A team of students from the Harbin Engineering University have created a small paper bridge able to sustain more than 25 times its own weight.

The young undergraduates spent an entire month designing and building the bridge, and finally presented it to the world,on November 7. Now, building a paper bridge model doesn’t sound that remarkable, especially when the builders are attending an engineering institute, but their creation is much more than a simple paper model. The 3.8-meter-long, 1.2 meter-tall bridge weighs just 58 kilograms, but it is able to sustain up to 1,500 kilograms, and the group of 11 students proved it by standing on the bridge at the same time.

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An American couple decided to drastically modify their home to fit the needs of their pet cats, transforming it into a modern-day feline temple known as The Cats’ House.

Bob Walker and Frances Mooney are both mad about cats. They proved it on their wedding day, when they adopted their first cat, who ended up sharing a bed with them that night. But that was only the beginning of their obsession with purring balls of fur. Knowing that cats love to climb to high spots, Bob first built a giant scratching column, using 395 feet of rope. The cats would just run up it at full speed and stop at ceiling. That’s when he realized that to keep his beloved pets happy, he and his wife needed to expand their installation throughout the whole house.

Bob and Frances ended up creating multi-level staircases, a 140-feet-long cat highway and a colorful catwalk, all connected by cat-shaped holes in the walls.They even fitted them with neon lights, so the cats could see where they were going, at night. I thought cats could see purfectly in the dark…but I guess some help couldn’t hurt, right? The Cats’ House also features scratching poles of various sizes, cat shaped statues, portraits and paintings of cats, and even carpets printed with leopard and tiger models.

The Cats’ House started out as the wish of two people to enrich the lives of their pet cats, but it became something much bigger than that. Cat lovers from all around the world started following Bob and Frances’ example and transformed their house into a feline paradise, and The Cats’ House soon became one of San Diego’s minor tourist attractions. The last time the couple opened up their house for visitors, they received 900 guests in four hours.

Since the unusual home became famous, Bob Walker has become an author and photographer, and has written successful books on his amazing cat abode. He admits it’s amazing how trying to change their cats’ lives for the better, ended up changing their lives completely, as well.

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A giant sculpture looking like a fat, colorful monkey lying on its back, has become one of the most popular attractions of Brazilian city Sao Paolo.

The curious landmark has been featured on many spammy photo blogs around the Internet, in the last few days, but hardly any of them provided any real information about it. Luckily, I was able to find a link to the site of Fat Monkey’s creator, designer Florentijn Hofman.

Fat Monkey is a very interesting art installation simply because it’s made out of 10,000 colorful flip-flops, a true symbol of Brazilian beaches. It was created during the 2010 Pixelshow Design Congress, with the help of local art students. A part of the Obestias art series, Fat Monkey can now be admired on a lawn, close to the Pixelshow venue.

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You might think a nice plush teddy bear is the ultimate Christmas gift, but for the savvy sociopath, there’s no better alternative than the ever so adorable roadkill toys.

Roadkill Toys are the brainchild of designer Adam Arber, who made sure they look like the kind of thing you’d normally find squashed on the highway, only slightly more adorable. His collection of roadkill plush creatures currently numbers three characters, Twitch the Raccoon, Grind the Rabbit and Splodge the Hedgehog, each with its very own body bag and name tags.

Complete with tire tracks across their backs, tongues rolled out, goggling eyes and guts coming out of their stomach,  roadkill toys are the perfect traumatizing gift for your child. Another cool thing about them is you can simply tuck in their innards and keep them there by pulling a zipper, so your kid doesn’t freak out the first time he sees them.

Adam Arber came up with the idea for his “Squash-plush” toys while looking at his mother-in-law’s ugly dog. One of his friend’s had taken some photos of roadkill, so he had all the inspiration he needed. He believes roadkill toys will appeal to anyone with a healthy sense of humor, and I tend to agree.

If you think this sort of toys are cute, you’ll love Martin Kittsteiner’s mentally ill toys.

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Using common spices most of us put in our food, American artist Helen Altman creates all kinds of “spicy” lifesize skulls. She glues the various seeds together and molds them into human skulls that can be hanged as ornaments. I don’t now who would want to have this sort of thing around the house, but I’m sure they’d come in handy if you need to add some flavor to your food.

According to Designboom, her series of spice skulls explores “notions of reality versus artificiality in everyday life and the boundary between authenticity and absurdity”.

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5Pointz Aerosol Art Center is an outdoor art exhibit space where graffiti artists can exercise their artistic talent, legally. Dubbed a “an institution of higher burnin’ “, 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center is viewed as the Mecca of the graffiti art world.

