They might be homeless, but that’s not stopping this Brooklyn couple from doing their bit for the city. They spend their nights at a tiny park and during the day, do a better job of cleaning it than the local administration!

57-year-old Chris and 54-year-old Tammy are from Pennsylvania, but they drifted to Brooklyn after falling on hard times. Since then, they’ve been living on this small traffic island in the heart of Bay Ridge, and are doing everything they can to keep their surroundings clean.

“I’m homeless, my wife is homeless and what we do is we clean up the park,” Chris told Pix11 news. “We like to make it clean. We’re keeping it clean in many ways.”

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It’s not clear what freelance journalist Shona Sibary hoped to achieve by making an online confession about her puppy-abandoning habits, but her article in the Daily Mail has sparked outrage among internet users who are condemning her for her actions.

In the article, Sibary admitted to having abandoned four dogs in the last four years, just because they weren’t cute puppies anymore. “Over the past four years, I have fallen in love with four puppies and, on each occasion, driven miles with hundreds of pounds of cash in my pocket to buy them,” she wrote. “Then, months later, I have turned my back on them and given them away.”

Sibary said she finds this habit “strange” because according to her, “no one is more welcoming and loving to a doe-eyed little puppy than me.” She claims that all four puppies had perfect lives – with comfy baskets, colorful collars, vaccinations, and microchipping. But in her own words, “the minute they become too much trouble – which they always do – I fall out of love and start advertising them in the classifieds section of our local newspaper.”

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Although she graduated from Florida State University four years ago, theater major Stephanie Ritter has yet to find a decent job in her field. Fed up of the situation, she’s actually put up her diploma for sale on eBay for $50,000 – $10,000 more than her student loan debt. She says that the drastic solution is the only way for her to validate her “use of time between 2007 – 2011.”

“I thought this piece of paper has so much worth to so many people, but for a theater major, it couldn’t mean less,” she said. “I’m doing the exact same things and probably getting paid the exact same amount as people that dropped out halfway through freshman year, except I’m still $40,000 in debt and they’re, well, not.”

So for $50,000 – or the best offer she can get – Stephanie is offering her original diploma in mint condition, which has “never been used to get a job before.” The price also covers her college experience in a nutshell. The buyer will be treated to a tour of the university, “including everywhere you would have gone/eaten/partied in your four years at FSU.” She’s adding access to all of her college memories and Facebook albums for six months, a show at the FSU School of Theatre, and a tour of all her favorite Publixes including sweet tea at each location.

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A team of six undergrads in the Netherlands have come up with a brilliant use for wasted fruit – they’re converting it into leather!

The eco-friendly project – titled ‘Fruitleather Rotterdam’ involves transforming rotten fruit into a durable, malleable, leather-like material. It started off as a school assignment at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, in which design students were supposed to set up a flash retail event. After brainstorming, this particular team decided to tackle the problem of food wastage as well.

“The academy gives us a perfect view over Binnenrotte Square in Rotterdam, where they have a market each Tuesday and Saturday,” said Hugo de Boon, one of the students involved. “We saw how the square would be completely littered with food waste (at the end of the day), so we realised this was a problem we would want to solve from a designer’s point of view.”

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Chinese doctors are baffled by a bizarre, five-inch growth on an elderly woman’s head. They aren’t able to explain what it is exactly, but it bears an uncanny resemblance to a unicorn’s horn! 

It all started when ‘Unicorn Woman’ Liang Xiuzhen developed a mole on her head about seven or eight years ago. “My mother complained about this mole-like growth on her head that itched all the time,” said her son Wang Chaojun. “We found ways to cure her itch using traditional Chinese medicine, and then left it be.”

But matters got out of hand a couple of years ago, when a tiny horn-like mass erupted out of the mole. It was quite small up until this February, when Liang accidentally broke it. Since then, a new horn has been rapidly growing in its place, now measuring a whopping five inches in length. “Now the horn hurts my mother and prevents her from sleeping. It also bleeds from time to time,” Wang Chaojun said. Read More »

Although he claims to be 95 years old, Turkish yoga guru Kazim Gurbuz looks like he’s closer to 50 than 100! In a recent interview, he revealed the secrets behind his youthful appearance – regular yoga practice and a diet consisting of specific superfoods.

Born in 1920, Gurbuz believes that everyone has the potential to live to the age of 130 if they do the right things. In fact, he believes that life starts at 65. “We can live to be 130 years old,” he said. “I have such an intention… everyone has the power if they take good care of themselves. Then they will live to age like me.”

Gurbuz claims that he greets the sun every morning before going for a swim, claiming that it is a great source of energy. He also practices more difficult yoga positions, like the ‘knot pose’ for up to 48 hours, and can hold his breath for four to five minutes. He says he’s sexually active too, enjoying three to five orgasms a day. “I am the same as I was when I was 25-30 years old,” he said. “They challenged me to prove it in Europe, so I did.”

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‘The Drinkable Book’ is a new invention that could potentially save millions of lives around the world. Its pages are made of treated paper that can purify water when passed through, killing over 99% of bacteria.

The book is the result of postdoctoral researcher Theresa Dankovich’s hard work. For several years, she developed and tested the technology, working at McGill University in Canada and at the University of Virginia. The pages of the book contain nanoparticles of silver or copper, which are responsible for killing bacteria. The microscopic organisms absorb the silver or copper ions as they percolate through the page.

“Ions come off the surface of the nanoparticles, and those are absorbed by the microbes,” Dr. Dankovich said. “All you need to do is tear out a paper, put it in a simple filter holder and pour water into it from rivers, streams, wells, etc. and out comes clean water – and dead bacteria as well,” she explained.

