48-year-old Jimmy De Frenne, from Belgium, recently set a new world record for the longest time spent sitting on a toilet, after spending five days on a toilet bowl in a bar.

After breaking the world record for the longest time spent ironing non-stop (82 hours) in 2016, Jimmy De Frenne recently set his sights on another bizarre world record attempt – the longest time spent sitting on a toilet bowl. There was no official record to break as Guinness World Records had no such category, but De Frenne had heard of a man who had allegedly spent 100 hours sitting on a “throne” and thought he could do better. He set himself a goal of 168 hours and spent almost five days last week sitting on a toilet bowl at Filip’s Place bar in Ostend, but had to quit after only 116 hours as his body just couldn’t handle it anymore.

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An Emirati entrepreneur and inventor has been working on an ambitious project that involves towing a giant iceberg all the way from Antarctica to the Arabian Gulf in order to provide fresh drinking water for the UAE.

Because of its arid climate, the United Arab Emirates doesn’t have too many options when it comes to water sources. In fact , the Arab country relies heavily on desalinated water, which is not only expensive to obtain but very harmful to the environment. But businessman Abdulla Alshehi thinks he may have found a much better, albeit unconventional alternative. For the last six years he has been working on a plan to tow a 2km x 500m iceberg from Antarctica and use modern technology to tow it 5,500 miles to the Arabian Gulf. The floating block of ice would not only provide drinking water for millions of people, but also determine positive weather changes in the region.

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A Maryland man trying to raise awareness about the confusing nature of expiration dates on consumer products ate expired food for a whole year and lived to tell the tale.

Scott Nash got the idea for his unusual experiment began three years ago, when he did something most of us wouldn’t even consider – he ate a yogurt that was six months past his expiration date. The “staunch environmentalist” and owner of MOM’s Organic Market, a D.C.-are grocery store chain, had forgotten the yogurt in the fridge of his old cabin in Virginia in the Spring and only found it again when returned in the Fall. By that time it was already half a year past its expiration date, but that didn’t stop him from mixing it with his smoothie and chugging it down. It didn’t taste funny and he didn’t experience any health problems after consuming it. That got him thinking about the way companies use expiration dates nowadays.

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In an effort to promote sustainable agriculture, Irish as agency Rothco teamed up with German artist Diana Scherer to create The Book That Grew – a 22-page tome created by manipulating the roots of living plants to grow in the shape of letters and diagrams.

We wrote about plant root manipulation for artistic purposes in the past, but this is probably the most ambitious and impressive such project we’ve ever come across. All elements of The Book That Grew, including the ink and binding, were made from grass to show farmer just how powerful a resource it can be, when managed properly. That’s actually the main point of the book, which contains 10 simple yet valuable lessons designed to help maximize sustainability of one of the most valuable agricultural resources, grass. And what better to convey the message to farmers than in the form of an all-organic book grown from that very grass.

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A 33-year-old law-school graduate from London decided to start her own her own retail company selling vintage clothes online after struggling to find a job because of her good looks.

Russian-born Irina Kova claims that being attractive has made it harder for her to get a job in London, as women simply don’t trust her or find her intimidating, and men don’t take her seriously. Kova, who used to work in business development for important clients, believes her good looks ruined her career and made it harder to find another serious job, despite having a law-degree and an impressive CV.

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The last thing you’d expect to find in the center of a Vietnamese rural district is a spectacular European-style palace, complete with a gilded roof, stunning facade and intricately decorated walls, and yet that’s exactly the sight you’re treated to in the heart of Gia Vien, in Vietnam’s Ninh Binh province.

I know what you’re thinking, Vietnam was a French colony for more than six decades, so this European-looking marvel must be a well-preserved relic from that period. But Thanh Thang Palace has nothing to do with French colonialism or Vietnamese history in general. This opulent complex is merely the residence of a local billionaire who reportedly spent between 300 and 400 billion dong ($12 – $17 million) to fulfil his dream of living in an actual palace. While the interior has yet to be completed, the outside is finished and it looks absolutely stunning.

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A young woman from Taiwan who had been using her smartphone at maximum screen brightness for two years ended up with serious damage to her left eye, including around 500 small holes on her cornea.

The 25-year-old woman, surnamed Chen, works as a secretary, a job that requires her to frequently check her phone and respond to work-related messages as soon as possible. A few years ago, Chen discovered that by setting the screen brightness on her smartphone to maximum, she was able to easily read her messages even in bright sunlight. Her mistake was keeping that brightness level at all times, even when watching her favorite drama series on her phone for several hours at a time, with the light off. She got used to her ultra-bright screen, but her eyes did not, and in March of last year she started experiencing discomfort.

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Vishweshwar Dutt Saklani took his last breath on January 18, 2019, but he will live on in the memory of his countrymen as the “Tree Man of Uttarakhan”, a dedicated conservationist who planted over 50 lakh (5 million) trees and turned his once barren homeland into a lush forest.

