The Komondor is undoubtedly one of the oldest and most unique-looking dog breeds in the world. It was mentioned for the first time in the Code of Hammurabi (a set of laws created by the Babylonian king Hammurabi around 1750 BC). However, the Komondor is nowadays considered Hungary’s traditional dog.

The first thing you’ll notice about these dogs is their resemblance to giant mops: indeed, their 2000-cord coat alone weighs around 15 pounds (30 kilos) and they are approximately three feet tall (a bit over 90 centimeters). The Komondor’s cords develop during its first two years of life and their length increases with time, as the coat grows. Thankfully, the dog doesn’t need brushing, but you do have to separate the cords, which may take a while, as they tend to get tangled. If the dog’s natural look is maintained, which means letting its corded coat grow long, you’ll be able to notice its distinctive rectangular shape. These adorable leaving mops were used as livestock guard dogs, and with their corded coat acting as camouflage they were especially useful for guarding sheep. The Komondor breed is believed to have been so efficient at its task that it nearly wiped out all Hungary’s wolf population.

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Robert – a grandfather from Kentucky, is living proof that it’s never too late to start exercising and get fit. He started working out intensely at the age of 56 when he was overweight and unable to walk without a cane. Now, he’s got amazingly toned muscles and and is in the best shape of his life.

“At 56 years old, I was overweight, couldn’t really walk, had braces and was walking on canes and walkers. I wasn’t really happy with my life and the way things was going,” Robert explains. He decided to change all of this so he joined a gym despite everyone being very skeptical of his abilities. The man was very determined to prove everyone wrong and went to the gym regularly. But it wasn’t until he discovered a group of training enthusiasts on YouTube – who exercise anywhere, without using any kind of specialized equipment – that his passion for training really took off. “I discovered calisthenics watching BarStarzz on YouTube about a year and a half ago and I decided I would give it a whirl and fell in love with it,” the ripped grandfather says. This type of exercise can be done anywhere and is incredibly good for improving flexibility and strength.

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In 2010, Danish freediver Stig Severinsen  jumped into a pool filled with sharks and held his breath for 20 minutes and 10 seconds, breaking the previous Guinness World Record for the longest time breath held voluntarily. Two years later, the fearless Stig did it again, somehow breaking his own remarkable record by holding his breath for a staggering 22 minutes. If there’s such a thing as a real-life Aquaman, it’s this guy.

Severinsen – who has a Ph. D. in medicine and a master’s degree in biology, is known for participating in the most extreme challenges, including swimming in freezing water. Before setting his first breath holding world record, he swam 236 feet – about 72 meters (14.5 more meters than Wim Hof, the previous record holder), in the below-zero waters of the North Sea. After taking a few breaths of air, he dived feet first through a hole carved in the ice. As soon as he was in the water, he started swimming to the next hole wearing only in his signature blue Speedos. The triangle-shaped hole was 72 meters away and there wasn’t another escape route mid-way, which made the challenge extremely dangerous. After reaching his destination in just 96 seconds, the 40-year-old daredevil lingered in the freezing hole a little longer, as if to prove the cold didn’t affect him very much. You’d think that after swimming that distance in heart-stopping water he immediately jumped out to find some warm clothes, but our hero just stood there with his elbows on the ice, smiling and thanking everyone as if he was in a hot tub or somewhere in the Bahamas.

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Unsatisfied with her looks, Candice Armstrong, a former barmaid from London, started going to the gym and working out for three hours a day. After two years, Candice still wasn’t getting the results she wanted, so she began taking steroids and ultimately became addicted to them. Today, the young body-building enthusiast has virtually transformed into a man, with unusually broad shoulders, noticeable stubble and developing male sexual organs.

Candice, who suffers from body dysmorphia, has always been dissatisfied with her womanly looks, especially her upper body which she thought was too thin. “I hated my body. My hips and legs were too big and my arms and torso too skinny. I thought I was out of proportion and not attractive. I’d never had a proper relationship with a man,” Candice says. She soon found herself at the gym, lifting weights and doing push-ups to improve her physique, but after a couple of years of hard work, she still wasn’t ripped enough. Candice stepped up her game becoming obsessed with the way she looked and working out for three hours a day.  Without giving it too much thought, she also started taking daily doses of Trenbolone – a steroid normally used by veterinarians to increase muscle growth in animals. She thought the steroids would finally help her have the bulky upper-body she had always wanted. “After a year, everyone said I had Madonna arms but I wanted them bigger. I heard about steroids and bought them online,” she explains. “When I started taking them I trained very hard. It enabled me to build more muscle and I was making gains I could see.”

