About a month ago, a Russian vigilante wearing a Batman costume declared war on drug dealers doing business in the Khimki area outside Moscow. So far, he claims to have captured around 40 criminals.

It all started at the beginning of June, when a taxi driver witnessed a man dressed as Batman entering a building that later proved to be a drug den, in the middle of the night. He told police that he soon started hearing people screaming and things being thrown around inside. The mysterious man then walked out, threw some sort of fire bomb at the ground and disappeared into the shadows. A few minutes later, law enforcement arrived at the scene, entered the building and walked out with two men in handcuffs. The witness, identified only as Slava, said the men were beat up pretty badly.

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It’s quite natural for lizards and snakes to lie on hot rocks in the scorching sun, because they have to thermoregulate, but when middle-aged and elderly women in the Chinese city of Xi’an started doing it, people started raising their eyebrows in surprise.

It turns out lying on large stone boulders in the hot sun is this year’s summer health trend among the women of Xi’an. Elderly and middle-aged women can be seen hugging rocks or simply lying on them with towels on their faces all around the city, from parks to squares and pretty much wherever else large, sun-heated rocks can be found.

At first, people thought the women were engaging in some mysterious artistic performance, but local reporters approached them, they said it was a traditional medical treatment to help them cure various illnesses. One woman, identified only by her surname, Lo, said that she started lying on hot rocks to treat her synovitis and stiff muscles, after a relative suffering from similar ailments did it for an extended period of time and got cured. Apparently, the best time to practice laying on rocks is between 3 and 4 p.m., when the sun burns the hottest.

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Arya Permana, a 10-year-old boy from Indonesia, has been dubbed the fattest child in the world after it was reported that he weighs a whopping 192 kilograms. His heavy frame has left him unable to walk, attend school or find cloths that will fit him.

Arya, from the village of Cipurwasari in Indonesia’s Arawang Regency, started gaining weight rapidly at the age of two, when his parents noticed that he was much larger that his older brothers had been at his age. In the beginning, they were happy about his fuller figure and considered him a healthy child, but as the years went by and his appetite and weight got out of control, they realized something was wrong with the boy and he needed medical attention. They took Arya to several doctors, but none of them found his weight abnormal and told the parents to take him to a bigger hospital if they thought he needed help.

“They asked us to take him to better hospitals if we think he needs medical attention. I have spent money beyond my capacity on his treatment but I am a poor farmer and making ends meet is a big task for me,” the boy’s father, Ade, said. “I am exhausted now and I cannot afford expensive hospitals. But I hope to see my son perfectly normal one day.”

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A heartwarming 3-minute video showing a young girl guiding her blind father to work on a coconut plantation in the Philippines recently went viral on Facebook and changed the lives of its protagonists.

The video shows five-year-old Jenny, walking barefoot as she guides her blind father, Pepe “Dodong” Nelson, around a coconut farm, using a small wooden stick. She can be seen helping him avoid other people as they make their way through the coconut trees and guiding him to his lunch of crackers and water. With her help, Nelson manages to climb around 60 trees every day, for a pay of around 300 pesos ($6), barely enough to put food on their table.

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German sneaker company nat-2 has recently unveiled the world’s first vegan wooden sneakers which are up to 90% real sustainable wood.

Just last week, we wrote about Piñatex – a new material made from pineapple leaves that is all set to become a sustainable alternative to animal leather – and today we present yet another interesting innovation, wooden footwear. According to a press release by German high-end sneaker brand nat-2, to make it flexible “the wood is applied to an organic cotton and vector engraved in a way that the material bends and becomes soft and flexible like a fine nappa leather. The feel is very smooth and fine, while you can smell the wood and see the tree’s natural texture.”

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Last month, artist Aaron Chervenak drove from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Nevada to finally take the love for his smartphone to the next level by marrying it at a small wedding chapel. And yeah, in case you’re wondering, he even put a ring on it.

A study conducted by internet security giant Kaspersky found that a quarter of people ranked their smartphone as more or equally important to them as their parents. For a lot of us, it’s the last thing we interact with before going to sleep and the first thing we check when we wake up. It’s with us pretty much 24/7, and we connect with it on so many levels. “We look to it for solace, to calm us down, to put us to sleep, to ease our mind, and to me that’s also what a relationship is about,” Aaron Chervenak said. So in a sense, my smartphone has been my longest relationship. That’s why I decided to see what it was like to actually marry a phone.”

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For the past few years, a man from Green Bay, has been threatening to sue big companies who perform background checks on him during the hiring process if they don’t pay him hefty settlements. Believe it or not, his plan is actually working.

Although he’s apparently been at it for years, Cory Groshek’s strategy was recently revealed by Time Warner Cable lawyers filed a motion to dismiss a case filed against the company by Groshek. It claims that within a recent 18-month stretch, Groshek applied to 562 jobs with high-profile companies, without any intention to secure long-term employment. Instead, he merely tried to  to catch companies violating the law during the hiring process, so he could threaten a class-action lawsuit against them and demand settlements.

Documents submitted by the lawyers show that Groshek has used this scare tactic to extract at least $232,000 in settlements from various businesses across the United States. The man himself has allegedly admitted to threatening over 40 companies with class-action lawsuits for technical violations of the federal law, specifically running a background check on him without properly informing him about it.

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China’s serious video-game addiction problem is once again in the news, after a 19-year old boy was found passed out in some bushes with badly infected feet, after a 6-day gaming marathon at an internet cafe.

