47-year-old Daniel Kish has been completely blind ever since he was just a baby, but that hasn’t stopped him from living an incredibly active life which includes riding a bicycle or hiking alone in the mountains. To do this, he has perfected a form of echolocation, the same mechanism bats use to see in the dark.

Daniel has been blind for as long as he can remember. He was born with an aggressive form of cancer called retinoblastoma, which attacks the retina, and at only 13 months, doctors had to remove both his eyes, in order to save his life. He now has prosthetic eyes. He has never seen a tree, a car, or another human being, but he is perfectly able to navigate and even describe his surroundings in close detail, using echolocation, a technique he has been practicing from a very early age. Basically Daniel uses sound to see. Every environment and surface has its own acoustic signature and he produces  brief, sharp clicks with his tongue to identify them. The sound waves he creates travel at a speed of over 1,000 feet per second, bounce off every object that surrounds him, and returns to his ears at the same rate, though vastly decreased in volume, telling him exactly what everything is, and where it’s located.

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Ram Singh Chauhan started growing his mustache in 1970, and hasn’t cut it since. Today it measures over 4.30 meters, and the proud Indian man from Rajasthan holds the Guinness record for World’s Longest Mustache.

The 58-year old says one of the secrets to impressive facial hair growth is starting early. “As you grow old your hormones grow weak, so the speed slows down,” Ram says, but even now he still adds a few centimeters to his mustache every year. He stopped shaving his mustache back in 1970, after being inspired by a fellow mustache enthusiast from Rajasthan, resuming to trimming the split ends every once in a while. In the early years Chauhan and his wife Asha used to fight over his abnormally long facial hair, because he used to take a long time to wash and groom it, and people stared at them every time they went out. But as soon as her husband started getting recognition for his efforts, she began to respect his commitment, and says she now considers the mustache part of the family and shares his pride in it. Thanks to his long mustache, Ram Singh Chauhan appeared in big movies like 1983’s “Octopussy”, starring Roger Moore, as well as numerous Bollywood productions. He has also traveled around the world, to show off his amazing whiskers.

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24-year-old Michele Koebke wants to set a new record for the World’s Tiniest Waist. To reach her goal, she has worn corsets every day and night for the last three years, taking them off only when she showers. Unfortunately this unusual fascination with corsets is taking a toll on her health.

Michele Koebke is a big fan of the 19th century wasp waist fashion silhouette, which had women wearing tight corsets to shrink their waists and attain a look similar to the wasp’s segmented body. Only she has taken her passion to the extreme by wearing a corset every day and night since the end of 2009, in the hopes that she might someday set a new record for the world’s smallest waist. During the last 3 years, Michele has managed to shrink her waist from 64cm to 54 cm, which gives her hope that she may one day surpass her idol, Cathie Jung, whose 34cm waist is currently considered the tiniest. Although she admits gradually squeezing her body into smaller and smaller corsets is like an extreme sport, which leaves her breathless and unable to consume a normal size meal, the young Berlin native says she loves her pretty deformed waist.

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It’s not easy being beautiful, at least according to 21-year-old Dana Adiva, who says her looks are both a blessing and a curse. She is treated like a princess, but the same time women are jealous of her beauty, and men just can’t help staring at her.

Dana, an aspiring professional wrestler from Illinois, was recently featured on MTV’s “True Life” where she complained about being too beautiful. The young blonde claimed she has had people telling her how pretty she was all the time, but things got ugly when she got to high-school. “I got so much attention from all the guys, but I didn’t get along with any of the girls,” Adiva said.  “They were extremely jealous of me”. Things really got out of control when she started getting hate mail from other girls, which eventually forced her to drop out of school. And that’s only one of the tough things she has had to deal with because of her look. Apparently, it’s also affecting her chances of finding true love. “I’m hoping to find love someday but when you look like me it’s not easy. My looks get in the way,” Dana said. “When I walk into a bar I’m used to every guy staring at me,” but the men she is actually interested in never seem to take her seriously. Truly a tragedy, this is…

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A tenth of an amp is enough to kill an ordinary human being, but Raj Mohan Nair is anything but ordinary. This human conductor is able to withstand several amps of electricity passing through his body without suffering any bodily harm.

Electricity Mohan or Electro-Man, as Raj has come to be known all around the world has an amazing super-power. Just a small a mount of electricity can be fatal to most humans, but this man can conduct several amps and survive unscathed. There’s nothing super-human about his looks, but connected to an electrical power source, Raj Mohan Nair can do extraordinary things. He doesn’t shoot lightning bolts from his hands or anything, but he can power up a light bulb or an electric blender by grabbing two live wires and allowing massive amounts of current to pass through his body. He might not seem like a superhero worthy of his own comic book, but it’s a lot more than the rest of us mortals can withstand. If these wires touched any other human’s body, the electricity would cause their organs to fail and stop their heart, but not Mohan’s. With one wire in his mouth for better conductivity and the other anywhere else on his body, Mohan lets the electrical current run through him and into whatever other device he’s trying to power on.

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Varya Akulova is one of those extraordinary human beings most people have never even heard of. Often referred to as “The World’s Strongest Girl”, Varya holds two Guinness records and is able to lift up to four times her own body weight.

