If you’re looking for a new and interesting way to enjoy your daily cup of java, try dumping a lump of hot coal into it. The trick worked for a small coffee stall owner in Indonesia who has become famous for his sizzling charcoal coffee.

The Indonesian city of Yogyakarta is perhaps the only place in the world where you can have your coffee served with a piece of red-hot coal. It’s called “Kopi Joss” and it was apparently invented back in the 1960s, by a local coffee stall owner known only as Mr. Man, to help him deal with a troubled stomach. The current stall operator, Alex, says that Mr. Man, who has since past away, was making his coffee as usual, when he laid eyes on the burning coal that he used to boil the water, and an idea popped into his head. His stomach was giving him problems and thought that the coal could make it better. So he took a piece of hot coal and dumped into a cup of coffee. It worked, and he since started selling it to brave customers as well.

Read More »

One morning, in 2011, Monique Jeffrey, of Rose Bay, Australia, was at home, in her bed, checking her emails. She sneezed and her head suddenly jolted forward, collapsing the C1 and C2 vertebrae in her neck. She had broken her neck in what experts called a “freak accident”, but the chances of something like this happening twice to the same person were apparently “slim to none”. And yet, last month, Monique suffered the same ordeal, this time while laughing with some colleagues at work.

“I texted Sam (her husband) just saying ‘help!’ and he called me and I answered on speaker phone, because I couldn’t put the phone to my ear,” Monique recalls about the bizarre accident she suffered over five years ago. “He came home and called an ambulance. It was pretty scary and it was such a strange sensation. I was in so much pain after just one little sneeze.”

Read More »

Brandon Vezmar, a 37-year-old man from Austin, Texas, has become an overnight celebrity after he decided to sue his first date for texting too much during a screening of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2. He is asking for $17.31, which is how much he paid for her ticket.

Brandon and 35-year-old Crystal met on online dating app Bumble and went on their first and only date on May 6. Vezmar bought two tickets for the 3D screening of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2, and he says everything was going good until 15 minutes into the movie, when his date took out her phone and started texting. At one point, it got too much for him to bear, and he asked the woman to either stop texting or go into the lobby of the theater. She left, and never came back, leaving without a ride home, as they had both arrived at the Barton Creek Square theater in her car. He later texted Crystal to ask for his money back, and when she refused to pay the $17.31 price of the ticket, he had no choice but to take her to court for it.

Read More »

Paul Sanyangore, a controversial pastor from Zimbabwe claims that he received God’s phone number from the Almighty Himself, and often receives calls from Him on how to best help his congregates.

Sanyangore, who also goes by the name “Pastor Talent”, first made the outrageous claim in February, after a video of him allegedly talking on the phone with God during a service at his church, Victory World International Ministries, went viral on social media. In an interview with Zimbabwean news site H-Metro, he revealed that he was indeed on the phone with the Almighty, adding that he was surprised to see people so shocked about the whole thing.

Read More »

A seemingly harmless doll has been dubbed the “Peruvian Annabelle” after the family that owns it claimed that they have been terrorized by it for the last seven years.

In a YouTube video that recently went viral, the Nunez family, in Callao, Peru, explain that they have witnessed various paranormal events connected to “Sarita”, a blonde, blue-eyed doll that they received seven years ago. Mother-of-three Ivonne Nunez said that it was a gift from a niece that has since died, and even though strange things started happening soon after the girl passed away, she just couldn’t bring herself to throw away the doll. It’s the last thing reminding her of her niece and sister-in-law, the latter of which reportedly took her own life in the same house they live in today.

Read More »

Daniil Lytkin, a 26-year-old programmer from Novosibirsk, Russia, recently made news headlines for having a compass-like device implanted on his chest. Called “North Sense”, the wearable sensor vibrates whenever the wearer turns north.

The young bodyhacker says that he stumbled across the North Sense project when it was still being developed by a UK company called Cyborg Nest. He thought having a sensor that lets you know which way is north attached to his body was a cool idea, so he pre-ordered the device for $250, and last week he became the first person in Russia, and one of the first in the world to have it implanted. The procedure was carried out by piercing artist Eugene Dyakov, on May 11, and involved the insertion of two specially designed titanium bars under the skin on Daniil’s chest, to which the North Sense device is attached with screws.

Read More »

Wouldn’t it be great if you could travel to the most exciting destinations on Earth without the hassle of packing and unpacking, or ever having your dream vacation end? Well, for the few dozen residents of “The World”, this dream is a reality.

“The World” is the largest, oldest and currently only active residential cruise ship on the planet. Collectively owned by its residents, many of whom live aboard the vessel full-time, The World continuously sales on a worldwide itinerary at a maximum speed of 18.5 knots. Residents decide the yearly itinerary, along with the ship’s captain, often planning expeditions in the most exciting and exclusive of places. So far they have visited the tribes of Papua New Guinea, tracked polar bears in the Russian Arctic, kayaked among icebergs and retraced Sir Ernest Shackleton’s historic Trans-Antarctic Expedition, among other memorable adventures. The things most of us only dream about, these people experience day.