Police discovered the avid gamer collapsed near some train tracks. They quickly called an ambulance as the man’s feet seemed badly infected and were giving off a strong putrid smell. When he woke up briefly to ask for some water, he told police officers that he had spent all his money playing video games and had not eaten or slept in several days. When he couldn’t afford to play anymore, he just started wondering around the city and eventually passed out from fatigue.

After identifying the man, local police contacted his father, who initially didn’t want to know anything about his son. It turns out all he did was play video games on the internet, and had run away from home 10 days prior. However, after hearing about the state he was found in, the man asked police to bring the teen home. Read More »

A 54-year-old man from Jilin, China, is making international headlines for his bizarre exercise routine. Cong Yan claims daily walks with a 40-kilogram rock balancing on his head have helped him lose 30 kilograms in the last three years.

Cong Yan is a familiar, albeit unusual sight in Jilin parks. Every day, he can be seen walking on the narrow pathways, ascending and descending steps alongside other health-conscious Chinese trying to keep in shape. But what sets him apart from everybody else is the heavy-looking block of solid concrete dangling on top of his head.

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In a country where women are not allowed to drive, bumper cars have become an unlikely alternative to real automobiles. Unlike men, most of whom love nothing more than to bump each other when using the popular amusement park attractions, Saudi Arabian women prefer to cruise beside each other while honing their driving skills.

For reasons that are hard to understand in the Western world, women in Saudi Arabia are still forbidden to drive. Despite moves towards rights for women under King Abdullah before his death, current crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud recently said that the Saudi community “is not convinced about women driving”. It’s hard to predict if things will ever change in that regard, but in the meantime, Saudi women have found an ingenious way to practice driving – riding bumper cars.

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With the imminent rise of the machines and everyone anticipating that robots will be taking all our jobs, a proactive human jobseeker has decided to become a robot in order to improve his odd sof landing a tech job. If you can’t beat’em, join’em, right?

Meet Canu, a man trying to stay ahead of the times. Inspired by grim predictions that robots will be taking over our jobs in the next 30 years, he has set up a tongue-in-cheek website where he advertises himself as a human-turned robot, with 4 years of experience in marketing under his belt, but also the ability to “program and download any other skills as needed”. Just one of the perks of being a machine, I guess. His human side presents some advantages as well, like being “already assembled” and not requiring batteries. So there you go, tech companies, the perfect employee.

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The minimalist lifestyle trend has been gaining popularity in the Western world for a while now, but we’re still far from the hardcore minimalism Zen-loving Japanese have adopted in their quest to achieve a stress-free life.

Space has always been an issue in crowded Japanese cities, so from that point of view it makes sense that people try to keep their homes junk free, but some are taking minimalism to such an extreme that they are virtually living in empty houses surrounded by only the barest of necessities. For them, minimalism is not just about de-cluttering their living space, but also about evaluating what material possessions truly bring to their lives and focusing on the things that they consider important. To Japan’s hardcore minimalists, less is more in every sense that actually matters.

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Buying your first house is supposed to be a joyous occasion, but for young Tamara Holloway, from Nashville, Tennessee it was a terrible nightmare she couldn’t wake up from, because the man she bought the house from refused to move out.

Holloway closed on the home on June 1, and although there was no clause in the contract that stated former owner Justin McCrory couldn stay there past that date, he simply wouldn’t leave. “The transaction went through and they’re getting a good clean property,” McCrory told local reporters. “What’s the problem? … I technically don’t have to go anywhere. They’d have to evict me and they’re not having that.” Signature Title Services had said the processor for the closing also contacted McCrory asking him to move out of the house, but that didn’t seem to do much good, so the new owner filed a detainer warrant, the first step in an eviction process. However it can take up to 30 days until you can have someone forcefully removed that way, so things didn’t look good for the inexperienced buyer.

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Animal leather alternatives like Polyurethane and PVC leather may have solved the fashion industry’s animal cruelty problem, but they are not the most environmentally friendly solutions. Piñatex – a new leather-like material made from pineapple leaves – on the other hand, may just be the all-around eco-leather we’ve all been waiting for.

Piñatex or “vegan leather” is the invention of Dr. Carmen Hijosa and her innovative materials company, Ananas Anam. While working in the Philippines as a consultant to the Product Development and Design Center of the Philippines in the ‘90s, she discovered the properties of pineapple leaf fibers and dedicated her life to creating sustainable alternatives to leather and petroleum-based textiles. After years of research, Ananas Anam has finally come up with what it believes is a viable alternative to animal leather. It recently showcased the versatility of Piñatex during a presentation held at the Royal College of Art in London, where designers displayed various clothing items and accessories made exclusively from the revolutionary material.

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In what is likely the most disturbing teen trend we’ve ever reported about – and there have been quite a few – pregnant young girls in Australia are turning to smoking tobacco cigarettes to keep their babies’ weight low and make childbirth less painful.

The shocking finding that young Australian pregnant women are more terrified of childbirth pain than the serious adverse affects smoking during pregnancy can have on the fetus – including higher stillbirth rates and increased risk of childhood asthma and allergies – was revealed by a recently published 10-year national anthropological study led by Associate Professor Simone Dennis from the Australian National University. She found that girls as young as 16 are either taking up smoking or increasing their daily cigarette intake in an effort to have smaller babies, due to fears that their young bodies will not be able to handle childbirth.

Even more disturbing is the fact that the teen mothers-to-be were inspired to take on this practice by the health warnings on Australian cigarette packs, some of which state that ‘smoking while pregnant can reduce the weight of your baby’. Rather than being deterred by this, they decided to embrace smoking as a way of keeping their unborn babies’ weight low in hopes of a less painful childbirth. Studies show that smoking mothers are twice as likely as nonsmokers to have lower weight babies, about 200g lighter, on average.

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