A couple of Belgian designers have come up with a new range of edible food containers that are eco-friendly, taste good, and most importantly, save people from the misery of doing dishes.

The young entrepreneurs – Helene Hoyois and Thibaut Gilquin – got the idea after hosting a party one night, after which they found themselves facing a mountain of dirty dishes to that needed cleaning. Instinctively, Thibaut turned to Helene and asked: “And if we eat the dishes?”

He was only joking at first, but the duo soon started to take the idea seriously. After a few trials, they finally managed to come up with a viable concept – containers made from a combination of potato starch, water and oil. The material is tough enough to retain all sorts of foods and sauces, but is also easily digestible.

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A new taxi service in Stockholm is offering its passengers a chance to relieve stress on the go. They’ve got psychotherapists occupying the back seats of three different cabs, offering free consultations. The two-week initiative was started late last month by a company called Taxi Stockholm, which claims it’s the first project of its kind in the world.

The idea was conceived when the owners of Taxi Stockholm realized that people are more likely to talk about their problems on dull, quiet drives. They even have data to back up the theory; according to spokeswoman Natalia Santos, a study revealed that “around 70 percent of people said their taxi journeys were a good time for reflection and that they often found their minds wandering.”

“And when you think about it, the drivers can even become like therapists,” she added. “So we decided to put the two together for all Stockholmers – especially considering it’s getting so cold and dark now.”

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When Andrew Iwanicki lost his job in August, he probably expected to be spending a lot of time in bed. Little did he know that he’d actually be paid to do it. The very next day, he received an offer to join a NASA study that required him to lie in bed for three months straight, in exchange for a whopping $18,000!

“My bed is in the NASA Flight Analog Research Unit in Houston, Texas, where I’m being paid $18,000 to lie down for 70 days while NASA researchers study me,” he wrote. “I have been in this bed for three weeks now, and I will be here for seven weeks more.”

Andrew explained that the study – CFT 70 (Countermeasure and Functional Testing in Head-Down Tilt Bed Rest Study) – is part of a three-year effort to learn about bone and muscle atrophy in space. The team of NASA researchers have studied 54 people so far, and Andrew is the last participant.

“I had applied to the study a year earlier on a whim, assuming I’d never be chosen from the pool of 25,000 applicants and I’d never be able to halt my hectic life for 15 weeks,” he explained. But as fate would have it, he suddenly found himself with an empty schedule and an offer in hand.

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Fresh, clean laundry is one of the most comforting things in life, but unfortunately not everyone has access to it. A couple of engineering students from Brisbane are trying to change that. They’ve started Orange Sky Laundry – Australia’s first mobile laundry service for the homeless.

20-year-old Lucas Patchett and his friend Nicholas Marchesi were inspired to start the service during an overseas trip. When they got back in July, they decided to stop talking about it and just do it. So they got an old van fitted out with two donated industrial washing machines and two dryers, which can wash and dry 20 kilograms of laundry in an hour.

Getting the machines to fit in the van wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but they managed it pretty well. “The architect who helped us said: ‘they’ll probably fit’, but we found we needed to build a platform above the wheel arches – it wasn’t very scientific but we ended up banging the wheel arches out a bit and taking some panels off. We squeezed them in,” said Lucas.

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Denmark’s economy might not be in tip-top shape right now, but that hasn’t deterred northern country’s government from awarding 2.5 million Danish kroner ($430,000) in grant money to a study that investigates the existence of underground trolls (mythical creatures, not internet haters).

The money will be received by Lars Christian Kofoed Rømer, a PhD student and part-time anthropology lecturer at the University of Copenhagen, who has spent two years studying ghost activity. With the new funds, he now plans to research ‘actual relationships’ between humans and trolls on the Danish island of Bornholm.

Bornholm is well-known for its flourishing tourism industry, which is mostly centered around the belief that the island is inhabited by trolls who live underground and come out at night. They even have a ‘national troll’ named Krølle Brølle, who is ‘small and cute’ and lives with his troll family on Langebjerg, and comes out at night to have ‘many exciting adventures’.