If you’re interested in discovering one of New York’s off-the-beaten-track attractions, 5Pointz should definitely be at the top of your priorities. An old factory converted into an outdoor graffiti museum, the 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center features 200,000 square-feet of art covered space that will probably blow your mind. Practically every square inch of this once bustling industrial complex has been covered with colorful layers of graffiti paint, depicting everything from peace messages written in WildStyle to portraits of The Notorious B.I.G.

Provided they receive the approval of Jonathan Cohen, the curator of 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center, any artist from around the world can leave their mark on the largest graffiti art exhibit in the world. Artists from Japan, Brazil and the Netherlands have contributed to the space, and if you visit here on weekends, between noon and 7 pm, you’re likely to catch graffiti artists at work.

So if you happen to be in New York, head to Long Island City and visit 5Pointz. It’s always free, it’s always open, and it’s always has some new art exhibits for you to discover.

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The Museum of Broken Relationships has to be one of the most bizarre tourist attractions in the world. Here, visitors can admire all kinds of memorabilia donated by people with broken hearts, from all over the world.

Olinka Vistina and Drazen Grubisic, two Croatian artists who broke up in 2006, decided to open the Museum of Broken Relationships when they realized how hard it was to give up items symbolizing lost love. This way, they could keep the items together, and before they knew it, the two artists started receiving all kinds of items from other broken-up couples.

Before settling permanently in Zagreb, and becoming the first private museum in Croatia, The Museum of Broken Relationships toured the world over, from Istanbul to New York, showcasing its collection of hundreds of bizarre items. Teddy bears, fluffy handcuffs, photographs, watches are among the most common items in found in the museum, but you can also see bizarre things like an axe, a pair of edible underwear and even an artificial lower leg, donated by a man who broke up with a nurse.

Olinka Vistina says the majority of donated items come from Great Britain, which means there must be many broken hearts there. The recently opened Museum of Broken Relationships is apparently a great success, welcoming up to 1,000 visitors every week.

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Let’s face it, we’d all love to drive a Lamborghini, but few of us can actually afford to buy one. The 1994 Chevrolet Camaro, on the other hand, is a lot cheaper and looks almost the same as a Lamborghini Gallardo. Well, at least this one does.

Looking at the Rev Angel for the first time, you could probably swear it’s the beautiful Lamborghini Gallardo you’ve always dreamed of. It certainly looks the part, but under that gorgeous exterior, you’ll discover the framework of a humble old 1994 Chevrolet Camaro. Aww, come on, no need to be disappointed now, it’s a perfectly good Lambo replica, and the owner just changed the original engine with a 300 HP LT1 engine that he guarantees will help you beat any tuner cars, old Corvettes and muscle cars.

And you know the best thing about Rev Angel? It cost only $3,000. That’s a worthy price to pay for such a nice looking replica of the Lamborghini Gallardo.

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Johnny Swing is a very original furniture designer who decided to give literal meaning to the phrase “sitting on cash” by building a series of sofas and chairs out of thousands of coins.

His latest creation, entitled “All the King’s Men” was made out of thousands of 50-cent coins, which makes it not only ridiculously uncomfortable, but also insanely expensive. Each coin was welded to a steel frame, which obviously takes a lot of patience, but considering Johnny has done it a few times before, it probably wasn’t that much of a problem.

While it’s not the kind of comfortable furniture you’d want to slouch on when you get home from work, Johnny Swing’s coin sofa is definitely something to look at, especially knowing that owning it is actually illegal in many countries.

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At 37 meters tall, the Excalibur Tower is the tallest free-standing climbing wall in the world. A part of the Bjoeks climbing center, in the Dutch city of Groningen, Excalibur is the tallest thing for miles, offering a memorable panorama to climbers who manage to reach the top.

You’ll probably find considerably higher climbing walls set up on the side of buildings, bridges and dams, but as far as free-standing climbing walls go, Excalibur is the tallest, beating the Texas Stone Works wall by just a few inches. The 37-meter-high tower has an overhang of 36 feet, and is ideal for both beginner climbers and experts who will find themselves literally hanging in the air, due to the tower’s curvy shape.

According to both creators of the tower and climbers who have actually made it all the way to the top, the views from up there can prove a bit too much intimidating, considering the Netherlands aren’t known for their mountainous landscape, which makes the Excalibur the tallest thing as far as the eye can see.

