A small stone cottage in the heart of the Scottish highland countryside has been labeled an introvert’s dream house because of its secluded location, miles from the nearest human settlement.

Nestled in the hills of Sutherland, Brae Cottage is a traditional stone-built cottage featuring a sitting room, two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom with water from a natural spring running to it. The property also includes two outbuildings – one for coal storage and one for general storage – and 2 acres of land, sufficient for self-sustainable living. The cottage is located close to a small stream and an infrequently used track road running between The Mound (A9) and Bonar Bridge. The closest village is 6 miles away, although aerial photos of this isolated certainly don’t show any nearby settlements. If you’re looking for a place to get away from it all and have £130,000 ($175,000) to spend, it’s certainly worth considering.

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In what has been described as a first-of-its-kind medical case, a man in his 30s ended up with a hole in his throat after pinching his nose and pressing his lips shut in order to surpress a sneeze.

The unnamed man was taken to Ninewells Hospital, in Dundee, Scotland, in severe pain, after trying to stifle a sneeze by pinching his nose and closing his mouth shut while driving. Apparently, when you do something like that, the pressure in the upper airways can increase by about 20 times, which can lead to serious injuries including ruptured eardrums, aneurysms, and even broken ribs. However, in this particular case, the unnamed patient ended up with a 2mm tear in their windpipe, which caused excruciating pain. A throat tear, known medically as a “spontaneous tracheal perforation” is a rare and potentially life-threatening injury that had not been associated with sneeze stifling before.

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The Meikleour Beech Hedge, located near the village of Meikleour, in Scotland, measures 30 meters (98 feet) in height, making it the tallest hedge in the world.

Planted in 1745, the Meikleour Beech Hedge now lies alongside the A93 Perth-Blairgowrie Road and can be viewed all year round. It is recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the highest hedge in the world, and is most impressive to behold during Spring, when the young green leaves reflect the light, as well as in Fall, when the trees turn russet and gold.

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A family of four from Scotland is offering a £50,000 ($64,000) to a professional nanny willing to work in a haunted house and put up with supernatural occurrences that have so far driven away five other nannies in the last year alone. This may be just a clever hoax, but even so, it’s a very entertaining story.

According to the ad posted on a popular childcare job site, the “friendly family of four with 2 children ages 5 and 7 living in a small village in the Scottish Borders” have been having trouble finding a stable nanny to look after their young ones. They apparently live in a “lovely, spacious, historic property” that offers “spectacular views” of the surrounding countryside, but that hasn’t been enough to keep previous nannies working there long-term. That might have something to do with the place being haunted, the person who posted the ad says.

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Fed up of with being constantly groped by women, the waiters of Scottish pub ‘Hootananny’, in Inveness, have decided to stop wearing their kilts. That’s a pretty big deal, since Hootananny staff have been wearing tartan to match the traditional Scottish atmosphere, ever since the place opened. But now the guys say that they’re being sexually harassed by female revelers who lift up their kilts to check if they are true Scotsmen!

According to Hootananny assistant manager Iain Howie, the harassment usually occurs during the weekends when the pub is at its busiest. “You get large groups of drinking women circling around when you are collecting glasses and asking whether you are a true Scotsman,” he said. “And they find out for themselves.”

“The first few times it’s funny,” he added. “But when it is really busy and everyone has to work fast and hard, and your hands are full of glasses, you feel quite vulnerable. You are thinking, ‘are you going to get broken glasses, or is your kilt going to get lifted up again?’ They see it as a bit of fun, but it is a bit of an embarrassment.”

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A centuries-old slimming remedy is all set to make a comeback after evidence of its use was discovered in old manuscripts during an archaeological dig. The heath pea is a long-forgotten fern-like wild Scottish plant with purple flowers that can apparently suppress hunger and thirst for weeks. Entrepreneurs are now interested in re-introducing the wonder-herb to the world as a dietary supplement that could produce drastic weight loss results.

According to botanical records, the heath pea, also known as bitter vetch, was a vital ingredient of the Highland diet up until the 18th century, when food was scarce. The pea-sized tubers of the plant were stripped off the roots, dried and ingested. Just a couple of tubers were sufficient to provide a boost of energy, and prevent thirst and hunger for days, even weeks. Entire communities are said to have lived off these tubers when crops were poor.

17th century literature also indicates that the plant helped people perform strenuous activities like working in fields. Monks used it to treat patients as early as the 14th century, and it is rumored to have made an appearance in the court of King Charles (he apparently gave it to his lovers who had a propensity for plumpness). The roots were also believed to be eaten by Julius Caesar’s soldiers in preparation for the battle of Dyrrhachium in 48 BC.

