The Toilet Bike Neo is a toilet-bike hybrid that runs entirely on biogas (human poop). It was created by TOTO, Japan’s biggest toilet manufacturer as part of a campaign to reduce CO2 emissions in toilets by 50% until 2017.

Believe it or not, we may have been looking for alternatives to fossil fuels in all the wrong places. Making biodiesel, harnessing the power of the sun, even using electrical batteries sounds way to complicated when apparently all we need to do to power our vehicles is answer the call of nature. Japanese toilet company TOTO has been working on a poop-powered tricycle called Toilet Bike Neo that actually has a toilet for a seat and runs only on human feces. The technology used to convert waste into fuel for the bike hasn’t yet been made public, but details are slowly emerging on the company’s blog.

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79-year-old Alfred David has come to be known as “Monsieur Pingouin” by the people of Brussels because he almost always walks around in his big penguin suit and even “talks” like one.

People who see Mr. Penguin for the first time and don’t know his story might think he’s on his way to a costume party, but the truth is the pensioner puts on the bizarre outfit because it makes him feel like more of a penguin. Alfred’s story began in May 1968, when he injured his hip in a car accident which left him with a limp his friends and colleagues thought was more like a waddle, so they gave him the nickname Mr. Penguin. Some would be bothered being called that, others probably couldn’t care less, but our Mr. David took a real interest in the flightless bird and eventually became obsessed with it.

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Jay Hoff, an American school teacher from Florida, has spent six months of his life building a large-scale LEGO model of a scene from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

The first time Jay encountered LEGO was in 1973, when he found a biplane in a Burger King lunchbox, and he’s been fascinated with the little plastic bricks since then. He’s also a is fan of Star Wars and has collected a lot of the Star Wars LEGO kits that started coming out in the early 90s, but his personal creation is cooler than any standard kit ever launched. This geeky teacher wanted to do something special for the kids at Berkeley Preparatory School in Tampa, so he pieced together a six-by-six Star Wars-themed LEGO model for Science Discovery Day. Apart from other activities, children were invited to bring their own LEGO creation to be put on display, and Jay joined in by showing off his awe-inspiring masterpiece.

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Karla Flores, a 32-year-old street vendor from Culiacán, Mexico can consider herself after she survived being shot in the face with a live grenade.

On August 6, 2011 Mexico’s “Miracle Woman”, as she’s come to be known, was selling seafood on the street when all of a sudden she heard an explosion. As she turned around to see what had happened, the woman was hit in the face by an object, and the powerful impact caused her to fall on the sidewalk. She felt a burning sensation in her face and when she touched the point of impact with her hand there was a lot of blood. Karla passed out after that, but luckily for her an anonymous passerby took her in his car and drove her to the nearest hospital. There she woke up and when the doctors asked her about the wound Flores told them she thought a stone hit her. But their investigations would reveal it was something a lot deadlier than a stone.

From the x-ray and tomography, doctors could tell some sort of projectile was stuck between her superior and inferior jawbones, and military experts called on the scene identified it as the live explosive head of a fragmentation grenade. It had been fired with a grenade launcher, causing the bang Karla heard, but it didn’t detonate when it hit her face. Still, the grenade was extremely dangerous, just one wrong move and it could go off killing everyone in a 10-meter radius. The hospital’s patients and staff were evacuated, and something had to be done to help Karla, who could barely breath with the projectile locked in the side of her face.

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A counter-top restaurant in Lima, Peru has been selling fresh frog juice for the last 15 years, and some locals drink it every day because they say it gives them strength.

There’s nothing like a glass of fresh juice in the morning, right? Peruvian restaurant owner Carmen Gonzales would agree with this 100%, only she has a different kind of juice in mind – frog juice, For the last 15 years she and various other juice stand owners have been serving her Jugo de Rana to locals and tourists brave enough to try it, and business is better than ever. She sells about 80 frog-based drinks every day, and some of her clients have them as breakfast drinks, early in the morning, because it gives them energy for the entire day.

