After five long years of entrapment inside the wall of a subway station in Cairo, Egypt, a cat was finally set free last month. The poor feline was first discovered in 2010 by an elderly man known as Uncle Abdo, who heard its meows from behind the wall at Mohamed Naguib Metro station. After checking the premises, Abdo found a tiny hole and realized the cat must have crawled inside and had gotten stuck. He named the cat Biso, and made it mission to take care of it.

At first,Uncle Abdo, who owns a shop outside the station, wasn’t sure of what to do about the situation – he would have liked to break open the wall the free the cat, but that would have meant destruction of public property. So he continued to bring food and water for Biso, reaching into the hole and placing them there so that she could survive. The bizarre arrangement continued for five long years. Even during the revolution on January 25, 2011, when most stores were closed, Uncle Abdo went to the station, just to feed Biso.

“I do it for God, what is for God does not go away,” Uncle Abdo said, adding that God rids him of many problems for such good deeds.

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California artist Merry Coor is using her skills to help people preserve the memory of their loved ones in the form of breathtaking pieces of jewellery. She uses cremated ashes of the deceased to create stunning beads that are lovingly crafted by hand.

The process begins with Coor mailing an envelope and a tin box to clients who display interest in her work. They use these to send her ashes, along with any photos or stories relating to their loved one. Once she receives the materials, she begins the process of creating the bead, keeping the individual in mind the whole time. Merry said that she tries her best to imbibe each piece with good intentions and respect.

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Thanks to Japanese company House Foods Group, tear-inducing onions could be a thing of the past! The company claims to have produced the world’s first ‘tear-free’ onion, by disabling the compounds that the popular vegetable releases when chopped.

According to a House Foods Group press release, their researchers have spent over a decade studying the chemistry of onions. In 2002 they published a study describing the biomechanical process of how chopping onions makes you cry, which won them them an Ig Nobel Prize – an award handed out to honor achievements organizers consider unintentionally funny.  In their paper, the scientists hypothesized that it would be possible to weaken the tear-inducing enzymes while maintaining the onion’s flavor and nutritional value.

And, in their recent announcement, House Foods Group claims to have turned the theory into a reality, by bombarding onion bulbs with irradiating ions which causes them to produce low amounts of enzymes. Apart from facilitating a completely tear-free chopping experience, the technique also makes the onion less pungent.

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Last weekend, New Zealand’s capital hosted its first ever teapot racing event at CubaDupa – Wellington’s vibrant new street festival modeled on the lines of Cuba Street. The sport, a new favorite among Steampunk enthusiasts, involves navigating radio-controlled teapots through an obstacle course with tunnels, ramps and jumps.

Organised by Capital! Steampunk, a Steampunk events community in New Zealand, Splendid Teapot Racing saw radio-controlled cars carry teapots through the indoor obstacle course in under two minutes. Steampunk enthusiasts interested in participating had to register in advance, and according to festival co-ordinator Helen Jansen, the level of interest and curiosity in the race was quite high. “This event has pre-sold more tickets than any other so far,” she said. “This is a first in the steampunk world and a great addition to the Southern hemisphere’s premier steampunk event.”

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While a vast majority of Indians continue to prefer sons, a small village in the Indian state of Rajasthan has its own unique tradition of celebrating their daughters. Since 2006, the residents of Piplantri village, in southern Rajasthan’s Rajsamand district, have been planting a whopping 111 trees to celebrate the birth of a girl!

Given that an average of 60 girls are born each year, the villagers have managed to plant over 250,000 trees so far – including varieties like Neem, Indian Rosewood, and Mango. The community of 8,000 residents is also dedicated to making sure that the trees survive and attain fruition as the girls grow up.

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It’s good to get  in touch with your inner child from time to time, and apparently some people are willing to pay big money for the chance to do so in a proper environment. A Brooklyn-based preschool for adults is charging clients between $333 and $999 for the chance to act like a kid again.