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There are some things in this world that are simply beyond explanation. Like the fact that in the past 50 years, about 50 dogs have jumped to their deaths from the exact same spot on the 100-year-old Overtoun Bridge in Milton, near Dumbarton, Scotland. In 2005, five dogs had jumped in a span of just 6 months. The canine suicide spot is located between the last two parapets on the right-hand side of the bridge, which is where all the dogs took the fatal leap. And to add to the strangeness, almost all the incidents have taken place on clear, sunny days, the dogs always being long-nosed breeds – collies, retrievers and labs.

The situation, according to the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is a ‘heartbreaking mystery’. “There are lots of owners whose dogs have died and who are trying to find out why they jumped,” the Society says. One of the victims on the bridge was collie dog Ben, who leaped to his death in 1995 while taking a walk with his owner Donna Cooper, her husband, and her son, Callum. Without any warning, Ben just leapt over the parapet and landed on the rocks below after a 50ft fall. Suffering a broken paw, back and jaw, the vet decided that it wasn’t worth putting him through the pain. “Callum still asks about Ben. He was very upset by the dog’s death and wants to know if his leg has been fixed in heaven,” said Cooper, a year after Ben’s death. The case of golden retriever Hendrix was pretty much similar, although she got very lucky. Kenneth Meikle, her owner, said, “I was out walking with my partner and children when suddenly the dog just jumped. My daughter screamed, and I ran down the bank to where the dog lay and carried her up to safety. Next day, thank goodness, she was fine. We were lucky because she landed on a moss bed which broke her fall.”

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Nature has always been about the ‘survival of the fittest’, but sometimes even the fittest cannot survive its harsh conditions. What happened with David Austin is a classic example of how merciless the outdoors can truly be. He had embarked upon a year-long survival challenge in the Scottish wilderness, but was found dead within a month.

The 29-year-old from Derby was on a mission inspired by English adventurer Bear Grylls. Sadly however, his body was discovered on December 31st by a track worker in a remote mountain hut located in Corrour, Highland Perthshire. The condition in which the body was found suggests that it had been lying there for several weeks, unnoticed. According to post mortem reports, the most plausible cause for death was hypothermia.

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I know it’s a few days past Christmas but I couldn’t pas by this news.

Nanotechnologists at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, Produced what they believe to be the world’s smallest Christmas card, the image of a Christmas Tree engraved on a piece of glass, a very small piece of glass, invisible to the naked eye.

“The card is 200 micro-meters wide by 290 micro-meters tall. To put that into some sort of perspective, a micro-meter is a millionth of a meter; the width of a human hair is about 100 micro-meters,” explains David Cumming, professor at the University of Glasgow.

To make it easier for you to imagine its real dimensions I should tell you that on an area the size of a postage stamp you could fit around 8,276 of these cards. Color was also added using a process called plasmon resonance.

Scientists had the sole purpose of explaining what nano-technology is capable of and say that, while the card is just a demonstration, domains like the electronics industry find this technology very useful.

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Scotland’s town of Cumbernauld has recently become the proud “host” of a beautiful mermaid statue that seems to be guarding the town’s entrance.

Standing at over 33ft tall, this statue is entirely made out of metal and depicts a beautiful four-armed mermaid, with two of her arms stretched outwards, as if to protect the town, and the other two holding up her mermaid tail.Her name is Arria and she was thought of and designed by English sculptor Andy Scott.

The real spectacle begins at nightfall as the statue features a rig of multicolored lights inside it’s structure that all lit up, putting Arria in a whole new “light”.

The costs for making the statue reached up to around $400,000, but local authorities hope the mermaid will be the town’s lucky charm.

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Freshmen have always had it a little rough in college, but at the St. Andrews University, in Scotland, their plight at the hand of senior students has become a celebrated tradition called Raisin Monday.

The traditions of Raisin Monday date back to the early days of St. Andrews. New students (also known as “bejants” and “bejantines”) had to show their gratitude to seniors, for showing them the ropes around campus, and a pound of raising was considered an expensive and tasty enough sign of appreciation. With the passing of time, some freshmen started ignoring the custom, so senior students came up with of receipts written in Latin acknowledging the receipt of the pound of raisins. If one of the freshmen students didn’t have such a receipt, he would get doused in one of the local fountains. Another reason for a dousing was the challenge of the receipt, by a senior, for mistakes in written Latin.

Throughout the years since St. Andrews University opened its gates in 1410, the traditions of Raisin Monday have changed according to the times. Nowadays, new students have to buy seniors a bottle of wine as a token of gratitude, and the dousing in water fountains has been replaced by a general fight with shaving foam.

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