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‘Mr. Yo’ is a millionaire investor with a very peculiar habit – for the past 11 years, the Korean businessman living in Bahrain has been waking up every morning before dawn to clean up the streets of his city. He even takes the time to sort out and recycle the garbage that he collects. Asked why he has been doing this for 11 years, he simply answered “because I want to!”

Korean-born Yo has earned himself the nickname ‘Boss of Cleaning’, thanks to his diligent morning habit. He seems genuinely interested in keeping the streets clean, and making sure that everyone enjoys a healthy neighborhood. “There is a lot of garbage, and this makes people sick,” he explained. “It causes problems.”

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If your name is Elizabeth Gallagher, you might just be the lucky winner of a free three-week vacation around the world. The generous offer was made public by 27-year-old Jordan Axani, from Canada, who broke up with his girlfriend after all the plans for the trip had been finalized. Now that his girlfriend won’t be joining him, he’s searching for a Canadian woman with the same name, so she can use her ticket.

“In March I booked a fairly wicked trip around the world for this Christmas for my ex and I,” Jordan explained on Reddit. “While our relationship has come to a close, I am still planning on going on the trip and she is not (naturally). And because I hate the idea of a ticket around the world going to waste, I am looking for a Canadian named Elizabeth Gallagher who could use the ticket.”

The itinerary for the epic trip – starting December 21 – includes cities like New York, Milan, Paris, Bangkok and New Delhi. “The tickets were frankly so cheap and on so many different airlines that they’re not worth the headache or money to cancel,” he admitted. So he thought it best to share the ticket with someone who is “sane, smart, and (hopefully) interesting”, who has “always wanted to travel” and is “ready for a rather spontaneous life experience.”

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Meet Nguyen Hoang Hung, a sword-wielding hairdresser from Vietnam. Believe it or not, this man actually cuts his clients’ hair with a sword! And his unusual ‘weapon of choice’ doesn’t affect the speed or quality of his haircuts – he manages to produce brilliant results every single time.

Hung said that he picked up the unique skill four years ago, when he participated in a game show where he was required to cut hair without scissors. He had used a handsaw at the time, and enjoyed the process immensely. Later, he evolved to the more sophisticated sword as a haircutting tool.

He began by using it on women with longer hair, and then moved on to shorter styles like bobs and pixie cuts. He admitted that it was difficult and risky at first, but he just kept practicing on training wigs. And after four years of rigorous, unrelenting practice, Hung is now able to create beautiful hairstyles within minutes.

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‘Haute Butch’ is an up-and-coming fashion line developed by Napa Valley designer Karen Roberts. It caters to women and who prefer a masculine edge to their clothes, but have trouble with the fit of men’s clothing.

Roberts, who studied fashion merchandising before enlisting in the U.S. Navy, had always found herself disappointed with the sartorial choices available for butch women. “I knew I was really good at what I did but what I wore really ate away at my confidence,” the 52-year-old said.

During the time that she worked in real estate, she would often dress herself in rolled-up men’s blazers, rolled-up slacks, and a rolled-up dress shirt. Everything she wore just felt awkward and wrong when compared with her female colleagues’ chic business casual attire.

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Residents of Jinshicun village in China’s Hunan Province have discovered a rather crappy way to keep healthy. They’re actually drinking a revolting concoction of mashed cow dung and goat poop that they think is a miracle cure for cancer and other illnesses.

The villagers say they stumbled upon the medicine when an elderly local woman suffering from cancer woke up one day with a bizarre request – she asked her son to collect as much animal feces as possible. Her son complied, without the faintest idea of what was she was up to.

“I was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer last January and despite going in and out of the hospital nothing was helping,” explained 66-year-old Ma Shuang. “And then I had a dream where a voice was telling me to mix the dung of a cow with the droppings of goats. When I woke, I instructed my son on what he had to do and although clearly thinking I had lost my mind, he went and did it anyway.”