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Climbing on high walls, jumping between rooftops, doing handstands on the edge of skyscrapers and bridges, nothing seems too dangerous for Russian parkour enthusiasts Alexander Rusinov. After posting videos of his extreme stunts online, the 19-year-old has become an internet star in Russia and now has his sights set on the rest of Europe.

Hailing from the Russian city of Saratov, Alexander Rusinov started practicing parkour stunts after watching films like Yamakasi and seeing videos of other daredevils on the internet. He started training at children’s playgrounds and in the school gym until about a year ago when he decided to up his game by taking advantage of Saratov’s impressive architecture. He began doing handstands on bridges over the Volga River, hanging from the tall remains of Soviet industrial buildings, jumping between rooftops and climbing walls. He and his friends posted his most amazing feats online, and the world soon took notice. Rusinov quickly developed an impressive following of fellow parkour fans and even did interviews with the media. His fame spread throughout Russia and has recently crossed national borders, with some of his YouTube videos going viral in other European countries.

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If you live in Yelm, Washington, be very careful where you park your vehicle because Edward Smith may have sex with it. So  far, the 62-year-old car lover (pun intended) has bedded – in lack of a better word – 1,000 cars, which makes him the world’s most promiscuous mechaphile, a colloquial word used to describe people who love machines a little bit too much or who feel an insatiable sexual attraction to cars.

Smith claims he has never been attracted to a human being in his life and that his love for cars started way back in his childhood. He actually lost his virginity to a neighbor’s Volkswagen Beetle. He has had only one female girlfriend 12 years ago but never found it in him to consummate the relationship. In fact, his sexual experience with women began and ended with a one night stand in Seattle. Ever since he can remember, he felt attracted to cars. “When I turned 13 and the famous Corvette Stingray came about, that car was pure sex and just an incredible machine. I wanted it,” he explains. “I didn’t fully understand it myself except that I know I’m not hurting anyone and I do not intend to,” he adds. He’s now in an open relationship with a second-hand Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla, a 1973 Opel GT, called Cinnamon, and an 1193 Ford Ranger by the name of Splash, which he regularly takes for joy rides. However, his heart belongs to Vanilla for which he has real feelings. “When I hold Vanilla in my arms there’s a powerful energy that comes from her,” he says. “I would say it is extremely satisfying but at times a little melancholy because I know she cannot talk to me. But overall I know she feels what I feel and it’s intense. If anything was to happen to her I would be more than heartbroken.”

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Australian Andrew Hellinga recently set a new Guinness Record after riding his bicycle for 337km backwards in a 24 hour challenge to raise money for the poverty-stricken children of Zambia.

Hellinga started the marathon on October 7^th at 6 a.m. and made just one brief stop to mark the 182 km milestone that made him the new Guinness world record holder for the longest distance traveled while cycling backwards. “I had to stop for a quick rest and to share the excitement with my support crew,” he said. After a quick celebration, he continued this difficult challenge hoping to make it to 300km within the 24-hour limit. Not only did he pull through and reached the 300km milestone, but he cycled for another few dozen kilometers, covering a staggering distance of 337km.  After withstanding the ever-changing weather, he ended the lengthy ride with a smile on his face.

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Like most people concerned about their eating habits and trying to lose weight, Alex Fontaine, an award-winning businesswoman, had tried virtually every diet ever invented. From hypnotherapy, acupuncture to “a flotation tank with whale music – which was lovely, but still didn’t do the trick,” you name it, she had tried them all, but with no real results. There had been no way of stopping Alex from reaching into her desserts cabinet and devouring everything in sight, until a party where she had a strong aversion to the bad smelling food she was served. Having rediscovered her brain’s behavior of associating food with smell, Alex managed to create an odor so foul that will instantly make you lose your appetite. With her Stick Yourself Slim fragrance and her beloved Sally the Skunk always by her side, Alex lost 10 kg and now wants to share her weight-loss philosophy with the world.