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Created by artist Stephen Huneck as a place where people of all religions could celebrate the spiritual connection they have with their dogs, the famous Dog Chapel of Vermont is now in danger of being closed down due to unpaid property taxes.

Stephen Huneck loved dogs for as far as he could remember, but growing up in a family with seven children, he couldn’t afford to get one of his own. That all changed when he became an adult, and the special bond between him and his dogs was never stronger than when he came out of the hospital, following a two-month coma caused by a serious fall, 14 years ago. His four legged friends stood by his side as he learned to walk again. They would go into the forests to walk on trails and the dogs walked two feet in front of him and always looked after him and waited for him to catch up. The dog’s behaviour during this time really moved him and he felt like he was in the hands of God’s helpers…Stephen truly believed “dogs make us better people” and that “they can teach us more about love than most relationships we enter into”.

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A dental salon in Tokyo’s Ginza district has become very popular with girls after it advertised a cosmetic procedure that lengthens and sharpens canines to enhance a feature Japanese call “yaeba”.

Crooked teeth are seen as imperfections in many western countries, and particularly in America, where braces are practically a God-given gift to man, but in Japan, a country where almost everything is different, they are considered cute, even adorable. Yaeba means double tooth in Japanese, but it doesn’t describe major dental deformities, but rather the vampire-like look obtained when the two molars crowd the canines pushing them forward to create a fang effect. According to some sources, yaeba gives girls a feline look which is apparently makes them even more attractive, while others say it’s this little imperfection that makes pretty girls look more approachable as opposed to the flawless magazine cover models of the western world. There are many Japanese celebrities with yaeba, but instead of having it fixed with braces, they just show it off to the camera, and that only makes them more popular.

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Thousands of people gathered on the banks of the Odet River, in Quimper, western France, to see seven chocolate boats competing in the sweetest regatta ever.

Georges Larnicol first made headlines last year, when he managed to sail in a 1.2-tonne-heavy chocolate boat, in Concarneau port. Now the 56-year-old master chocolatier, who owns a dozen shops throughout western France, has taken his passion to a whole new level by creating seven functional chocolate boats and showing them off to the world during a race. All of the boats were made of melted unsold chocolate, measured two-meters-long and weighed around 450 kilograms, each. The boats only had room for one sailor, who had to use chocolate oars to steer it to the finish line.

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Fashion designer Rachel Freire has recently been called “sick” by animal rights activists, after she presented a series of creations made from 3,000 yak nipples, at London Fashion Week.

And you thought no one could top Lady Gaga’s famous meat dress, right? Well, yak nipples seem a lot more bizarre than some sewn pieces of red meat. 32-year-old Freire, who has previously worked with celebrities like Christina Aguilera and Courtney Love, had her models parading on the catwalk wearing two dresses and bras made from thousands of yak nipples given to her by a tannery. The show caused quite the scandal and several animal activists as well as members of Parliament used words such as “sickening”, “grotesque”, “repulsive” and “disturbing” to describe the Liverpool-based designer’s creations. Justin Kerswell of animal rights organisaton Viva said: “Isn’t the way we treat farmed animals bad enough without turning their dead bodies into a runway freakshow?” Read More »

A Tata Nano, which usually sells for $3,000 has been converted into one of the most expensive cars in the world, after it’s been plastered with $4.6 million worth of gold and jewelry.

The Nano was a welcome innovation designed to bring affordable transportation to Indian masses, and though it may not have all the features we’ve grown accustomed to in the western world, the tiny car achieved its goal. But there is nothing affordable about Tata’s latest publicity stunt for the Nano – they’ve teamed up with Titan Industry-owned Goldplus jewelry chain and decided to create the most expensive Tata Nano ever. After covering it with kilograms of gold, silver and jewelry, the price of the world’s cheapest car went from $3,000 to $4.6 million. Now that’s quite a makeover.

