Seen from afar, Craig Alan’s celebrity portraits seem made out of thousands of expertly placed paint dots, but as you draw nearer, you notice that those dots are actually tiny detailed human figures.

Craig Alan’s “Populous” series was inspired by a bird’s eye view from his mother’s 6th story condo, in Orange Beach, Alabama. He was watching the people down at the beach and photographing them when he noticed that their tiny figures forming patters. In one of his photos, the people appeared to have formed a eye, and the artist recalls that this was what first got his creative wheels turning. He started spray-painting tiny human figures on white canvases, positioning them in such a way that they and their shadows formed detailed portraits of some history’s most iconic personalities, from Michael Jackson to Marilyn Monroe.

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A Polish mountain climber who recently scaled his country’s highest peak was surprised to find a domestic cat waiting for him at the very top.

Wojciech Jabczynski couldn’t believe his eyes when he reached the top of the 2,500-meter-high Rysy mountain and spotted a ginger cat nonchalantly licking its paws. No one knows exactly how the feline got to the mountain top, or why, but Jabczynski suspects it may have climbed up from a small tourist hut under the peak. Surprised by its presence there, the experienced climber took out his phone and took some pictures and recorded a video, just to make sure people believed him when he told the story.

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If you’ve been looking for a way to prevent your pet cat from scratching you whenever you try to bathe or groom it, maybe try these bizarre anti-scratching boots. Don’t expect your beloved pet to thank you, though.

The first time I saw these adjustable anti-scratching boots for cats on Chinese online marketplace Aliexpress, I thought they were a prank, but it turns that they are a real product designed to help pet owners seal off their cats’ paws and prevent scratching completely. They are supposed to be used for certain situations like bathing, nail clipping or visits to the vet, but I know a few people crazy enough to leave these plastic contraptions on for long periods of time just to make sure their cat doesn’t ruin the living room sofa.

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A 55-year-old Turkish man is facing up to five years in jail for “preventing public officials from performing their duty”. His crime – phoning the police 45,210 times in just one year.

Şeref Can, a divorced man from Istanbul’s Bayrampaşa district, allegedly called the police line well over 100 times per day between May 15, 2017 and May 15, 2018, but never once made any sort of complaint or asked police assistance. Instead, he only tried to make conversation with whoever picked up the phone. At one point, police staff became so irritated by Can’s unusual habit that they filed a complaint about him with Istanbul Police’s communications and electronics department. After confirming that Can had called the 115 emergency number a total of 45,210 times in a year, investigators charged him with “obstructing service of public institutions”.

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Social media promotion has become so important nowadays that businesses are offering freebies to anyone with a certain following on popular social networks. Case in point, this Milan-based restaurant that offers free sushi to people with a bit of clout on Instagram.

Matteo and Tomaso Pittarello, the owners of the “This Is Not a Sushibar” restaurant in Milan, are well aware of the potential of social networks like Instagram, and they’re more than willing to give away some sushi, if it means getting some exposure. At their restaurant, people have the classic payment options – cash or card – plus a novel one, paying in Instagram followers. The idea is pretty simple, the more followers you have, the more you can eat without having to spend a cent.

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Angulas, the Spanish word for baby eels is one of Spain’s most expensive foods, but no one seems to understand why. They hardly have any taste at all, their texture is best described as slimy and they look like limp worms on a plate. So why are people paying hundreds of euros to eat angulas at expensive restaurants?

Legend has it that in the past angulas were used as fodder for chickens and pigs, and there is historical evidence that they were once a staple food of the working class in northern Spain. But today they sell for astronomical prices of up to 1,000 euros ($1,150) per kilo, so only the richest of the rich can afford them. So what happened? Well, scarcity definitely played a big part in their surprising transformation. River dams, the general degradation of the environment and overfishing have seriously affected the baby eel population, and the rarer they got the more expensive they became. They may not taste like anything, but apparently many people like to act like snobs every once in a while, so they pay a premium to enjoy a food that most people can’t afford.

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A Japanese experimental artist has captured the imaginations of thousands of fantasy and anime fans by creating a seemingly magical book in which the letters keep shining brighter and brighter as the reader approaches its conclusion.

Uka Ohashi, an experimental novelist currently studying design at an art university, created her amazing book as a class assignment, based on an actual novel that she wrote. The original idea was to incorporate the concept of glowing letters in an entire book, with the illuminated pages making up the conclusion and lighting up brighter and brighter as the reader approached the end. However, time was of the essence, so she only made the conclusion as a proof of concept. It still turned out amazing!

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Mariam Nabatanzi, a 40-year-old woman from Uganda’s Mukono District has been dubbed the African country’s most fertile woman after it was reported that she has given birth to 44 children.

In her home village of Kabimbiri, central Uganda, Mariam Nabatanzi is known as Nalongo Muzaala Bana (the twin mother that produces quadruplets) and that nickname is well-earned. In the 18 years that she spent being pregnant throughout her 40 year life, the woman has given birth to six sets of twins, four sets of triplets, three sets of quadruples, as well as a few single births. Out of the 44 children that she brought into this world, 38 are still alive today, most of them still living at the family home. Mariam is a single mother, and although providing for such a large family, she somehow manages to put enough food on the table for everyone.

