We originally featured the amazing ballpoint pen drawings of Portuguese artist Samuel Silva back in 2021, but he has been buys over the last eight years, and I though we’d take a look at what he’s been up to.

Looking at some of Silva’s incredibly realistic artworks, it’s clear why many consider him the no. 1 ballpoint pen artist in the world. The photo-like level of detail in his masterpieces is simply uncanny, making it hard to believe that he is a self-taught artist who never went to art school. He started drawing when he was 2-years-old, and developed his own style and technique by creating “simple classroom sketches in the back of exercise books”. A lawyer by by training, Samuel Silva doesn’t create new works as often as other artists, but when he does, you better believe it’s something special.

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A Filipino father came up with an ingenious way of keeping his young boy in the house during the recently issued lockdown due to the rapidly spreading Covid-19 pandemic.

The novel coronavirus continues to spread around the world, and the Philippines is no exception. As in most other places, the Government has enforced a social distancing program that requires citizens to isolate themselves in their own homes and go out as little as possible. However, enforcing this type of lockdown isn’t as simple as you might think, especially when dealing with young children used to spending most if their time playing outside with their friends. But, to their credit, some parents are coming up with some creative solutions…

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40-year-old Pepper Apollo has been fascinated with snails ever since she saw some outside her workplace, 10 years ago. Today she is a self-described “crazy snail lady” with 150 shelled gastropods in her care.

When I first saw a short video documentary on Pepper Apollo and her pet snails, I though it was just a gimmick to promote her online presence. Yes, that kind of thing happens quite a lot these days, and it usually involves wannabe Instagram influencers looking to grow their following, but it’s definitely not Pepper’s case. The UK-based woman is genuinely fascinated with snails and that becomes obvious when browsing her social media profiles. Her Facebook profile picture is a doctored version of the Mona Lisa where the protagonist’s head was replaced with that of a snail, her handle is always some variation of “crazy snail lady”, and she seems to only post about snails.

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Only slightly larger that the insect it’s named after, the Bee Hummingbird weighs no more than two grams and lays eggs roughly the size of coffee beans. It is officially the world’s tiniest bird.

Found only in Cuba, the Bee Hummingbird is extremely small even for a hummingbird, so much so that people often mistake it for an actual bee when they see it hovering over flowers. But this tiny flier not only looks like an insect, it also competes against them for resources. It is the result of a phenomenon scientists call “island dwarfism”, where certain species have problems competing against larger species for resources, so they get smaller and smaller over evolutionary time to avoid running out of food and start competing against other categories of organisms.

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We’ve featured our share of famous internet felines, from grumpy cats, to incredibly beautiful fur balls, but we never really posted about scary-looking felines. That ends today, with Xherdan, the scariest-looking sphinx you’ve ever seen.

The phrase “a face only a mother could love” is usually used maliciously, but in the case of Xherdan, a bald, wrinkly and evil-looking cat, it couldn’t be more true, And his mother, 47-year-old Sandra Filippi, from the Swiss town of Rüti, does indeed love him very much and claims that despite his scary look, he is a sweet pet who loves to sleep and interact with his human owners. She claims that although most people are indeed a bit scared the first time they see Xherdan, they eventually grow to like him after seeing how playful and friendly he really is.

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In a time when washing your hands as often as possible can literally make the difference between life an death, hiding sexy anime babes in bars of acrylic soap suddenly doesn’t seem kinky at all…

If the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic isn’t enough to scare you into washing your hands more often, maybe this otaku soap will. Aimed at dudes who fantasize about hot anime girls, this clever hygiene product contains a small standee depicting female protagonists of popular mobile video game Arknights concealing their “assets”. What really makes the soap bars special is that they only reveal their secret the more you use them. So if you want to see the heroines in all their glory, you have to go through the entire bar of soap. What better excuse to keep the coronavirus off of your hands and body?

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Samia Al Homsi Dagher, a software engineer and illustrator from Lebanon, has made a name for herself by creating stunningly realistic ballpoint pen portraits. From celebrities to commission portraits of everyday people, this talented artist’s artworks are sometimes hard to tell apart from photographs.

Born in 1987, the Tripoli-based artist started drawing when she was only five years old, and as you can see from the images below, she has gotten a lot better since. She is now considered one of the world’s best ballpoint pen illustrators, and it’s not hard to see why. The attention to detail, the precision of every stroke and dot, the perfect proportions of various facial features, all come together to form drawings that are sometimes indistinguishable from photographs.

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The Indian city of Bangalore is home to one of the most lavish, over-the-top luxury mansions in the world – a replica of the White House built atop a skyscraper.