Read More »

Bottle Cap Alley is a unique roadside attraction located at the north edge of the Texas A&M University campus, in College Station Texas. As the name suggests, it is paved with hundreds of thousands – by some accounts, millions – of beer and soda bottle caps.

No one knows exactly how the tradition of paving the 50-meter-long by 2-meters-across alley with metal caps began, but seeing as it is located between the iconic Dry Bean pub and the Dixie Chicken restaurant, some people believe that it started out as a dumping site for the two establishments. Patrons who took their drinks outside followed their example, and as word of the Bottle Cap Alley spread, other local bars started bringing in their nightly haul of bottle caps here as well. It is estimated that the tradition goes back four decades.

Read More »

Not everyone’s a morning person, so if having a cup of coffee with your morning bagels just isn’t enough to give you that much-needed boost, maybe these caffeinated bagels can help.

Called “Espresso Buzz Bagels”, the world’s first caffeinated bagels were unveiled last week by the Einstein Bros Bagel chain. Each bagel contains 32 milligrams of caffeine, which is roughly a third of the amount found in an eight ounce cup of coffee, plus 13 grams of protein. That’s obviously not enough to justify replacing your morning coffee with one or even two caffeinated bagels, but as an extra source of energy, the combination of caffeine and carbohydrates might actually help.

Read More »

The photo below may not seem very interesting at first glance, but the story behind it definitely is. That little round gadget is apparently a card scanner installed by a Chinese wife to make sure that her husband doesn’t come home later than 9 pm.

When their husbands don’t come straight home after work, some women start calling them every 10 minutes asking where they are, others text them insistently until they’ve had enough and come home, or tease them with a photo of a delicious dinner. But one Chinese wife decided to think outside the box and came up with a very practical solution – installing a card reader at the entrance of her home, which her husband must use every time he walks through the door.

Read More »

Photos of a large fish caught in the southern Philippines that appears to have its skin covered with artistic tattoo-like markings has sparked quite a debate on social media, with people offering the most outrageous explanations for the intricate design.

The fish was caught by fishermen in the province of Lopez Jaena, Misamis Occidental, who immediately noticed that much of its skin was marked by artistic designs, including what looks like a crest made up of a crown sitting on top of a shield, some letters and intertwining plant leaves. The strange design also attracted the attention of passers-by as well, some of whom were quick to snap some photos of the fish and upload them to social media. They were soon picked up by large news networks and eventually went viral.

Read More »

53-year-old Pascal Pich, a legendary ultra-athlete with several endurance records to his name, is set to complete the longest, and at the same time shortest, race of his career – over 3,000 kilometers (the distance between Paris and Moscow) pedaled on a stationary bicycle.

“You have to be a little crazy to say ‘I will pedal for 6 days without moving'”, Pascal Pich says about his unusual challenge. But being a little crazy is exactly how he managed to become one of the world’s most acclaimed extreme athletes and set 10 endurance world records. So yes, cycling around 600 kilometers a day on a stationary bike with only 2-3 hours of sleep may sound crazy for anyone else, but not for him.

Read More »

Luis Padron, a 25-year-old fantasy fan and cosplay enthusiast from Argentina, has spent tens of thousands of dollars altering his looks in his desire to become a real-life elf.

Luis says he became obsessed with fantastic beings like elves and angels after being bullied as a child. He used to get picked on because he dyed his hair and had a different dress style than most boys his age, and since he didn’t have many friends growing up, he spent all of his free time reading fantasy books and dressing as his favorite characters. By the end of high-school, his unusual looks and natural quirkiness let to him becoming admired, and that just fueled his desire to be different. Now, he’s trying to make the changes permanent with the help of cosmetic medical procedures.

Read More »

It turns out we no longer need cows to produce cow milk, we can just brew it with yeast, just like beer. Well, it’s actually a bit more complicated than that, but that’s how a company called Perfect Day explains the basics of their innovative new product – a “synthetic milk” that looks and tastes a lot like cow milk.

Perfect Day was co-founded by Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandh, two young scientists with a background in biomedical engineering. Three years ago, one was working on next-generation vaccines in Boston, and the other on tissue engineering, in New York. They didn’t know each other but they had a mutual acquaintance who knew that they both had this crazy idea about making milk without cows, and he put them in touch. They hit it off and started working on a way of making their dream a reality.

Read More »

Harry Kalenberg has a unique hobby – he turns pieces of popcorn into tiny works of art using only colored felt markers and pens. From miniature models of celebrities like Elvis or Donald Trump, to popular cartoon characters and animals, Harry has a gift for spotting the craziest things in a bowl of popcorn.

It all started 28 years ago, when Harry Kalenberg and his wife Esther were sitting on the couch one evening, eating popcorn. At one point, the artist spotted a strange-looking piece of popcorn that resembled a gorilla. His wife wasn’t interested in the discovery, but he wouldn’t let her lack of enthusiasm curb his. He took out a ballpoint pen and started painting the details he saw with his mind’s eye, eventually bringing the popcorn gorilla to life. And that’s how his career as a popcorn artist started.

Read More »