At ‘Preschool Mastermind’,in New York, adults get to participate in show-and-tell, arts-and-crafts such as finger painting, games like musical chairs, and even take naps! The month-long course also has class picture day where the adults are expected to dress to their ‘four-year-old best’, a field trip, and a parent day when students get to bring two adults of their choice.

30-year-old Michelle Joni Lapidos, the brains behind the adult preschool, studied childhood education and has always wanted to be a preschool teacher. She’s always on the lookout for new ways to get people in touch with the freedom of childhood – she had started a skipping club in Brooklyn in 2013, but a friend encouraged her to start the mastermind course instead.

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There are plenty of apps that remind us to drink water, or exercise, but here’s a first – a wearable device that lets you know when it’s time to use the toilet! Triple W, a California-based Japanese startup, has come up with an innovative technology that predicts bowel movements and gives users a 10-minute heads-up before needing to use the toilet.

The concept might seem funny, but it could actually be a godsend for people whose work only allows for scheduled breaks, and also those who suffer from health problems like incontinence. All you need to do is attach the device to your stomach and connect it to an app on your smartphone. The sensors in the device can detect any swelling in your intestines and send notifications to your phone 10 minutes in advance. The app also records bowel movements to learn your daily habits and improve the accuracy of notifications.

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At 43 inches, Pedro, an adorable pint-sized Shetland pony, is so small that he can’t even see over his own stable door. Fortunately, a group of schoolchildren recently found a solution to his problem – they designed a special equine periscope just for him. The cardboard contraption, aptly named the ‘Pedroscope’, is fixed to the 60-inch gate and uses carefully placed mirrors in order to give 14-year-old Pedro a view of the world outside his stall.

Owing to his small stature, Pedro was given a home at Ebony Horse Club, a struggling charity in London that gives disadvantaged children a chance to engage with horses. But builders estimated that it would cost thousands of pounds to create a custom-made miniature stable for the cute pony. So the charity turned to local school children for help, and they rose to the occasion quite beautifully. They came up with the design for the cardboard periscope, which was later built by printing firm Print & Cut.

“We got an email from the Ebony Horse Club who were asking for our help, it was so nice, and a little bit funny, that we decided to give it a go,” said Andy Morris, owner of Print & Cut. “The sketch was sent to us and then I turned it into a 3D sketch with some software, and then it was sent to be made. It was all quite easy, and we did it for free to help Pedro. As soon as I saw it, I thought it was funny and knew it would be relatively easy for us to do, and we’d make the pony and children pretty happy.”

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Developed by a Cambridge University affiliated laboratory, Esthechoc is being touted as the world’s first ‘beauty chocolate’. It’s a dark chocolate with 70 percent cocoa containing high levels of two powerful anti-oxidants which help reverse the skin’s natural ageing process.

A 7.5g piece of Esthechoc has as many cocoa flavanols as a 100g piece of regular chocolate, and the same amount of astaxanthin as 300g of wild salmon. These substances are believed to help improve blood circulation and increase blood supply to the skin, making it look healthier and younger. Cambridge-based bio-medical company Lycotec tested the chocolate on volunteers aged between 50 and 60, and recorded visible benefits in just three weeks.

“After 3-4 weeks of daily intake by 50-60 year old volunteers, the Beauty Chocolate was able to not only suppress markers of sub-clinical inflammatory damage in their blood, but also reverse their age-related depression of microcirculation and blood supply to such peripheral tissues as subcutaneous fat and skin,” Lycotec claims in a post on its website. “This consequently resulted in a significant boost of oxygen delivery to these tissues and restoration of their respiration – the essential physiological need in controlling and supporting skin health.”

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When 29-year-old Didier Jacquemin set out to get the tattoo of his dreams, little did he know that it would turn out to be a huge disaster. While the image he desired was a beautiful forest scenery complete with birds in flight, the tattoo he ultimately got was the stuff of nightmares!