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33-year-old Cai Yanqiu has spent the last three years of his life traveling through his home country in China with the sole purpose of helping homeless people in any way he can.

Cai Yanqiu’s decided to dedicate his life to helping homeless people three years ago. He had set up a small stall in Zhanjiang, China’s Guangdong, and he was waiting for customers when he saw a barefooted homeless man pass him by. That man reminded him of the devastation caused by the loss of his brother, over two decades ago. In 1994, Cai’s brother who suffered from epilepsy, disappeared from the family home, and when he was finally found, 3 days later, he was in such a bad condition that he passed away in his family’s arms. Cai remembered his mother lying in bed for days morning the loss of his brother, and after doing some crying of his own after seeing the homeless man, he decided that he couldn’t just stand by and allow other families to go through what his did.

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Japan has some of the world’s longest working hours, but some companies are starting to realize that their workers also need to sleep in order to be productive. One such company is actually encouraging employees to sleep more by rewarding them with points that can be spent at cafes and cafeterias.

CRAZY, a Tokyo-based wedding planning company, recently announced the implementation of a “sleep remuneration system” to encourage its workforce to get more sleep. It has teamed up with Airweave, a startup specializing in sleep analysis technology and will be monitoring its employees sleep patterns. Workers who install the Sleep Analysis app on their smartphones and share their data with the company are eligible to receive points according to how many hours of sleep they get ever night. CRAZY hopes that the new reward system will improve the lifestyle habits and overall health of its employees, as well as boost their productivity.

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A Chinese man has been excluded out of a parents WeChat group and accused of flaunting his wealth by dropping his son off to school in an expensive Ferrari 488 sports car.

The man, surnamed Li, is a senior executive in an property development company in in Hangzhou, China, and has the habit of taking his junior pupil son to school in a Ferrari 488. This didn’t sit to well with the parents of the other kids in his son’s class, and Li was recently told by a teacher that he had received complaints about it. Apparently, some of the other parents were worried that it would lead to unhealthy comparisons between the kids in class and prevent them from developing fellowship. The man didn’t agree so they all shunned him, and even excluded him from their WeChat group.

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Japanese people are renowned for their manners and politeness, but this incident shows just how far that politeness can go. A man recently went into a convenience store, asked the manager if he could rob the place and upon being refused, he left and later turned himself in to police.

The bizarre robbery attempt took place on October 5, at a Lawson convenience store in Ogori City, Japan’s Fukuoka Prefecture. According to police, the unnamed man allegedly entered the store at around 1:40 AM and told the manager “I’ve come with the intent to intimidate you and rob this store, may I ask you to please cooperate with me?” in the most unintimidating way possible. He didn’t get the answer he was hoping for so he turned around and walked out quietly without taking anything.

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Police in Gilbert City, Minnesota have been getting reports of birds acting erratically – flying into windows or moving traffic and acting confused. They recently issued a statement explaining that the birds are “flying under the influence” after feasting on fermented berries.

An early frost has caused several types of berries growing in the area around Gilbert to ferment earlier than usual, but that didn’t stop the local bird population from feasting on them. The problem is that, like human teenagers, young birds can’t handle their alcohol as well as mature ones, and the ethanol entering their system causes them to act strange. And as they are getting ready to fly south for the winter, many bird species tend to stuff themselves with whatever food they find in order to build fat for the long journey, causing them to get really drunk.

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An Indian education organization recently sparked controversy by introducing an optional engineering course that teaches students that modern inventions like aeronautics, batteries, as well as knowledge of gravity existed in India during the Vedic Age, thousands of years ago.

Human Resource Development Ministry (HRD) decided to introduce into the country’s engineering curriculum a controversial book that makes all kinds of bombastic claims, from the fact that the Wright brothers didn’t really invent the airplane, to assertions that ancient Indian ‘scientists’ in the Vedic Age (1500 – 500 BCE) knew about gravity long before Isaac Newton. This book is seen as another attempt by Narendra Modi’s government to promote pseudoscience pushed by Hindu groups.

Entitled Bharatiya Vidya Saar, the controversial book is set to be introduced as part of an optional credit course in engineering colleges and universities affiliated with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). For some reason, the optional course, called Indian Knowledge Systems, will focus on Indian philosophical, linguistic and artistic traditions, as well as yoga and Indian perspective of modern scientific worldview. Those don’t sound like the kinds of things engineering courses should focus on, but wait until you hear what students will actually be taught.

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Last week, police in the Mexican resort city of Puerto Vallarta reported at least 11 cases of people completely stripped of their clothes tied to lamp posts and with the letter ‘R’ shaved on the back of their heads. So far, no one knows who orchestrated these attacks and why, as the victims all refuse to talk.

Police started receiving calls about naked men being tied to lamp posts in different areas of Puerto Vallarta last Monday. Between 9:26 PM on Monday, and 1:29 AM on Tuesday, four men were discovered in similar circumstances. They had all been stripped naked, had bruises on their buttocks like they had been repeatedly slapped, they were tied to lamp posts at various intersections across the city and they all had the letter ‘R’ shaved into the back of their heads. Authorities announced that they had started an investigation, but little did they know that these four cases was only the beginning.

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