Russian Artisans Create Real GoT “Iron Throne” Out of 387 Metal Swords

A team of Russian artisans from the city of Blagoveshchensk spent three months creating a real-life version of the iconic “Iron Throne” from the popular Game of Thrones TV series. They claim it is the only one in the world made out of actual iron swords, as even the one on the show is made of plastic.

The life-size Iron Throne was created by two blacksmiths, a welder, and a couple of artists, all members of the Association of Artisans of Blagoveshchensk and the Amur Region. In a video showcasing the impressive metal artwork, Vadim Nikolayev, one of the people involved in the project, said that the throne required about a half tonne of metal, which was used to forge 387 swords and a few dozen daggers. Some of the blades were hammered into the right shape to create the seat of power and finally welded together.

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German Granny Has Been Battling Hate Speech All by Herself, for 31 Years

72-year-old Irmela Mensah-Schram is a special kind of cleaning lady. For the last 31 years, she has been travelling across Germany, cleaning its streets of hateful messages, be they propaganda posters or graffiti. She has received death threats from neo-nazis and the police have fined her numerous times, but she continues her fight against racism, antisemitism and xenophobia.

Armed with a small scraper and a can of spray-paint, Irmela Mensah-Schram, a.k.a. Germany’s “Hate Destroyer” has been removing or covering up Nazi propaganda and other right-wing slogans across her country for over three decades. For many, she is a hero fighting against hate, while some consider her actions to be in violation of freedom of speech, and even state officials have mixed feelings about her. She has received several awards for her long-term efforts to keep hateful propaganda off the streets, but she has also been fined and even taken to court for damaging others’ property.

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World’s First Automatic Toothbrush Takes Brushing Out of the Equation

Technology is changing every aspect of our lives and apparently tooth brushing is no exception. Amabrush, the world’s first automatic toothbrush promises to clean your pearly whites in just 10 seconds, with no effort required on your part.

You may never have thought about it before, but you lose tens of hours a year just brushing your teeth. A team of biotech engineers and dental care visionaries want to change that with the help of technology. Their seemingly-revolutionary invention, called Amabrush, looks more like a rubbery mouth-guard than a toothbrush, but promises to clean all your teeth thoroughly, in only 10 seconds, using vibrations created by a small motor, rather than repeated hand motion.

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Umbrella Sharing Company Loses Most of Its 300,000 Umbrellas in a Couple of Months

Sharing E Umbrella, a new umbrella sharing company based in Shenzen, China, recently announced that it had lost most of the 300,000 umbrellas it made available since it launched, in April.

China’s sharing economy has been booming, with companies offering anything from bicycles and basketballs to smartphone battery banks on a rental basis. Customers make a small deposit and get to use the item for a set period of time for a daily fee, with penalty fees put in place for every day that they fail to return the product after the deadline. It’s a simple business model, and market data shows that consumers see sharing as a cheap and convenient way to reduce waste and avoid clutter. However, it doesn’t always work out as well as entrepreneurs hope.

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Malaysian Man Faces Criticism for Using Plastic Surgery to Look Like Real-Life Anime Character

Amirul Rizwan Musa, a 21-year-old entrepreneur from Malaysia, has recently come under fire in his home country for spending tens of thousands of dollars on plastic surgery that left him looking like a real-life anime character.

Amirul, better known by his online name, Miyyo Rizone, became the target of criticism from many of his countrymen, after photos showing his radical transformation went viral on social media, last weekend. The fact that some media outlets reported that he had undergone numerous cosmetic surgery procedures in order to become a living Ken doll, didn’t help things either, and now he’s asking people to stop condemning and dehumanizing him for his choices.

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Meet Kina Shen, China’s Living, Breathing Porcelain Doll

Browsing through photos of Kina Shen, a young Chinese model with a massive following on Instagram, it’s often hard to tell if you’re looking at an actual human being, or just a life-size doll.

There are many girls out there trying their best to capture the living doll look, but few – if any – manage to do it as well as Kina Shen. The Shenzen-based Chinese model was blessed with perfect facial features, flawless porcelain-like skin and a talent for makeup, all of which apparently come in handy when you’re trying to pose as a doll or a mannequin.

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Ukrainian Shelter Rescues Dog That Had Been Stuck in Underground Heating System for Three Years

A dog shelter in Nikopol, Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk Oblast region, recently received a call from a concerned animal lover begging them to help her rescue a dog that had fallen down an exposed drain and had been stuck there for three years.

The shocking story was shared on July 2nd, on a public dog-themed Facebook group, by Elena Omelchenko, a volunteer at the Nikopol dog shelter. Apparently, a girl named Lena called the shelter and practically implored them to rescue a dog that had fallen down an uncovered drain, into a complex central heating system, three years ago, and had been living there ever since. Lena and other kindhearted people had been throwing the dog food, but, so far, they had been unable to rescue it.

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16-Year-Old Boy Marries 71-Year-Old Woman in Indonesia (No Joke!)

Selamat Riayadi, a 16-year-old boy from South Sumatra, Indonesia, recently married his sweetheart, 71-year-old Rohaya. The two are apparently so in love with each other that they threatened to take their own lives if their families didn’t give their blessing for the controversial union.

It’s not exactly clear how and when Selamat and Rohaya fell in love, but what we do know is that the two have become husband and wife on Saturday, during a wedding ceremony held at the house of their village chief, in Karangendah Village, South Sumatra. The wedding was held at night, to keep the number of visitors to an acceptable number, because their controversial love story had already attracted curious visitors from neighboring villages. Even so, hundreds of people attended the special wedding.

