Believe it or not, the Japanese use fish for something else than sushi. Take Iori Tomita, a former fisherman who now creates creepy works of art from various dead marine specimens.

28-year-old Iori Tomita uses scientific techniques of preserving and dyeing to transform dead fish into brightly-colored glowing pieces of art. The former fisherman applies over 10 different chemicals to each specimen, which break down the muscle proteins, making it transparent and revealing the skeleton. He then uses red and blue dyes to highlight the hard and soft cartilage. It sounds easy enough, but it’s really a complex eight-stage process which takes Tomita three months to a year to complete, depending on the size of the animals he’s trying to turn into morbid works of art.

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It’s not every day that you get to have your mind blown by a phenomenal piece of art, but today is one of those rare days. Feast your opticals on this unique portrait made by Chuck Close using only his fingerprints.

Entitled Fanny/Fingerpainting, this giant portrait was created in 1985, and depicts the artists’s wife’s late grandmother, Fanny. The oil on canvas artwork was executed using a technique developed by Close himself which involves the direct application of pigment to a surface, with his fingerprints. By adjusting the amount of pigment used and the pressure applied on the canvas with his fingers, Chuck Close managed to capture every crack and crevice of the subject’s face, just like a high-definition silver-toned photograph.

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Parents Let 5-Year-Old Daughter Swim with Sharks (YouTube)

Talking Urinals to Help Save Drunk Drivers (FOX News)

The 10 Most Incredible JFK Assassination Theories (Environmental Graffiti)

Sumo Becoming Popular on the Australian Gold Coast (Big Pond News)

A Grown Man’s Awkward Conversation with His 12-Year-Old Self (YouTube)

America’s Most Over-the-Top Burgers (MSNBC)

Swamp Soccer Championship Kicks Off in China (Metro)

FLIP – The One-of-a-Kind Vessel That Can Float Vertically (Laughing Squid)

Insane Feats at India’s Rural Olympics (Environmental Graffiti)

Breathtaking Cliff Diving Championship Held in Norway (The Telegraph)

Tian Hao, a Chinese hair-stylist, from Xi’an, Shanxi Province, has recently made news headlines with his unique method of cutting hair. With his eyes shut, Tian claims to use Zen meditation to “feel” the aura of his customers’ hair and trim it without chopping bits of scalp.

Until now, I thought using an open flame was the most extreme way of styling hair, but after reading about Tian Hao’s technique, my opinion has changed. This Chinese master keeps his eyes closed while wielding two sharp scissors and unleashes his hair-cutting talents on live subjects who actually pay a fortune for his service. To demonstrate his unusual skill, Tian recently made a demonstration at his salon in Xi’an, where he cut two models’ hair at the same time, without chopping their scalps off. In fact, the beggar-looking hairdresser says he hasn’t had an accident with the scissors yet.

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Pinpin Co, a Chinese artist raised in Japan, uses a simple gel ink pen to turn her subjects’ faces into temporary works of art that are then washed away in a few seconds.

You’ve probably seen impressive body painting before, but what Pinpin Co does is truly unique. Using an 0.38mm gel ink pen, the young artist spends around five hours drawing on people’s faces, creating fascinating artworks that often capture physical or mental scars that each of them possesses. She is inspired by every person she uses as her canvas, their lives and experiences help Pin Pin create new and exciting works of art every time. “It often becomes a therapeutic process,” she told Japanese website Antenna7, in an interview, referring to the doctor-patient relationship that often develops between her and her subjects.

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I guess it’s true what they say, you can find anything on eBay, even a slightly used human soul. And while some of us wouldn’t sell our soul for all the money in the world, a woman from Albuquerque tried to give hers away for just $2,000.

It might sound like a stupid joke, or an-attention grabbing scheme, but the woman selling her soul, identified as Lori N., said her eBay ad is a cry for help. “I guess you could say that. I’m at the point now, I’m tired. I don’t feel good. I’m near the end of my rope. I really am,” she told WOAI. Up until five years ago, Lori was living a normal life and made a living as a freelance writer, but a serious car accident completely changed her life. She was a passenger in a car hit by a drunk driver, and the repercussions were dire. The poor woman was in a coma for three weeks, and woke up suffering from a stroke, a broken hip, broken pelvis, leg, collarbone, sternum, ribs, a collapsed lung. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she lost one of her breasts.

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While most people are trying to remove hair from their bodies, others are more than happy to put it on, in the form of fashionable dresses.

English hairdresser Jodie Breeds has recently created a dress made entirely from human hair, which was worn by Miss England finalist Holly Lyons on the catwalk of the beauty pageant. Jodie apparently came up with the idea for the dress while contemplating how to represent her hair-salon in the Miss England contest. “My business is about hair and beauty so I wanted to represent what we’re about here. So I designed a hair dress, I sketched out the design and my aunty, Margaret Jenner, who’s a dressmaker, made it. It took about six hours altogether,” the hairdresser said. The “blonde” dress was made from hair donated by the salon’s clients and about 10 rows of hair extensions.

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For centuries, Chinese arts and crafts have been known around the world for their incredible beauty and finesse. If I were to pick a single object that best describes the Chinese attention to detail it would surely be an ivory puzzle ball. It’s definitely one of the most incredible things I have ever seen.

Chinese puzzle balls are ornate decorative items that consist of several concentric spheres, each of which rotates freely, carved from the same piece of material. Although the master carvers of old used ivory, in modern times you can find puzzle balls made of synthetic ivory, resin, wood, jade, and other materials. These detailed works of art are usually made up of at least 3 to 7 layers, but the world’s largest puzzle ball is actually made of 42 concentric balls all enclosed one within the other. Although the inner balls can be manipulated to align all the holes, Chinese puzzle balls got their name from people who, through the ages, pondered the mystery of making such objects.