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While most parents punish kids by sending them to their room, Sofia Petrova’s mother went a little further than that – she exiled her misbehaving daughter to another country. The 18-year-old hasn’t been home in three years; her mother hasn’t permitted her to return in spite of repeated apologies and pleas.

So how does a parent actually convince a 15-year-old high school freshman to board a plane to Siberia? Well, it turns out that Sofia was tricked. Her mother and stepfather told her that they were sending her on a three-week vacation to visit her biological father for the first time. But when Sofia reached Novosibirsk city, she realised the chilling truth – there was no return ticket.

That’s when her mother and stepfather informed her that she was actually being ‘punished’ for her typical teenager behavior – flunking school, running away from home and stealing money. She was to remain in Siberia with her father until she learned to change her ways. Sofia was pretty much helpless; although she grew up in the US, she was born in Siberia and had a Russian passport. So she needed her mother’s consent to return.

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This picture of an elderly man eating out with a photo of his late wife has melted the hearts of thousands after it went viral last week. It was tweeted by Madina Bashizadah, who clicked the picture while having lunch with a friend at In-N-Out Burger in Fremont, California. Since she uploaded the pic on October 22, it has been retweeted over 8,000 times.

Madina said that she noticed the man seated at a nearby table, eating his meal while staring at a framed photograph in front of him. She immediately interpreted that the woman in the photo must be his deceased wife. This moved her so much that she burst into tears and couldn’t bring herself to approach him.

“When I saw him, I got very emotional and started tearing up,” she later said. “My best friend wanted me to talk to him but I couldn’t without breaking down.” Other diners at the restaurant, however, did pluck up the courage to speak to the old man and ask him about the photo. He confirmed that the woman was indeed his wife who had passed away five years ago, and he seemed excited to talk about her and share their beautiful love story .

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12-year-old Landon Jones, from Waterloo, Iowa, hasn’t felt hungry or thirsty since October 14, 2013. He went to bed on a full stomach of pizza and ice cream the night before, and when he woke up, he had simply lost all sensation of hunger and thirst. Instead, the once energetic kid has been sick and suffered dizziness ever since.

A year later, Landon’s parents are still baffled by his condition; they have no idea what is wrong with him or how to help him. “Landon always laughed, he was always very energetic, always wanting to ride his bike, wanting to go to the park,” said Mr. Jones. “Then on October 14 of last year, he woke up and it stopped. He lost all sensation of hunger, he lost all sensation of thirst.”

Landon’s pediatrician in Iowa prescribed antibiotics, but they made no difference at all. He was then taken to doctors in other cities – Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Madison, and the world renowned Mayo Clinic in Minnesota – but no one has been able to give the Jones’ any answers. Dr. Marc Patterson, a child neurologist at the Mayo Clinic said Landon’s case might be the only one of its kind in the world.

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The Seven Mile Beach Kiosk Café in Gerroa, New South Wales, doesn’t just serve its customers good coffee, but also a lesson in politeness. In order to reinforce the importance of being nice, the café’s owners are actually charging people different rates for coffee, depending on how they ask for it.

Just so this doesn’t confuse their customers, they’ve put up a sign outside the café explaining their innovative pricing policy. According to the sign, merely asking for “A coffee” will set you back by $5.00. But saying, “A coffee, please” will bring the price down to $4.50. And if you want to go the whole mile, you could say “Good morning, a coffee please.” Then they’ll only charge you $4.00.

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As an increasing number of Japanese women put their careers ahead of starting a family, the number of services that cater to single women is on the rise. One such service is the ‘Solo Wedding’ – a full wedding day experience during which a woman gets to be bride without actually getting hitched.

The absence of a groom at a wedding might sound abnormal, but the concept is surprisingly popular. Ever since Kyoto-based company Cerca Travels launched Solo Weddings in June, at least 10 single ladies have used the service. These are women who have dreamed of wearing a wedding dress all their lives, but never really had the chance to do it.

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