As you probably already guessed, the key ingredient of this perfume is the foul stench! It works by using the cool ability our brain has of associating bad odors with food that has gone bad. Our hunter gatherer ancestors often used this ability to determine which fruits and meats were safe to eat. Although we no longer use our olfactory system to determine how fresh and edible a morsel is, odors still govern our food likes and dislikes as well as determine our cravings for meals without even being hungry. With this principle in mind, Alex believes that with bad smells we can train out brain to reject fattening foods by making them seem undesirable.

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The San Antonio prison on Venezuela’s Margarita Island is not your typical penal institution. Whilst in other penitentiaries the inmates are forced to obey strict regulations harshly imposed by armed guards, in this atypical slammer, it’s the prisoners who make the rules. From cooking their own food to watching TV, surfing the web on their laptops and managing illegal businesses on their cellphones, the San Antonio inmates are free to go about their day as they please. The only thing they can’t do is leave. Any attempt to escape can result in instant death courtesy of the sharpshooters up in the prison’s watchtowers. But thankfully, most of the prisoners are so happy here that a potential escape is the last thing on their minds.

At San Antonio, prisoners enjoy many privileges, have jobs and make real money. Some are barbers, some sell drugs while others manage the local cock fight club which generates a decent gambling revenue. There is even a guy who photoshops pictures of inmates leaning against a Hummer, using his own digital camera and laptop. Other lazy folk lie around in their air conditioned cells watching TV in the company of their wives or girlfriends who are free to come and go as they please. To the men’s satisfaction, a 54-unit women’s annex was built in 2009 which naturally caused the number of romantic liaisons between inmates to increase. The inmates’ children can also use the prison as a playground and spend the day swimming in one of the prison’s four pools. On weekends, the prison is even open for any visitors who want to have a good time of excess and depravity in its Reggaetón clubs. This really is a prison unlike any other.

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Few cereals can be described as stunningly beautiful, but the multi-colored Glass Gem Corn is definitely one of these rare exceptions. Also known as Rainbow Corn, these unique strain of corn features kernels of many different colors that sparkle like tiny pieces of blown glass.

The story of Glass Gem corn began with Carl Barnes, a part-Cherokee farmer from Oklahoma who noticed that every once in a while some of his corn cobs had strangely-colored kernels, and dedicated his life to creating the agricultural wonder you see below. Nobody knows exactly how many years Barnes spent worked on the unique cereal, how many successive seasons he carefully chose, saved, and replanted these special seeds, but one thing is for sure – his painstaking efforts had a truly mind-blowing result, a new breed of corn that most people consider a work of art rather than a cereal.

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When the economy is in the toilet and employment rates are going down, some patriots concerned about their country’s welfare adopt various strategies to tackle the undesirable situation. One French documentary-maker named Benjamin Carle is currently staging a nine-month “economic patriotism” experiment by eating only French food and using French-made products exclusively.

Carle says he was inspired to start his experiment after seeing France’s minister for industrial renewal, Arnaud Montebour, in a Breton shirt on the cover of Le Parisien magazine as a sign of supporting the French industry by purchasing items made in France. Although not particularly patriotic, the young documentary-maker agreed to participate in the “Monsieur Made-in-France” television program in an attempt to inspire others and together raise employment rates in their country. As a journalist, he was intrigued but what seemed to be a great idea at first proved to be a hassle considering that most of his furniture and other household items such as the fridge, washing machine and furniture were all foreign and had to be discarded. He also had to give up some of his favorite clothes because they had been ordered from English or American websites. Moreover, he indulged in eating various kinds of exotic fruits and vegetables, regardless of the season, and enjoyed drinking his morning cup of coffee, pleasures he had to renounce for the whole nine months. Even his favorite music, by artists like David Bowie, Radiohead and The Smiths was replaced with French hits, and instead of Hollywood blockbusters Benjamin began watching French movies.  After eliminating all things not French, his small but expensive Parisian apartment contained only a chair, a table and Loon the cat, thankfully born in France but named after The Who’s British drummer Keith Moon “the Loon”.

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Who would win in a fight between a man and a tiger? What about a man, a tiger and a chicken? The elusive question has now been answered thanks to some curious visitors of the Changsha Ecological Zoo who played tug of war with caged tigers using live chickens.