Born in 1992, in the Ukrainian mining town of Krivoy Rog, Varya Akulova showed remarkable physical abilities from a very young age. When she was just one year old, Varya could do a handstand, at one and a half she did flips, at three years of age she started performing acrobatic routines with her parents, and by age four she was already doing powerlifting exercises with massive weights. When Varya’s mother, Larisa, became pregnant, her father, Yuri, started making plans about performing in the circus with his yet-unborn strong son, but when his wife gave birth to a girl, he knew his dreams would never materialize. But as the days went by, Yuri began to realize that with the right training, his daughter could become as strong as a man. The girl had stronger arms and legs than most babies her age, and soon he became certain Varya had inherited the Akulovs’ legendary strength. Historically, his ancestors served at the court of Catherine II and became known for their amazing abilities and toughness during the Russian – Turkish wars. And as the years passed, it became clear Varya was truly an Akulov, able to lift massive weights when other girls her age were busy playing with dolls.

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The Huli Wigmen are a tribe that inhabit several villages in Papua New Guinea. They are known both as some of the most fierce warriors in the region and as masterful “hairstylists”who craft flamboyant wigs out of their own hair.

Not much is known about the origins of the Huli men’s tradition of crafting wigs from their own hair. When researchers discovered the tribe, they were already practicing the custom, and since they are believed to have lived in the area for at least 1,000 years, the tradition must have been developed sometime during this period. Males in their late teenage years and early 20’s leave their community behind and go to Bachelor school, where older man teach them all about manhood, including how to make beautiful wigs from their own hair. They are sequestered in the jungle for at least 18 months, after which they can return to their villages or stay a while longer to acquire more knowledge and improve their skills. The wig-making process starts with the trainees growing out their hair. When it’s big enough, the shaping of the wigs begins while the hair is still attached to their heads. Most of the shapes are saucer-like, so the men have to sleep with bricks and other objects under their heads to keep their heads off the ground and prevent the hair from getting flattened.

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I pity the fool who would dare try to compete with 64-year-old Andres Gardin in a coconut peeling contest. The Mr T. lookalike has been using his strong teeth to peel off the fruit’s hardened shell for over 50 years, but he is till waiting for Guinness to add his name to their famous record book.

The B.A. Baracus fan from Rio Alexander, a small and humble town in the province of Colon, Panama, has been entertaining neighbors and colleagues with his amazing talent for over half a century. While most men his age are thinking about retirement and playing with their grandchildren, Andres Gardin is busy using his vice-like jaws to peel off coconuts. He’s been doing it since he was just 11 years old, after seeing his own father use his teeth to angrily bite through a coconut that had fallen on his head, knocking him unconscious. He reckons he has since then peeled off over 100,000 coconuts, and claims his dentures are as strong as they’ve ever been. Still, he says ripping off the fruit’s tough shell is not as easy as it looks; it requires strong jaws and teeth, as well as the power of God. Gardin’s biggest wish is to have his name mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records. He says he can peel 500 coconuts in just six and a half ours, more than enough to beat any who would dare challenge him, yet no official has ever come to verify his feats.

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His bright eyes have the power to see into your soul, his glossed hair makes girls reach for their computer screens to touch it, and his photo captions make you feel like you’ve skipped grammar classes in school. He is Ahmed Angel – the greatest internet superstar ever…

If you thought Zoolander was just the fruit of Ben Stiller’s wild imagination, think again. He’s real, and his name is Ahmed Angel. Quite an appropriate name for this angelic male super model the world can’t seem to get enough of. Crazy photos of this new internet superstar have been doing the rounds on sites like Buzzfeed or The Huffington Post for the last week, with everyone trying to find out more about him. Apart from his out-worldly prettiness everything else about Ahmed Angel was a mystery. Well, maybe not everything. Anyone could see he was craving attention like his life depended on it, and his love for makeup, hair gel and acid-washed jeans was obvious from the hundreds of edited photos he posted on his Facebook page. But the world wanted something of substance. Who was this dashingly handsome man that captured the imaginations of millions around the world and inspired hundreds of hilarious comments on Reddit with his killer looks? Was he even real? Luckily, Ahmed was kind enough to answer questions posted by various media outlets on his Facebook page, and reveal more about himself.

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Although some of us refuse to believe it, we live in a mean, cutthroat world. Luckily there are still some genuine good Samaritans out there, and Anthony Cymerys is definitely one of them. For the last 25 years, the man known as Joe the Barber has been offering homeless people in Hartford, Connecticut haircuts in exchange for hugs.

Anthony Cymerys started offering his barber services to those less fortunate in 1988, after hearing a sermon about the homeless. He had just retired and was only cutting hair for family, but those inspiring words he had heard in church made him decided he didn’t want the homeless looking like homeless anymore. So he prepared his tools, put them in the car and started driving around town looking for people in need of his services. In the beginning, he helped people in shelters and convalescent homes, then he cut hair in downtown YMCA for years, before moving to the carousel near Bushnell Park. Every Wednesday, the wooden benches on the Elm Street side of the park are packed with homeless people waiting for a relaxing haircut, shave and facial massage from the 82-year-old Joe.