Saklani had been fond of trees all his life. He planted his first sapling when he was eight years old under his uncle’s guidance, and kept at it for the next seven decades of his life, until he lost his sight and succumbed to the hardships of old age. However, by that time, the once barren hills in and around his native village of Pujargaon had already become home to a lush forest. Vishweshwar Dutt Saklani’s love for trees is well known, as he often used to call them his children or his closest companions, but few know that the legendary conservationist planted millions of trees to cope with the tragedies in his life.

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Xiao Wang was only 17 years old when he decided to sell one of his kidneys in order to buy the iPhone 4 he couldn’t otherwise afford. After the operation Wang was told he was going to have a normal life with just one kidney, but almost eight years on, the 24-year-old is permanently disabled and dependent on dialysis.

Back in 2011, the iPhone 4 was Apple’s flagship smartphone and a status symbol at Xiao Wang’s school in Chengzhou, China. However, he came from a poor family who couldn’t afford to buy him the trendy gadget, so he decided to sell one of his healthy organs in order to get his hands on enough money to buy the coveted device. With help from a middleman, Wang got in touch with shady characters who specialized in trading organs on the black market and agreed to sell one of his kidneys for 22,000 yuan ($3,200), more than enough to buy the iPhone 4 he so badly desired. Unfortunately, this foolish decision would completely ruin his life.

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Jaroslav Bobrowski, a young Ironman triathlete from Germany, was recently banned by an-all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant for eating around 100 plates of food, something the owner considered “not normal” and very bad for business.

30-year-old Bobrowski works as a software engineer, but also trains for Ironman triathlons and is on a special diet where he doesn’t eat anything for 20 hours a day and then eats until he is full. Last weekend, he and his girlfriend stopped at the Running Sushi all-you-can-eat restaurant in Landshut, Bavaria, where he paid the fixed price of €15.90 and spent about an hour and a half stuffing himself with around 100 plates of sushi. At one point, waiters just stopped clearing his table of plates and when he finally finished, the former bodybuilder was told that he wasn’t welcome anymore.

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Armyansk, a city on the Russian-occupied Crimea Peninsula, has been left without any kind of birds after a mysterious chemical incident at the nearby Crimean Titan plant.

On August 23 – 24, an unknown substance spewed into the atmosphere, covering everything in a rust-like plaque and emanating a foul odor. Social media was buzzing with reports and photos of houses, cars and even plants covered in the mysterious substance, but occupation authorities ignored them for several days. At first, people started noticing that, apart from the occasional crow, there were no more birds in Armyansk, but then things got progressively worse. More and more residents of the Crimean city began experiencing breathing problems, but local authorities and the media completely ignored them.

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As human beings, one of the things we often overlook in our daily lives is physical touch; without it, we can fall into depression and a number of other mental health problems. To fulfill this need, a mother of 3 from Australia’s Gold Coast has become a “cuddle therapist”, and currently makes around $58,000 a year hugging people.

Jessica O’Neill claims that her hugs can help those who are suffering from loneliness, depression, or low self confidence. She didn’t get into this strange career overnight. Originally, Jessica was a massage therapist and counselor, quite ordinary professions. She noticed that when she hugged her clients during sessions, they dropped their guards and opened up to her more.

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Do you think you could make do with just a Mason jar instead of your trash can? It’s highly unlikely, but a Canadian woman has managed to do just that. After seeing the huge amount of plastic waste in her son’s lunch, Tippi Thole decided to make a drastic change. While she already recycled and composted most of her trash, she knew that she could do much better.

Tippi and her son are now focused on living a more sustainable life in order to help the environment, and to that end, she has replaced their old 10-gallon trash can with a 5-inch Mason jar. You may think this means she’s started to recycle more, but actually, the opposite is true.

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A Chinese man who drove his expensive Land Rover SUV into a river in order to save 20 yuan ($3) on a car wash, recently learned the hard way that sometimes being too cheap can cost you a lot more than you were trying to save.

According to a report from the Fire Services Department in Dujiangyan, China’s Sichuan Province, last week, a local man had to be rescued from a nearby river after driving his Land Rover SUV into the water to wash it and getting stranded on a small islet. The man told rescuers that he simply wanted to wash his car so he wouldn’t have to go to the car wash and pay the 20 yuan fee, but he didn’t expect the flood gates of an upstream dam to be opened causing the water level to rise almost instantly.

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A 23-year-old woman from Khalapur, India, is risking the death penalty for poisoning the food at a relative’s housewarming party in an attempt to kill attendees who made fun of her dark completion and cooking skills.

Police in Khalapur claim that 23-year-old Pradnya Survase confessed to mixing snake poison into the dal served to some of the guests at a feast hosted by one of her relatives. She was trying to kill her husband and some of her in-laws, who she says had been mocking her dark skin and cooking skills for years. Unfortunately, poison doesn’t discriminate, and her assassination attempt put 88 people in the hospital, five of whom eventually lost their lives.

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