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After carefully folding it on the banks of the Thames, artist Frank Bölter jumped into his origami boat and sailed it under the surprised gazes of passers-by.

Named “To The World’s End”, Frank Bölter’s paper boat was part of the Drift 10 art exhibition, in London. It was created out of giant sheets of paper that he and the public at the Canary Wharf Docks folded, using origami techniques. Reinforced with metal poles, the unusual sailing craft didn’t seem to sink, and its creator was so relaxed that he laid back and read a newspaper, while the public stared at him in awe.

This is not Frank Bölter first strange boat. In 2007, he put together a boat out of Tetrapack (the aluminum plated cardboard that milk cartons are made of) and sailed in it around Lauenburg harbour, in Germany. Just like “To The World’s End”, it was folded using origami techniques.

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A team of five LEGO enthusiasts have spent half a year working on an awesome map of Europe made of LEGO bricks.

The idea of building a large-scale LEGO map of Europe was first brought up in 2009, at a LEGO Fan Weekend event, and after months of careful planning, Vanessa Graf, Tanja Kusserow-Kurth, Torsten Scheer, Bruno Kurth and Tobias Reichling decided to actually start working on it. They began laying the first bricks in April 2010, and with the help of LEGO fans from around the world, the quintet managed to complete their masterpiece in September.

The giant LEGO map of Europe numbers an impressive 53,500 bricks, covers an area of 3.84 x 3.84 and features iconic monuments from all around the Old Continent.

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A group of cash-strapped Czech students have created Crazy Cleaning, a cleaning service performed by naked boys and girls.

The economic crisis has taken its toll on everybody, and young Czech students make no exception. Strapped for cash, they’ve come up with all sorts of ideas to get their hands on some, but none as crazy as Katka Kopecka’s, who decided to recruit some of her friends and open up a nude cleaning agency. The 21-year-old founder says she had to come up with something shocking to get out of a long-term financial slump, and since most people hate to clean, but love to stare at a nice naked body, a naked cleaning service was her best choice.

Crazy Cleaning currently offers 15 naked cleaners to choose from, and customers can opt for them wearing underwear, going topless or getting completely naked. An hour of complete cleaning service costs $240 and clients can just sit comfortably and watch the naked students do all the cleaning.

Now, before any feminists decide to complain about how women are discriminated and used as pieces of meat, you should know Crazy Cleaners offers both male and female nude cleaners. While Katka Kopecka understands how some people might consider this kind of service a form of masked prostitution, she says her business has nothing to do with that. She claims Crazy Cleaners receives many calls from business people with hectic schedules, who just like to come home and relax by looking at a nice naked body cleaning the house. Read More »

Jim is just trying to make some cool pancakes for his daughter Allie, but he’s gotten so good at it that his pancakes can truly be considered edible masterpieces.

If you’re familiar with sites like Neatorama or Laughing Squid, you probably already know all about Jim and his fabulous looking pancakes, but to those of you who don’t know about him yet, all I can say is prepare to meet the sweetest dad, ever!

Inspired by his father, who used to make him all kinds of crazy looking pancakes shaped like the moon, or a light bulb, Jim decided to do the same for his adorable daughter, Allie. Along the way, he became such an expert on making cool pancakes that he opened his own blog, where he documents all his creations. While it started out as a way of entertaining a toddler, it was just a matter of time before Jim’s Pancakes got the recognition it deserved. Some of the web’s most popular sites have covered his art of pancake making, and someone better throw a book deal at him soon, because the man makes the most incredible pancakes I’ve ever seen.

Below you’ll find a selection of Jim’s most impressive pancakes, but you can just head over to his blog for his entire collection and some nice video tutorials. Oh, and scroll down to the bottom to see his little blond angel, Allie.

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Kim Do-yeon, a 21-year-old woman from South Korea, has become an overnight celebrity in her native country, after admitting to being a chocolate addict on live television.

On November 2nd, Kim Do-yeon made an appearance on a Korean TV show, where she confessed to consuming large quantities of chocolate every day. You couldn’t tell by her slim figure, but the young Korean says she has eaten over 1.2 tons of chocolate in the last six years alone. As she demonstrated in the television studio, Kim Do-yeon loves chocolate in all its forms. Whether she’s drinking it from a glass, eating it mixed with noodles or steamed rice, she just can’t get enough of it. To quench her craving for chocolate, Kim Do-yeon says she melts small pots of chocolate every day and mixes with everything she eats, even meat.

Her TV appearance scored a record audience, and chocolate addict Kim Do-yeon became a real overnight celebrity.

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