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If someone tried to sell me the moon, I would dismiss them as con artists. So I was pretty surprised to learn about Denis Hope, a 65-year-old man from Gardnerville, Nevada, who runs a legit business selling land plots on the Moon, Mars, Venus, Io and Mercury. Of course, there’s no legal backing to all this, but there’s nobody stopping him either. As long as he’s able to make people smile, he says he can do anything he wants. He’s been in business since 1980.

Hope is a former-ventriloquist, now in the business of space real-estate. Some people view his work as the selling of ‘novelty items’ such as pet rocks and certificates. Others argue that he’s taking forth the age-old American tradition of land speculators selling plots of useless land. Hope admits that there are several others selling property in outer space, but the difference is that those people are criminal in their intent. He considers himself the legit owner of the Moon, so what he’s doing is all right. How come he is so confident, you ask? Well, he says this is as real as any other property you can buy on Earth, and that’s because he filed a declaration with the United Nations. Otherwise, Hope says he wouldn’t be selling at all.

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I think it’s amazing how dedicated some people can be towards a cause they believe in. Like 60-year-old Lindsay Hamon, who has spent the past 26 years of his life hauling a giant crucifix all around the world, talking about Jesus to anyone who will listen. He literally carried his faith on his shoulders, trekking across 19 countries including New Zealand, Romania, India and Sri Lanka. During the course of his amazing journey he has had some truly spectacular moments as well as some pretty rough ones. In spite of being attacked and shot at in Bangladesh and thrown out of St Peter’s Square in Rome, Hamon has no plans to stop his work any time soon.

Hamon took up the mission of carrying the huge cross around the world in 1987, and he has rarely put it down ever since . The cross itself is made of cedar wood and measures 12 ft. by 6ft tall. It has a wheel at its base to make it easier to drag around, and he actually carries it over his shoulder for up to 12 hours a day, without having the faintest idea of where he will spend the night. The father-of-two and part-time care worker receives donations from supporters that help him stay committed to his role as a Christian Evangelist. But he does need to stop at his home town in Cornwall every once in a while to work and pay his family’s bills. “I tried giving up my work and doing this full time instead, but I didn’t get enough money to make ends meet,” he says. At times, Hamon has even put his life at risk. “There is fear there sometimes because I have a wife and kids and you don’t want to put yourself in danger. It is really trusting in God, knowing he will protect you.”

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Bojana Danilovic, a young woman from Serbia, suffers from a strange condition that has left both doctors and scientists baffled. The 28-year economics graduate sees everything upside down.

Experts from Harvard University and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who examined Bojana Danilovic say she suffers from a rare brain condition called ‘spatial orientation phenomenon’. In layman’s terms that means her eyes see things the right way, but for some reason her brain changes them. Although there have been some similar cases recorded in history, Bojana’s case is truly unique. Everything in her life has been backwards, even the way she came into this world – feet first. Her parents remember that when she first started crawling, she would always move backwards, and when she began to walk, she did it in reverse. The remarkable young woman says her mother had to take a leave from her job in order to teach her to walk like all the other children. It took a lot of practice, but she finally managed to walk forward. Only this was only the beginning of a very unusual life.

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Believe it or not, whistling can get you arrested. Robert Smith, better known as The Whistler, in the city of Portland, was actually thrown in jail for disturbing people with his constant whistling and has now been ordered by a judge to only whistle when walking, so he doesn’t annoy businesses and passers-by in any one area.

“It came from God — that’s where it came from,” Robert Smith says about the origins of his passion for whistling. “God is showing me what I’m doing is OK. He shows me every day with laughter.” He’s referring to the reactions of people who seem amused by his constant whistling. But, unfortunately for him, laughter is not the only reaction triggered by his almost daily habit. Businesses around Portland have been filing complaints about The Whistler’s behavior, and when they just kept piling up, the Police Department finally picked him up ant even took him to court for disorderly conduct for “loud whistling.” “It just got to the point last summer where the complaints just mounted,” said Trish McAllister, the city’s neighborhood prosecutor. “He’s so loud!” Apparently, Smith’s steady monotone notes are so strong they can be heard a block away.

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Mowgli has always been one of the most-loved characters from children’s literature. I loved the Jungle Book cartoon movie when I was a kid and I must say it is a favorite even today. So when I heard about this real-life Mowgli character, I was fascinated.

Folklore and fairy-tales always mention that wild animals do not hurt the young ones of any species. But that theory hasn’t exactly been tested out in the real world, and there have been cases where babies were reportedly killed by man-eating lions or tigers. But that’s what makes Tippi Degre’s story that more special. Now 23 years old, Tippi is the only child of French wildlife photographer parents, Alain Degre and Sylvie Robert. Her parents’profession and their work in Africa made the young girl’s childhood unique, giving her the opportunity to interact with wild animals in incredible ways. She was named after actress Tippi Hedren, who is said to have kept fully-grown lions as pets in her home, and little Tippi was no different from her namesake, demonstrating early on the ability to form unusual bonds with the creatures of the wild.

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