According to the zoo staff, when lying around with nothing to do and having food served to them, zoo animals often become lazy, overweight and even lose interest in any kind of physical or intellectual stimulation. They came up with a very interesting but controversial way of keeping the animals in shape through tug of war games. The game is as simple as it gets: the visitors pull at one end of a rope and at the other, the tiger bites and pulls at a hessian bag with a live chicken inside. The chicken is an added bonus meant to engage the tiger’s interest and keep him on his toes. Apart from training the animals, the game was designed as a mean of entertainment for the upcoming National Day Holiday. For 45 yuan ($7), anyone can play and it seems there are many courageous folks willing to measure their strength against the powerful beasts. So far, the tigers are in the lead, winning most of the tug of war games, with one 4 year old Siberian tiger demonstrating his muscle superiority by tackling 7 men at the same time.

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The beautiful three-story French Baroque-style house at Chaonei No. 81 is a well-known anomaly of Beijing. Small courtyard properties in this area of China’s capital city sell for millions of dollars, and yet this once lavish mansion lies in a state of decay. The reason no one will go near it? Fear of ghosts and death.

Local legend has it this amazing mansion was built by the Qing imperial family as a church for British residents of Beijing. In 1949, when the Communists had just defeated the Nationalists and were making their way into the city, the high-ranking Kuomintang official living in the house at the time abandoned his wife, leaving her to face the Communists all by her safe. Devastated, she allegedly hung herself from the rafters of their impressive home. Many believe her troubled spirit has been haunting the place ever since, and few dare venture inside by themselves, especially during the night. The once luxurious mansion is now a dilapidated shadow of its former self, covered with graffiti warning daredevils to stay away and full of empty alcohol bottles and cigarette buts. Despite its location in the center of Beijing, where prices for small properties are in the millions, there are currently no plans to do anything with this particular building. Ghost stories keep potential tenants away, and the building is now on a historic preservation list so it can’t be torn down, just renovated. So everyone seems to be waiting for it crumble on its own.

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Denis Cyplenkov is a Ukrainian strongman and arm wrestling champion known not only for his incredible strength, but also for his unusually large palms. Let’s just say fictional characters like the Hulk or Shrek would be jealous of this guy’s hands.

31-year-old Denis Cyplenkov was born in Krivoy Rog, Ukraine, where he attended various sports clubs during his childhood and teenage years. He trained in kettlebell lifting for a few years and had great results in a number of competitive events, before becoming one of the world’s best arm wrestlers. He won the Nemiroff World Cup in 2010 and 2011 and holds several Russian Arm Wrestling Champion titles. On his website, Cyplenkov claims he also holds records for the biggest biceps in Russia (64 cm in circumference) and the strongest man in Russia. At 186 cm in height and 140 kg of pure muscle, Denis Cyplenkov has quite an impressive physique, but his most incredible assets are his abnormally thick hands. As you can see in the photos below, his pinkie is easily twice as thick as most people’s thumb, not to mention his other fingers. His wrists are also a whopping 24 cm in circumference, which partly explains his successful arm wrestling career. The guy must have some grip strength.

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Japanese music group AKB48 currently holds the Guinness record for the world’s largest pop group, with an impressive 88 female members split into various teams. But fitting all the girls on a single stage is tricky, so every time they launch a new single, AKB48 members hold a knockout rock-paper-scissors tournament to select a limited number of singers.

AKB48 is the brainchild of producer Yasushi Akimoto, who wanted to create a girl band that, unlike other pop groups who are mostly seen on TV and hold concerts sporadically, could perform for its fans live, every day, at their own theater. The band debuted in 2005 with 20 members chosen from almost 8,000 girls. In April of 2006, another group of 18 girls were chosen to form Team B of AKB48, and there are currently four different teams making up the 88-strong all-female idol group, as well as various sister groups Japan and various Asian countries. The team concept of AKB48 was meant to take load off of its members, since daily concerts at the group’s theater in Akibahara, Tokyo, are performed by only one of the teams, and also allow the others to make appearances at different locations around the world. In the eight years since its inception, AKB48 has become a social phenomenon, with record sales of $226 million in Japan alone. The girls have become so popular that tickets for their daily performances are not even sold anymore, but distributed by lottery. Even their unique rock-paper-scissors tournament to select lead singers for each new single is a sold-out event held at the giant Nippon Budokan arena.

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