A Japanese DIY prop enthusiast recently shared his latest creation – an otherworldly-looking magic book with glow-in-the dark text – along with instructions on how to do it yourself.

Last month, Twitter user @mikel_cresson, a steampunk and fantasy enthusiast from Japan, went viral on the popular social network with a very intriguing prop – a vintage-looking book featuring mysterious text that glowed a vivid green in the dark. He called it a magic book, and it certainly looked the part; so much so that people started asking how much he wanted to sell it for and if he took commissions. However, the young DIY master did something even better – he shared exactly how he did it using only simple stuff anyone can buy on Amazon.

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Inspired by the comfort of the classic dog bed, a couple of university students designed Plufl, the world’s first dog bed for humans.

If you’re thinking that the Plufl is just an oversized dog bed, you’re technically right, but according to its creators, University of British Columbia students Noah Silverman and Yuki Kinoshita, it’s also much more than that. Apparently, the Plufl was engineered “to provide the optimal napping experience” and “maximize comfort and foster a sense of security, delivering relief for those who have ADHD, stress, and anxiety-related issues.”

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The Manuscript Writing Café in Tokyo, Japan only caters to writers working on tight deadlines, providing the motivation and assistance required to make sure they meet those deadlines.

Japan is no stranger to offbeat cafes that sometimes inspire worldwide trends. Remember cat cafes? That popular trend originated in the Asian country, as did, maid cafes, owl cafes, reptile cafes, and even a cafe dedicated to female thighs. And those are just a handful of examples; in reality, Japan has come up with a plethora of intriguing cafe concepts, and somehow keeps coming up with new ones. The latest example is the Manuscript Writing Café in Tokyo’s Koenji neighborhood, a venue that only welcomes writers struggling to meet their deadlines.

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With a height-to-width ratio of 24:1, Steinway Tower, an 84-story luxury apartment building in Manhattan, is officially the world’s thinnest skyscraper.

Steinway Tower is an impressive architectural achievement. Not only is it the third-tallest building in the Western Hemisphere – after One World Trade Center (1,776 feet) and Central Park Tower (1,550 feet) – but it’s actually the most slender skyscraper in the world. Despite standing a dizzying 1,428-feet-tall, Steinway Tower is just 60 feet wide. It’s so thin that The Guardian newspaper has dubbed it “the coffee stirrer”. For comparison, Steinway Tower is as wide as a bowling alley is long.

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Corbezzolo Honey is a unique type of honey famous for tasting nothing like we expect honey to taste. To say that this Sardinian treat is not sweet would be an understatement, because it’s downright bitter.

Italians have been making corbezzolo honey in Sardinia for a very long time. How long, is impossible to say, but there are references to it in the writings of famous ancient figures like Cicero, Virgil and Ovid, who noted the contrasting taste between Sardinian honey and the sweet honey of the Hyblean Mountains. But if you can get past the bitterness, you’ll discover an amber nectar full of nutrients and natural medicine. It’s packed full of vitamins and minerals, has anti-inflamatory properties, and has been used as a sleep inducer and cough sedative for generations.

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Out of the roughly 1,400 species of land snails that call Cuba home, the six species of the genus Polymita, fondly known as painted snails, are without a doubt the most eye-catching.

When it comes to snail per se, there’s probably no beating the spectacular red-and-black contrast of the Malaysian fire snail, but as far as shells go, Cuba’s painted snails are in a class of their own. Just a look at the stunning swirling colors on their shells, and it’s easy to understand why they are considered by many to be the world’s most beautiful snails. However, this flattering title comes with a downside. Because their dazzling shells are so sought after by collectors, all six species of the genus Polymita are now critically endangered.

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Imagine a place where you can enjoy your favorite cup of coffee in the company of dozens of koi fish as they swim through ankle-deep water that covers the entire floor. That’s Thailand’s koi fish café in a nutshell.

Remember Amix Coffee, the “flooded café” of Ho Chi Minh City, where hundreds of decorative fish of all shapes and sizes lived on the water-covered floor as patrons walked among them? It drew a lot of criticism from animal rights activists and closed down after just a couple of months, but if you liked the concept, you’ll be happy to know there’s another flooded café you can visit. Sweet Fishs Café is a unique venue in the Thai city of Khanom, where people can walk through ankle-deep water populated with dozens of koi fish.

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Imagine enjoying a hot cup of java or your favorite soft drink in the middle of a pond filled with beautiful koi fish that you can actually hand-feed and you get an idea of what Vietnam’s koi fish cafes are like.