Didier, a resident of Liege, Belgium, said that he found the original pattern on the internet and immediately fell in love with it. So he printed the image and took it to a local tattoo parlor on January 15, asking for a replica. The artist agreed to do the artistic tattoo, but ultimately delivered something that seems drawn by a 4-year-old.

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Most of us find it normal to consume cow, goat and even donkey milk, but there’s something undeniably creepy about adults drinking human breast milk. Yet, it’s the latest fad among bodybuilders convinced it will help them gain muscle faster.

It’s unbelievable how many fitness fanatics out there believe that drinking human milk is the ultimate way to gaining muscle mass and are willing to go to any lengths to buy as much of it as they can. A simple Google search reveals dozens of online forums and articles this growing trend, and one thread on bodybuilding.com actually hails breast milk as the ‘greatest supplement ever’.

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A special type of caviar, made from rare albino fish eggs and laced with 22-carat gold, is thought to be the most expensive food on the planet. Priced at a staggering $300,000 per kilo (that’s about $40,000 per teaspoon), ‘White Gold’ caviar will be served to the super rich at some of the best restaurants in the world.

The powdery caviar, also called Strottarga Bianco, is the creation of Austrian fish farmer Walter Gruell, 51, and his son Patrick, 25. According to Patrick, the Strottarga Bianco comes from the white roe of the extremely rare albino sturgeon. To make just one kilo White Gold, the father-son duo use five kilos of caviar, which is then dehydrated. Older sturgeon are used because the eggs are apparently more elegant, smooth, spongier, aromatic, and they simply taste better.

The albino beluga that produces the special caviar originally lived in the Caspian Sea, but it is now almost extinct in its native environment, making it a rare delicacy. Another reason for the prohibitive price of White Gold is the age of albino belugas. While sturgeons usually live over 100 years, few belugas reach that age due to a genetic flaw that shortens their life.

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If you happen to be in Japan this Sunday, chances are you’ll be seeing a lot more ninjas than usual. That’s because February 22nd is National Ninja Day in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Although not yet an official holiday, Ninja Day has been getting a lot of media attention in Japan, ever since the cities of Iga and Koka started organizing ninja-themed events to boost tourism. Both historical ninja strongholds, they feature a variety of themed attractions, like ninja villages and schools, but authorities go all out on Ninja Day, to really bring out the spirit of the skilled assassins that once thrived there.

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A couple of Australian men claim to possess the world’s oldest burger – a 20-year-old quarter pounder with cheese that still looks remarkably edible!

Eduard Neetz and Casey Dean purchased the burger from a McDonald’s outlet in Adelaide when they were 13 and 14 years old respectively. They were out buying food for a party, when they decided to pick up an extra burger for their friend Jono, who never showed up. “It started off as a joke, you know we told our friend we’d hold his burger for him but he never turned up and before we knew it six months had passed,” Casey said. “The months became years and now, 20 years later, it looks the same as the day we bought it, perfectly preserved in its original wrapping.”

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Although the Angulo siblings grew up in New York, they had no idea what the city was like for almost 14 years. They spent their entire childhood confined to their parents’ four bedroom apartment, learning about the outside world solely through films. Their story is now the subject of The Wolfpack, a documentary made by filmmaker Crystal Moselle.

The siblings – Bhagavan, 23, twins Govinda and Narayana, 22, Mukunda, 20, Krisna, 18, Jagadesh, 17, and their sister Visnu – were kept indoors by their father Oscar, a Peruvian immigrant and Hare Krishna devotee. He was apparently convinced that the outside world would corrupt his children and kept the front door locked at all times. But after 14 long years, one of the brothers managed to escape, paving the way for his siblings to break free.

It was during one of those rare escapes in 2010 that Moselle spotted the six Angulo brothers on First Avenue – they were all walking in a ‘pack’, wearing sunglasses, inspired by their favorite film Reservoir Dogs. “It almost felt as if I had discovered a long lost tribe, except that it was not from the edges of the world but from the streets of Manhattan,” Moselle said.

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