Vijay Mallya, the chairman of United Breweries Group, has always been one of India’s most flamboyant tycoons, but in 2010, when he announced plans to have a mansion modelled after the White House built atop a luxury skyscraper in Bangalore, people thought it was too much, even for him. He didn’t let that deter him from building his dream home, and by 2016, his mansion atop Kingfisher Tower in the heart of Bangalore City was taking shape. Unfortunately, by that time his financial woes were the talk of India, and it wasn’t long before he fled the country for the UK, leaving his dream home unfinished.

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Men usually show off their affection to their better halves by buying them flowers, complimenting them or showering them with gifts, but one Vietnamese man decided to show off his love for his fiancee in a rather unusual way – by tattoing a large portrait of her on his back.

22-year-old Truong Van Lam allegedly spent nearly 24 hours having his girlfriend’s portrait inked on his back, in three separate sessions. The first one, which lasted eight hours, was in November of last year, and sine then he went under the needle two more times, one for over six hours, and the other nine hours. The result is a permanent portrait of his 20-year-old girlfriend, Luong Kha Tran, a tattooed version of a photograph of her.

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An English businessman is allegedly in a “blind panic” after contacting coronavirus, but he’s worried less about his health than about the circumstances in which he contacted the novel virus.

The unnamed man, who is reportedly in his late 30s, had told his wife that he was going on a business trip within the UK, when he really set off to Italy on a romantic vacation with his mistress. His deceit was perfect, but the only thing he couldn’t plan for was the coronavirus epidemic in Italy. When he returned home, he started exhibiting symptoms of Covid-19, and tests confirmed that he had indeed been infected. He told his wife that he was infected domestically, but is concerned that his extramarital affair may be exposed.

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When it comes to making bread that’s almost too good to eat, few bakers even come close to Hannah P, a North Carolina food artist who has taken Instagram by storm with her intricate bread designs.

From loaves of bred decorated with plant-inspired designs hand-carved into the dough, to pastry creations adorned with colorful fruits and vegetables, Hannah P.’s works are nothing if not eye-catching. Using a razor blade attached to a kitchen utensil the name of which escapes me, the artist posting on Instagram under the name “Blondie + Rye” takes bread art to a level that I for one have not seen before. Sure, there are lost of talented bread artists showcasing their creations online these, days but Hannah is definitely one of the most talented ones, if not the best.

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Photos of hunters struggling to lift up a giant wolf they had shot so they can pose with it have been doing the rounds on social media this week.

The incredibly large animal was reportedly shot near the village of Aleksandrovka, in Blagoveshchensk district, the autonomous Republic of Bashkortostan, where packs of wolves had recently started terrorizing residents. Interestingly, locals say that wolves had not been seen in the area four over four decades, but they recently turned up this winter, and had not shied away from entering human settlements. Several dogs have been found torn to pieces in recent weeks, and around twenty cows and sheep and horses have been eaten by the wolves. To make matters worse, guard dogs have apparently stopped barking to alert people about approaching wolves.

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Saudi Arabia state-owned oil company, Aramco, has been forced to apologize for using one of its employees as a human stand for a hand sanitizing gel dispenser.

The oil giant attracted severe criticism this week after photos of one of its employees wearing a body suit with a hand sanitizer attached and a medical mask on his face started circulating on social media. The foreign employee can be seen standing as a virtual stand, as other employees use the gel dispenser he’s carrying. Although the intention may have been to raise awareness of the importance of cleaning your hands using sanitizer during the current Covid-19 pandemic, the humiliating role was harshly criticized.

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A young Canadian man who tattooed most of his body, including his face, hands and legs bright blue, claims that the “whimsical element” has really helped him enjoy his life way more than before.

Donnie Snider, a former forklift driver from Scarborough, in Canada’s Ontario region, started permanently coloring his body blue three years ago, and is now almost completely Smurf-like in color. It all started when he asked his sister to tattoo a part of his leg and foot with the bright blue hue; he liked it so much that he kept on turning part of his body blue, partly because of the psychological impact he experienced. If before he felt  trapped by conformity and had a “lack of confidence”, the permanent makeover really gave him a big boost.

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A French woman is facing up to 10 years in prison and a hefty fine of up to 150,000 euros ($170,000) for remarrying her ex-husband without his knowledge, in order to prevent him from moving on with his life.

The unnamed woman, who worked as a high-ranking judge in Hauts-de-Seine, France’s Ile-de-France region, reportedly decided to take revenge on her ex-husband, after he had left her for another woman. To add insult to injury, the woman had been dumped for the sister of a French minister that she herself had worked as a judicial adviser for. Her bizarre plan involved remarrying her husband without his knowledge or consent, so as to prevent him from moving on with his life alongside his new partner.

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