When it comes to fish-themed cafes, Ho Chi Minh City has a leg up on pretty much every other city in the world. Back in 2018 we featured Amix Coffee, a flooded cafe that allowed patrons to enjoy their favorite drinks with dozens of small fish literally at their feet, but this was apparently not the only cool fish-themed venue in town. In fact, the bustling metropolis apparently has about a dozen cafes that double as koi ponds, where the popular fish swim among patrons.

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A team of Japanese researchers recently unveiled a weight-shifting contraption that attaches to a glass, making it feel heavier or lighter than it actually is, thus altering the drinker’s perception of the beverages they are consuming.

It has long been known that we consume foods and drinks with a number of senses, not just our taste buds. There is a reason why chefs go through the trouble of developing eye-catching plating techniques, or why specialty cafes rely on the scent of freshly ground coffee to attract patrons. But did you know that the weight of the glass can influence the drinker’s perception of the beverage they are drinking. A team of scientists at the University of Tokyo proved this with the help of an ingenious device that changes the weight of the glass depending on the position it is in.

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The Golden Boy, a decadent delicacy made with 100 percent Wagyu A5, Beluga caviar, king crab, white truffle, among other premium ingredients, has just broken the record for world’s most expensive burger, with a price of 5,000 euros ($6,000).

The Golden Boy burger was created by Robbert Jan de Veen, owner of Dutch restaurant De Daltons, who came up with the idea while sitting in his restaurant pretending to get some work done. As he browsed the internet to pass the time, he stumbled over the previous record for the world’s most expensive burger, held by an Oregon restaurant that made a $5,000 burger that weight a whopping 352 kilograms, back in 2011. He found it cool, but decided he could make an even more expensive burger, and one that could actually be finished by one person.

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BW Kafe is an unusual-looking cafe with venues in Moscow and Sankt Petersburg which look like the setting of A-ha’s famous “Take on Me” video.

BW Kafe first made international headlines last year, when photos of the Sankt Petersburg branch went viral online. Designed by Russian artist Anfisa Toshina, the interior of the cafe looks sketched with charcoal on a piece of white paper, creating the illusion that you are the only 3D “object” in a two-dimensional world. It’s a pretty nice trick, but one that might seem oddly familiar if you’ve been on the internet sometime in the last two years…

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A Japanese man who has been struggling to sell a misprinted iPhone 11 Pro found himself inundated with tempting offers from buyers after photos of his device became the subject of fake news circulating on social media.

A few days ago, during my daily internet surfing sessions, I came across a South Korean article about an iPhone with a misaligned Apple logo that had apparently sold for $2,700. The explanation was that Apple’s quality control is so stringent that whenever design errors slip by, the handheld in question becomes somewhat of a collectible. Only it turned out that, like many other internet stories, this was just fake news picked up by several popular news outlets that didn’t bother doing any research.

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A man who accidentally lost his iPhone 11 while paddling on a lake in March of last year recently posted photos of the handheld miraculously retrieved from the bottom of the lake after more than a year. The handheld was in need of a recharge, but otherwise worked perfectly!

The owner of the iPhone, a Taiwanese man named Chen Yj, recently took to a public Facebook group to tell the amazing story of how his handheld survived a year underwater. Writing on the Bangfu1 Commune Facebook group, Chen said that he lost his iPhone 11 in March of 2020, while paddling on Sun Moon Lake, in Taiwan. Photos shared on the public group show him wearing an orange vest, with the Apple handheld around his neck. At one point, the man falls off his board, and the phone can be seen sinking to the bottom of the lake. Little did Chen know that he would not only retrieve his phone a year later, but it would be in perfect working condition.

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Einstein Café, a popular coffee chain operating in several middle-eastern countries has come under fire for sparking a controversial trend of replacing paper cups with baby bottles.

It all started with Einstein Café, a dessert chain with branches in countries like the UAE, Kuwait or Bahrein. One day, allegedly inspired by pictures of trendy-looking bottles shared on social media, it changed the paper cups it usually served its drinks in with plastic baby bottle complete with transparent silicone teats. No one expected the change to have a huge impact on the business, but according to company management, everyone wanted to try the new bottles, even calling to book tables in advance.

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Telecubes, mobile offices the size of phone booths, have been popping up all over Japan, as demand for public working spaces continues to soar.

Japanese media originally reported on the rise of Telecubes back in 2019, when Mitsubishi Estate announced plans to start rolling out the tiny but cozy offices at airports and train stations all over the country, to help out remote workers. The idea was that having micro-offices available everywhere would make it easier for people to work near home or while on business trips, while enjoying privacy and quiet, which venues like coffee shops or shared offices can’t always offer. Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and the demand for Telecubes grew to unprecedented levels.

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