China is the most populated country in the world, probably the most hard working country in the world and well on its way toward becoming the richest one as well. Considering how they’ve managed to achieve such a feat is considerably less fun than making snide remarks at their legendary knockoff business.

Millions of brands around the world saw their products replicated cheaply and brands like Mike, Abidas, iFone appeared from nowhere. Though still considerably involved in the replica production China has since come a long way. Just about every manufacturer on Earth has plants there and, more importantly, most of their products are being sold there as well. You’d imagine that once the Asian country got a real taste of proper products, started making some real money and was looking for what to spend it on, they’d forget about the cheap fakes right?Well, sort of, rather unusually, the Chinese have now acquired a taste for expensive fakes. A prime example would be the country’s richest village.

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Man has done his bit to improve various things around him and, in doing so, he’s even managed to improve himself. Maybe not directly, but they don’t say children are the future for no reason.

In 2010, Mark Zuckerberg went down in history as one of the youngest people ever to be deemed Times “Person of the Year” and is also one of the world’s youngest self made billionaire. This year, Sebastian Vettel went down in history as the youngest driver to ever win two consecutive Formula 1 titles alongside a large number of “world’s youngest” achievements he already has under his belt. All great stories, but when it comes to the world of business, these rich twenty-something year-old success stories have been rather outdone by the protagonist of this story. His name is Harli Jordean and he’s reached business success at just eight years of age.

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Trust me on this, that headline has absolutely nothing rock’n’roll about it . Weirdly enough, it’s actually true and you can even go on to experience it yourself, provided you’re willing to travel.

Travel a little or a lot rather depends on where you’re starting from as you’ll have to go to Georgia in order to live this out. Oh, and that’s not Georgia, the American state, but Georgia a small country that sits borderline between Europe and Asia. In this rather remote country, that’s seen it’s fair share of misfortune over the years for various political issues, economic and social pressures and so on, you’ll be able to find an unusual bastion of hope.

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The Korean Jeju islanders have something to be proud of – their grandmas are divers. It may seem surprising, but for the people of the island this has been a way of life for centuries now. This tradition, once a thriving profession that drove the economy of the land, is in fact, now fast deteriorating.

To understand more about the diving grandmothers, we need to go back a few hundred years in Korean history. Jeju Island lies around 53 miles to the south of mainland Korea. Given the geographical location, fishing has always been the major occupation of this Island. The surrounding waters are rich in exotic sea food like octopus, conch, abalone and urchin.

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Businesses would go any lengths to gain publicity. Even if it means attempting to beautify a crocodile. A day spa in Darwin, Australia has had its employees do just that.

As unbelievable as it may seem, this croc-makeover has happened for real. Or so the pictures suggest. The Parap Day Spa recently managed to acquire the saltwater creature from a crocodile research center in Darwin. According to the spa, their staff then spent hours exfoliating the crocodile, giving it a mani-pedi and a proper bikini wax. A few pictures reveal a limp crocodile surrounded by a bunch of enthusiastic women, attacking it with gloves, waxing strips and nail-polish.

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The relationship between a dog and its master has always been a special one, and is often depicted in books and films as well. Dogs tend to know things instinctively, and it’s no secret that a dog is possibly one of the best companions to human beings.

Time and again, we have heard stories of courage and love displayed by these furry four-legged creatures. One such story has emerged from a village in Eastern China. A story, where love and loyalty transcend even the barriers of death.

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La Pourcailhade is a festival dedicated to one of the most popularly eaten animal around the world, the pig. I’d like to mention that the Festival isn’t dedicated to pork as much as it is to the pig. There’s the usual “eat the most… to win” contest and a few barbecues go on but they’re far from being the main attractions at La Pourcailhade.

These would be the Best Pig Outfit competition, the “Cri do Cochon” and even the piglet race. The latter is self explanatory and it is made even more fun by betting on the side. It’s basically what the Koreans feel when going to the dog tracks.Where things during La Pourcailhade get even more interesting is in the Best Pig Outfit competition. It is also rather self explanatory but could you seriously imagine anything funnier than grown people walking around and showcasing their pig-like appearance? Especially French people, perceived as some of the coolest and snottiest people in the world.

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Mata Amritanandamayi Devi is a spiritual leader of a different kind. She doesn’t preach, she doesn’t ride around in a massive bullet proof Mercedes, she doesn’t sit atop a mountain and she’s really ruining the business for everybody else as she allows commoners to touch her. In fact, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi is such a spiritual person that when the occasional reference of a saint is attached to her name, nobody seems to mind.

Achieving this level of notoriety was, as you’d imagine, not easy, but not for reasons you might imagine. Amma, as she’s commonly refered to, is famous for having touched the lives of more than 20 million people.Unlike your average politician, Amma (which translates into English as “mother”) has gotten this far by offering each and every one of them a motherly hug. Unlike your average free hug mob situation, when Amma is in town nobody shies away from the proceedings.