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Vegetarian Cattle Farmer Who Can’t Kill His Cows Gives Away Whole Heard to Animal Sanctuary

When his father died, in 2011, Jay Wilde inherited the family cattle farm, in Ashbourne, UK. He has been constantly sending cows to the slaughterhouse ever since, but he recently decided he couldn’t do it anymore, so he gave away his heard of 59 cows to an animal sanctuary, where they will live out the rest of their natural lives in peace.

59-year-old Wilde has been a vegetarian for 25 years, so having to sell animals to be killed for meat was particularly difficult, but he had promised his father that he would take over the family farm. Having to send off the animals to the slaughterhouse after seeing them grow under his eyes and spending time with them was extremely unpleasant, and the farmer recently decided that he couldn’t bear to do it anymore.

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Indian Villages Allegedly Send the Elderly into Forests as Tiger Prey, to Receive Government Compensation

In a horrifying trend recently reported by Indian media, poor villagers near the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve are allegedly sending their elderly relatives into the jungle as tiger prey, so they can then claim compensation from the government.

The disturbing tactic was discovered by officials at the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) in Uttar Pradesh, who, upon inspecting several mauling sites near the tiger reserve, noticed evidence of foul play. In the most recent case, reported on July 1st, the mauled body of a 55-year-old woman was found in a field near her village, but bits of her clothes were found one kilometer away, in the tiger reserve, and tractor tracks leading into and from the jungle showed that the body had been relocated.

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The “Forest Man of Bangladesh” Has Been Planting a Tree Every Day for the Past 48 Years

They say that one man can’t make a difference, but Abdul Samad Sheikh, a 60-year-old rickshaw driver from Bangladesh, is living proof that small contributions over a long period of time can mean very much. He has planted at least one tree every day since he was 12-years-old, which means that he has so far planted a small forest of over 17,500 trees. Imagine if everyone followed his example.

Abdul Samad Sheikh, fondly known as “Tree Samad” in his native town of Faridpur, central Bangadesh, has worked as a rickshaw driver for most of his life. The modest job earns him about 100 taka ($1.25) per day, which is barely enough to put food on the table for his family, but he somehow manages to also buy at least one tree from the Faridpur Horticulture Centre, every day. He considers it his duty to the world, and claims he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he didn’t plant a tree that day.

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Kenyan Lawyer Tries to Sue Israel and Italy for the Killing of Jesus Christ, Again

An experienced Kenyan lawyer recently filed a petition with the International Court of Justice in The Hague against the countries of Israel and Italy, as well as historical figures that have been dead for over 2,000 years, for the unlawful trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

If you somehow feel that you’ve heard something like this before, you probably have. Kenyan lawyer Dola Indidis first tried to sue Israel and Italy over Jesus’ death in 2007. His petition to a Nairobi court was dismissed, but the persistent man didn’t give up. In 2013, he turned to the International Court of Justice for the first time, arguing that Jesus’ “selective and malicious prosecution violated his human rights through judicial misconduct, abuse of office bias and prejudice.” Unfortunately, his case was thrown out, but in March of this year, Indidis once again appealed to the ICJ, hoping to finally make it to an actual trial.

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Mexican College Puts Up Wooden Wall at Graduation Party to Separate Paying Attendees from Those Who Didn’t Pay

Mexico has decried President Donald Trump’s intention of building a wall across the US-Mexico border to keep illegal immigrants out, but one Mexican college recently used that exact same tactic at a graduation party, erecting a high wooden wall to separate students and relatives that had paid to attend, from those who hadn’t.

Photos of the bizarre wall separating an events hall into two areas have been doing the rounds on social media for a week, sparking quite the debate between people who see the measure as discriminatory, and those who see nothing wrong with keeping students and relatives who didn’t want to pay from eating and partying for free.

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Mexican Man Tells Wife He’s Going Out to Buy Cigarettes, Flies to Russia for Football Match

In what many are calling the lie of the century, a die-hard football fan from Puebla, Mexico, told his wife that he was stepping out to buy a pack of cigarettes, but ended up boarding a plane to Germany, and then driving to Russia, to see his national football team play in the Confederations Cup.

Antonio Garcia recently got his five minutes of fame on the internet, after news of his escapade to Mexico’s match against Russia, in Kazan, went viral on social media. The man had reportedly told his wife that he was going out to buy a pack of cigarettes, buy he actually travelled to Monterey, where he got on a plane to Wolfsburg, Germany, where some of his relatives live, and from there he drove to Kazan, Russia, where he joined hundreds of other Mexican fans in supporting the national football team.

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Company Creates Virtually Indestructible Hoodie Designed to Last 100 Years

A hoodie isn’t really the kind of thing you ever consider passing on to your children and grandchildren, but then again, most hoodies aren’t made from Kevlar or designed to outlast their wearer.

Adventure clothing brand Vollebak has been in the business of creating “cutting edge adventure sports clothing using insights and discoveries from fields as diverse as neuroscience, physiology, material technology and space exploration” for years. Their previous products include a fabric that uses nanotechnology to camouflage things like sweat, salt, dirt and even blood, and an abrasion-resistant jacket able to scar rock and tolerate high-speed falls of up to 120 km/h. But their latest invention is easily the most impressive – an ultra-durable hoodie designed to outlive its wearer.

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