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Male nipples don’t really get much attention, mostly because a lot of people even consider them gross. But believe it or not, there’s a magazine in Japan that’s actually dedicated to ‘mipples’!

The magazine is a fan-made dojinshi, which is a Japanese term for self-published magazines, novels, or manga. Its title literally translates to “Everyone Loves a Man Nipple: Photobook.” And it stays true to its name – the cover carries a close-up shot of a male nipple, along with the names of all the nipple-models used in the issue. The inside is filled with nipple-shots too, clicked from every angle imaginable. Read More »

In a controversial move, tech companies in China are now hiring young and pretty ‘programming cheerleaders’ to help motivate their male staff. The idea, apparently, is to create a ‘fun work environment’ for programmers around the country.

According to social media website ‘Trending in China’, the job involves buying programmers breakfast, indulging in small talk, and playing ping-pong with them. ‘Talented’ young women are specially trained for the job by a senior employee.

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Although he grew up believing that homosexuality was a sin, in 2010 Timothy Kurek, of Nashville, Tennessee, spent the entire year pretending to be gay in an attempt to truly understand and empathize with what homosexual people go through.

Kurek’s social experiment is extraordinary, given the kind of upbringing he had as a conservative Christian deep in America’s Bible belt. “You learned to be very afraid of God,” he said. “The loving thing to do is to tell my friend who is gay, ‘Hey, listen, you are an abomination and you need to repent to go to heaven.’ I absolutely believed in that lock, stock, and barrel.”

In fact, Kurek was so devout as a teenager that his parents’ friends would routinely ask him to set their kids straight for misbehaving. “I would be on the phone until four in the morning, asking them to repent for their sins,” he said.

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The appearance of a cloaked person outside an apartment complex in North Carolina has spooked not just local residents, but the whole internet as well. Pictures of the pale figure dressed in a black hooded cloak surfaced online earlier this week, creating panic among social media users.

The ‘creepy’ figure was photographed outside a building off Hudson Boulevard in Gastonia. No one knows what it was trying to accomplish, and its gender and identity remain unknown. Naturally, there are tons of rumors doing the rounds – some believe it was a witch performing a ritual, while others say it was just a prankster trying to fool people. A bizarre theory even suggests that the figure dropped raw meat on the ground to poison stray dogs!

“We don’t know if it’s one of our residents with an interesting way of presenting themselves, or if it’s a trespasser,” said Lance Calhoun, director of operations for Southwood Realty. Lots of people suspect that it could have been one of the residents of Hudson Woods apartment complex, where the sighting occurred, but the police haven’t been able to confirm that. “There’s no validation that it was Hudson Woods,” said Gastonia police spokesperson Donna Lahser. “It could have come from anywhere. We don’t know if this is some bogus prank somebody is playing.”

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Tired of putting up with her landlord’s tantrums, a German student has decided to give up renting apartments altogether and live on trains instead!

“It all started with a dispute I had with my landlord,” said Leonie Müller. “I instantly decided I didn’t want to live there anymore – and then I realized: Actually, I didn’t want to live anywhere anymore.” So she purchased a special ticket that allows her to board any train in Germany at no charge. She now showers, changes, eats, sleeps, and even does her homework while traveling at speeds of up to 190mph. Sometimes she gets pizza delivered to the tracks at stopovers.

Leonie, 23, says that living out of trains has given her a lot of freedom and she’s enjoying every bit of it. “I really feel at home on trains, and can visit so many more friends and cities,” she said. “It’s like being on vacation all the time. I read, I write, I look out of the window and I meet nice people all the time. There’s always something to do on trains.”

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Despite losing both his arms in an accident when he was very young, Chinese farmer Chen Xingyin has not allowed his disability to stop him from working hard or living a normal life. The 48-year-old from Chongqing city accomplishes most tasks using his mouth and feet, and even manages to care for his 91-year-old mother.

Chen’s heartwarming story recently caught the attention of Chinese netizens, and he has been making headlines since then. “I have good feet even though I don’t have hands,” he told Chinese media. He vehemently opposed the idea of begging for money at the city’s railway station, even though beggars manage to earn a lot more than he does. Instead, Chen says he prefers to work for a living, and he uses the income to take care of his elderly mother. 

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Award-winning Australian performance artist Stelarc is doing something utterly bizarre in the name of art – he’s growing a third ear, on his arm!

Is that even possible, you ask? Well, turns out that it can be done through a complicated surgery. The ear itself was constructed using a frame made of biocompatible material commonly used in plastic surgery. It was transplanted into his arm, under his skin, and within six months, his tissue and blood vessels managed to morph with the material. The ear can’t hear yet, but it definitely is a feeling, functional part of his body.

“I guess I’ve always got something up my sleeve, but often my sleeve is rolled down,” Stelarc joked. “The ear is pretty much now a part of my arm, it’s fixed to my arm and it has its own blood supply. People’s reactions range from bemusement to bewilderment to curiosity, but you don’t really expect people to understand the art component of all of this.” Read More »

For the past 60 years, this Florida couple have been celebrating their anniversary by eating a piece out of their wedding cake – not a replica, the original one!

Ann and Ken Fredericks were married on 19 August, 1955 and Ann’s grandmother had baked a three-layer fruitcake for the occasion. The top layer of that cake, baked six decades ago, still exists in a metal Maxwell Coffee House can. “Every year, we unwrap it, pour brandy over it – because you need to moisten it – and we break off a piece,” Ann said.

“Everybody just looks at us with amazed looks when they hear about it,” she added. “Our children are appalled that we would be eating something that’s 60 years old. But believe me, it’s quite tasty, as long as it’s got enough brandy on it. And it’s never made us sick.”

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