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If you’re serious about making some changes to your appearance but are to afraid to go under the knife, you might want to book a flight to Thailand and give Khemmikka Na Songkhla’s government-approved slapping techniques a try.

I know what you’re thinking – yet another breast-enlargement scam, I was inclined to think that as well, but after doing some research on Khemmikka Na Songkhla’s slapping treatments I found the Thai Health Ministry conducted a six-month study on them and acknowledged her technique as a viable alternative to plastic surgery. The 44 -year-old Bangkok beautician is the only person in the world who knows the secrets of breast, face and buttock slapping, which she inherited from her grandmother. Now, she’s selected planning to select 10 people to pass on her knowledge to, but not for free. Khemmikka is charging 10 million baht ($330,000) for the body-sculpting course, 8 million baht ($260,000) for the breast slapping course, and 5 million baht ($165,000) for the face slapping course. Four people have applied for her courses, so far.

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Despite never acting in a big Hollywood movie, Dennis Woodruff is a living legend in Los Angeles, known for driving around town in his crazy art cars and advertising his acting services. But it appears the long-time wannabe actor is turning over a new leaf and making a fortune in the process.

For around 20 years he has been known as the guy driving along Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards in ridiculous art cars covered in hand-painted signs, portfolio photos and phone numbers, trying to land a movie part. Like Angelyne, he became a local celebrity that everybody seemed to recognize, but his dream was to star in movies and he wasn’t going to give up on it. Dennis visited over 200 casting agencies only to face rejection after rejection, but he was hellbent on leaving his mark on Hollywood, and recently decided the only way he could do that was t make his own movies.

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German model maker Robert Gülpen has built the most expensive car model in the world – a 1:8 scale replica of the Lamborghini Aventador made from carbon, platinum gold and decorated with precious stones.

52-year-old Gülpen, who describes his creation as a “high-tech work of art” said he wanted to create something unique that has never been done before. A former mechanical engineer, Gülpen started making miniature car models from precious metals in the late 1990s and eventually became a renown miniature car model maker. He decided the cutting edge Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 would be the perfect choice for his greatest masterpiece.  The body of the car is made from carbon, just like the original, and features around €2 million-worth of precious metals and stones. Metal was used for the detailed rims and diamonds were inserted into the seats, steering wheel and headlights.

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In Yaopu village, Shanxi Province, Li Yanping is known as a one-person orphanages who has taken care of 80 abandoned children over a period of 22 years.

49-year-old Li Yanping lives in a modest 40-square-meter country house and barely survives on a meager income, but that hasn’t stopped her from taking care of dozens of abandoned children, most of them mentally or psychically handicapped.  Born in 1964, in Mu village, Li married at the young age of 21 and soon had her first baby. Her story as a modern-day Mother Theresa began in 1989, shortly after her natural child was born, when her husband found a toddler abandoned on their doorstep. After examining it more carefully, the two realized the child suffered from deformities, but they took it in, fed it and took care of it, despite their financial shortcomings. But they could only take care of two babies for a while, and when milk shortages and lack of money became too much too handle, they made a desperate decision to give their own healthy son up for adoption. They figured someone would adopt a healthy baby, whereas the disabled child had almost no chance of survival.

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Weg van Nederland is a televised game show that supposedly pits asylum seekers against each other for the chance to win a cash prize before being deported to their home countries.

Translated as “Leaving the Netherlands”, Weg van Nederland will air on the VPRO channel this Thursday, and while it sounds like a big joke, VPRO editor-n-chief Frank Wiering says contestants are real unsuccessful asylum seekers who have to leave the country in a month or two. They are offered the chance to compete for a $5600 cash prize to take with them when they get deported. Contestants have to answer questions about Dutch culture, history and language, to prove which of them learned most about the Netherlands during their stay in the country. Losers get consolation prizes like tulip bulbs and bulletproof vests.

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