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Erin Smith is a young Australian artist who deconstructs entire passages of text and uses the thousands of individual letters to create beautiful detailed artworks.

The 29-year-old from Queensland moved to Melbourne a few years back, to study graphic design, and has recently moved back to her home state. It turned out this wasn’t the right career for her, because “I find it difficult to sit in a chair inside for any period of time…and I’m hopeless at deadlines so I wasn’t very good.” But it was during her studies that her fascination with typography began. “A few years ago at university we were learning about typography, how different weights of a font can help create emphasis etc. About a year later, I was looking at the intricacy of the engracing of a smith and wesson pistol (on the computer, not my own) [and] I thought about this image in relation to typography then started using the computer to creat the image. I did a series of these for a project”

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You all know the soccer mom; it is a dominant sort of individual in the suburbs and easily noticeable at any PTA meeting or sporting day of any school.

This stands true pretty much everywhere, except St. Ignace, Michigan where soccer moms have managed to do something genuinely surprising.

Instead of sitting around yelling at the players at least twice as much as their coach, these proud parents have decided to join in on the action by, well, getting closer to the action.

Since the St. Ignace high school has no more than 215 students and pretty much none of the ones outside the team have any interest in the sport the football team was facing a serious disaster. They were facing every teenage jock’s nightmare as there were no cheerleaders to motivate them.

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Pamela Campagna and husband Thomas Scheiderbauer create intricate thread and nail portraits based on old family photographs.

It’s amazing how someone can recreate organic shapes so well from thousands of angles created with nails and thread. Designers Pamela Campagna and Thomas Scheiderbauer take up to a month to work on each of their complicated artworks, but the outcome is certainly worth the time they put in. After analyzing an old photo they begin hammering nails into the canvas until they come up with a pixelated outline of the artwork, after which they start connecting the dots with thread. That’s easier said than done, and looking at how clean yet detailed their portraits turn out, they must have a great deal of patience.

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Cool Batman Marriage Proposal (Metro)

World’s Most Expensive Cheese (IB Times)

7 Most Incredible Cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion (Environmental Graffiti)

Seven-Year-Old Girl Cries Stone Tears (The Indian)

Russian Woman Keeps Alien Body in Fridge, for Two Years (Daily Mail)

Heterochromia in People: The Beauty of Multi-Colored Eyes (Environmental Graffiti)

The Winners of Canstruction 2011 (Curbed)

Naked Santas Go For World Record in San Francisco (Huffington Post)

Illegal Injections Give Junk in the Trunk a Whole New Meaning (NBC Miami)

Nose Lights Aim to Ease Congestion (YouTube)

Karl Rabeder, the Austrian businessman who last year decided to give away his large fortune, because he realized money didn’t make him happy, now lives on just $1,350 a month.

It was one of the most shocking headlines of 2010. Karl Rabeder a millionaire from Telfs, Austria, announced he was in the process of selling his luxury properties and businesses because he had realized money is counterproductive and actually prevented him from being happy. His goal was to “have nothing left, absolutely nothing”. Mr Rabeder, who came from a poor family where the rules were to work more and achieve material things, confessed that for a long time he believed more wealth automatically brings more happiness. But lately he kept hearing a voice telling him to stop what he was doing and begin his real life. He started to feel like a slave working for things he didn’t actually want or need.

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In 1989 Chinese artist Zhang Baohua invented a new style of painting which requires the artist to use his finger and palm prints to create unique works of art.

It’s hard to believe such masterpieces can be created without any tools, but Zhang Baohuang manages to do it by using just his fingers and palm prints. His unique painting style is characterized by a concise, lively style and a sense of reality, and is considered a combination of traditional Chinese painting and the structural features of Western painting. Most of his works depict animals, especially dogs. Zhang’s works have been featured in art galleries all around the world, and he is known as “China’s world famous palm painting artist”.

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Japanese designer Yuri Suzuki teamed up with Mathew Kneebone to create an incredible beer can sound system for Red Stripe’s “Make Something Out of Nothing” project.

Suzuki and Kneebone were commissioned by Red Stripe, Jamaica’s most popular beer, to use their talents and create a work that reflects Jamaican DIY culture. The two came up with a sound system inspired by the towering, bass-driven sound systems that started out in the ghettos of Kingston and nowadays provide the rhythm of Jamaica street life. Because they can’t get their hands on expensive materials needed to build sound systems, Jamaican reggae groups often have to improvise and make them from scratch, using all kinds of stuff that doesn’t usually serve as components. This inspired the artistic duo to create their own DIY sound system from recycled Red Stripe beer cans.

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