchase, Ishibashi and Manabe are currently offering workshops across Japan, teaching people how to create their own.

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The Songjiangcheng scenic spot, in Yangzhou, China, has become an even more popular tourist attraction, thanks to a unique dragon statue made of over 2,800 porcelain dishes and cups. The 30-meter-long installation is made up of a metal frame, upon which porcelain dishes and Chinese tea cups were masterfully placed to form a realistic-looking dragon. It’s amazing what some people can do with porcelain…

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Paul Janssen spent over 1,000 hours and around 1,000,000 LEGO pieces to build an incredible replica of the Ohio State Buckeyes Stadium.

In order to build a realistic model of Ohio’s The Horseshoe Stadium, Janssen studied original measurements and satellite images, often using his trusty camera to take photos of interior details, during ball games. Originally from the Netherlands, this LEGO master didn’t even understand the game of American football,at first, but over time he grew to like it, and is now a big fan of the Ohio State Buckeyes and a season-ticket holder.

Paul Janssen spent three years just collecting the necessary LEGO pieces for his amazing replica, and had to improvise quite a bit on some details. For example, the Rotunda decor is made out of  Dragon horns from a LEGO castle kit, while chrome truck parts serve as pipes extending from the stadium bathrooms. President of the Central Ohio Lego Train Club, Janssen traded for most of the necessary LEGO pieces, and thinks that if he had to purchase all of them, it would have set him back $50,000 to $75,000.

The 8 foot by 6 foot replica of the Ohio Stadium took 42-year-old Janssen over 1,000 hours to build, over the course of two years. And he did it all in his home basement, in Dublin, Ohio.

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Josh Le, a student at the University of Alberta, wore a pair of skin-tight jeans from September 2009 to December 2010, without washing them, just to see how much bacteria would build-up on them

The pair of jeans in question was actually made of raw denim, which isn’t treated with any chemicals, so Le thought they would make a perfect home for bacteria, in the course of 15 months. He declared he wore them almost every day, which is pretty amazing, considering that apart from a few wear marks, they looked pretty clean.

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33-year-old Paul Luke, a retired milkman from Essex, England, was forced to build a mini museum for his impressive collection of over 10,000 milk bottles.

Paul collected his first milk bottle in 1987, when he was just nine years old, but as times went by, his passion got out of hand, and he is now the proud owner of 10,000 milk bottles, with the oldest ones dating back to the 1890s. His parents encouraged him to pursue his hobby, because they thought it kept him busy and out of trouble, and he actually started his collection on his parents’ window sill.

In the meantime, he has had to build a miniature museum in his back garden, because his house simply wasn’t big enough for his collection, anymore. All of his milk bottles are either embossed or pyroglazed by a milk company and some of them are the only ones left in existence, which makes Paul Luke think of his collection as a record of the milk industry.

The unique bottles in Paul’s collection, from companies that went out of business decades ago, certainly have financial value, but the dedicated milkman never thought about its monetary value. He is still actively collecting milk bottles.

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Nguyen Van Vien is a talented artist who collects all kinds of discarded piece of timber and uses them to create incredibly beautiful wooden mosaics.

The Vietnamese village of Khuc Toai has long been famous for its traditional carpentry, but a local artist is taking things to a whole new level with his original painting-like mosaics made from various types of recycled wood. Born in 1957, Nguyen Van Vien has always had a passion for the arts, and at age 19 he left his home village to study at the Indochina College of Fine Arts, in Hanoi. But it was a very difficult period for the Vietnamese, so after just two years of school, he had to return home and support his family. He turned to traditional carpentry, which barely earned him enough to put food on the table, but everything was about to change for the better.

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Most people see rats as filthy pests that inspire disgust and fear, but for Kevin and Kate Rattray, they are just cute furry pets that make their lives better.

Members of the Yorkshire Rat Club, these two Brits really have a thing for rats,and say they are among the most intelligent and interactive pets a person could have. Kate had her first pet rats while she was still in university, but Kevin grew up on the farm, where rats were looked upon as vermin which had to be exterminated. But right after they adopted their first rat, in 2006, his opinion changed radically and he’s now quite fond of his brood.

Kevin and Kate say they’ve never had that parental instinct for kids, a gap successfully filled by the 27 rats they have to take care of, every day. Even their friends have learned to accept the furry pets, and some of them even play with them when they visit.

The Rattray rat loving couple will soon be featured on Channel 4, in the documentary “First Cut”, which explores their unique household, and their unusual relationship with 27 rat pets.

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Barnaby Marmaduke Aloysius Benjy Cobweb Dartagnan Egbert Felix Gaspar Humbert Ignatius Jayden Kasper Leroy Maximilian Neddy Obiajulu Pepin Quilliam Rosencrantz Sexton Teddy Upwood Vivatma Wayland Xylon Yardley Zachary Usansky – this is the soon-to-be world’s longest name, 197-letters-long.

36-year-old Barnaby Usansky, an unemployed Brit from Edinburgh, Scotland, says he has always been fascinated with words and old traditional names, and since the law doesn’t forbid it, he decided to take on all his favorite names. One of which, believe it or not, is Marmaduke. But his attention-grabbing scheme failed to impress most of his friends and acquaintances, who insist on calling him by his old name, Nick. “Everybody ignores my new name. They insist on calling me Nick, which isn’t one of my names any more.” states Barnaby.

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Michigan-based artist Laura Bell has created a unique replica of Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, exclusively out of colored laundry lint. The fluffy masterpiece measures 14 feet long by 4 feet tall.

The amateur artist from Roscommon, Michigan, was inspired to create this amazing artwork 10 years ago, when she saw a laundry lint portrait at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Wisconsin Dells Odditorium. In 2009, encouraged by her husband, Laura began working on her one-of-kind replica of The Last Supper, for the 2010 Art Prize competition, held in Grand Rapids.

As you can imagine, making a painting from laundry lint couldn’t have been easy. Laura Bell spent seven months just collecting the laundry lint she needed for her special project. The lint she collected from her own dryer was always the same color, so she tried laundramat lint, but that always had shades of gray. Eventually, she ended up buying different color towels and washing and drying them separately, to get just the right colors for her masterpiece.

Laura estimates she spent 700-800 hours just doing laundry to collect the needed material, plus another 200 hours putting it together in her unusual replica of The Last Supper. The artist says most people who see it are amazed it was created out of basic laundry lint that hasn’t been colored or dyed, while for some, seeing such a unique work of art is a spiritual experience.

Laura Bell’s The Last Supper made from lint was recently acquired by Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, and will soon find its place in one of the company’s 32 odditoriums around the world.

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