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26-year-old Lawrence Edmonds is a man with a taste for religion. In the last 13 months he has traveled 5,000 around England, licking 42 Anglican Cathedrals.

I know what you’re thinking, but Lawrence isn’t mad, at least not officially. This bizarre journey of his is the result of a bet two of his friends made at a pub, one night. Adam challenged Dan to lick every Anglican cathedral in the UK. If he agreed and failed to perform the task, Dan would have to run naked around the York Minster, but if he did do it in time, Adam would have to perform the streak. After talking with Dan and learning he had only licked Exeter Cathedral, he asked Adam if he could take the bet in Dan’s place. His friend accepted so he started traveling around England, taking photos of himself licking various holy cathedrals, and posting them all on a blog. So far he has put his tongue on 42 edifices, but recently discovered he has 20 more to go in order to win the bet.

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Can you imagine your life without plastic? That means no computer, no mobile phone. no car and a whole lot of other stuff we’ve come to consider basic necessities. It sounds a nearly impossible task, in this day and age, but a family in Austria has proven it can be done. Sandra Krautwaschl, from a village near Graz, Austria, has recently written a book called “Plastickfrei Zone” (Plastic-Free Zone) in which she tells the story of how she and her family started living a life without plastic.

It all began in the summer of 2009, when during a vacation in Croatia, Sandra was surprised how often her three children asked where all of the trash on the beach came from. This made her think harder about how plastic really affects our world. Although recycling works very well in Austria, it’s not as effective in other parts of the world, so the petroleum-made material ends up clogging up landfills and polluting the environment. The 40-year-old physical therapist realized that as long as we keep buying products made of or wrapped in plastic, we’re just contributing to the problem. Then, shortly after she returned from Croatia, Sandra saw the documentary “Plastic Planet”, and learned how toxic plastic is for our planet.

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NOAH: The Inner City Zoo is a Japanese pet shop condemned by animal activists for caging and selling penguins, meerkats, alligators, monkeys and other exotic animals.

Located in a cramped room, on the second floor of an office building in Yokohama, NOAH: The Inner City Zoo is hardly the kind of place you’d think of keeping exotic animals. But ever since 1999, NOAH (Nature Orientated Animal House) has been the go-to source for all kinds of unusual pets, from alligators to otters and cranes. Many of them are endangered in their natural habitats, but that doesn’t seem to raise any red flags with Japanese animal protection authorities, and neither does the fact they are all being kept in tiny cages, with barely enough space to move around. The controversial pet shop’s clientele also seems to ignore the improper conditions, and spends thousands of dollars on unique pets.

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Zhang Lianzhi, a 50-year-old porcelain collector from Tianjin, China, has spent four years decorating an old house with hundreds of millions of ancient porcelain fragments and tons of natural crystals. It’s now known as the Porcelain House or Yuebao House.

The Porcelain House of Tianjin opened its gates to the public on September 2nd, 2007, onChifeng Street in Heping District. The old French-style building has a history of over 100 years. It was originally the home of a central finance minister in the late Qing dynasty, and was later converted into a bank, after the founding of New China, in 1949. But after the bank changed its location, the beautiful building was left deserted for several years, until porcelain collector Zhang Lianzhi bought it for 1 million yuan ($160,000). He then spent the following four years turning it into a unique edifice, decorated with porcelain dating from the Tang (AD 618-907) to the Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. Now the Porcelain House is the most eye-catching building in Tianjin, and one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions.

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An Indie Argentinian publishing house has come up with an innovative concept, using disappearing ink that simply fades away in two months time.

Dubbed “El Libro que No Puede Esperar” (The Book That Can’t Wait), this interesting format was pioneered by independent Argentinian publishing house Eterna Cadencia, as a way to promote young authors, who “if people don’t read their first books, never make it to a second.” The intriguing books come sealed in a plastic wrapper, and once that is removed and the books cracked for the first time, the ink begins to age and in 60 days time readers are left with nothing but the covers and a bunch of blank pages. So if you want to get your money’s worth, you really can’t put one of these books down too often, after you’ve bought it.

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Minnesota-based artist Gregory Euclide creates amazing impermanent artworks in just 25 minutes, during the lunch breaks at the high-school where he teaches.

As unbelievable as this might sound, Gregory Euclide actually washes away the whiteboard masterpieces he draws every day, to make room for new ones. In an interview with Minnesota Original, the art instructor says his unusual habit of drawing on whiteboards started as a way to release stress after teaching 38 students an hour, five hours a day, for 8 months. He was beginning to feel a little restless so he decided to give himself 25 minutes every day to finish sketches he enjoyed drawing. He would use sumi ink, brushes, spray bottles, erasers, paper towels and pretty much anything else he could get his hands on around his desk.

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Visitors at the Busch Gardens Zoo, in Tampa Bay, Florida, are given the chance to test their strength against a mighty tiger, in a game of tug of war.

Zoos these days just aren’t what they used to be. Just last week, we had an article on Lujan Zoo, where guests are allowed to get in cages with all kinds of wild animals and pet them, and this week we have another one where people can play tug of war with tigers. Although the chances of beating a 450-pound Bengal tiger at tug of war are slim to none, there’s no shortage of human volunteers willing to test their muscles against the magnificent feline. The interactive zoo exhibit is called “Tiger Tug” and requires confident participants to grab on a thick rope, while the tiger facing them on the other side of two metal fences bites the other end. I’m not if the Bengal felines ever lost a game, but the humans seem to love it anyway.

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