Jonathan McCullum was a perfectly healthy 17 years old boy, weighing at 155 pounds. That all changed went he signed for an exchange student program in Egypt. His hosts were Coptic Christians, who fast an unmatched 200 days a year and the boy says he was denied sufficient food, all four months that he spent there.

When he returned to the states, Jonathan was unrecognizable, weighing a mere 97 pounds and struggling to carry his own baggage and climb up stairs. He had to be hospitalized for two weeks because he risked having a heart attack.

Despite the whole ordeal, the boy doesn’t regret his experience and sees it as a mere clash of cultures, he plans on going to Zimbabwe this summer as part of a volunteer program. Take some food with you this time buddy!

For some reason I never thought I’d use the word delicacy in the same sentence with words like cricket, caterpillar, frog, grasshopper, but I guess I was wrong. Apparently in Thailand all these are considered delicious and extremely good for the body. Grasshoppers are boiled alive so they keep their physical detail intact, but you shouldn’t eat the head and intestines…charming.

If you’re into this stuff, you might be thrilled to hear you could also try some roaches, beetles, ants, ant eggs and even cooked scorpions.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Photo: Takoradee/Wikimedia Commons

 

There’s no way in hell I’m eating something like this, bring the bat soup and the Thai delicacies on, but Vietnamese blood soup…yuck!

See it’s all about the way it’s cooked because…well, it’s not cooked at all! They just slit the duck’s or goose’s throat, gather all the blood in a boll, add ginger, some vegetables and sometimes sprinkle peanuts on top and there you have it, that’s your soup. It only takes about 15 minutes to prepare and it’s regarded as a source of strength by those who cook and eat it.

Strangest thing is, some restaurants in Germany have started serving this and it is a huge success, people can’t get enough of it! If you want to know more about it, or where you can get some, search it online, it’s called Tiet cahn…Good luck!

Photo: Xufanc

 

This is one of the most difficult professions I’ve ever seen, I remember seeing a series of documentaries on it but the sea didn’t look as cold as it does in theses photos. I mean much of the ship is frozen stiff, yet those guys are out there, soaking wet trying to catch as many crabs as possible and ensuring they get a fat paycheck.

I can’t imagine lasting one day doing something like that, I mean I have trouble with getting in the water, during the summertime, during the summer, how could I handle the frozen waves of the Bering sea? Respect!

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This is apparently how they used to test new inventions in the Soviet Union during the 50s and 60s (at least that’s when these photos are taken). In this experiment they got that little pig drunk by forcing it to drink wine (Kagor, maybe you heard of it) and launching it into the air using some kind of giant mortar cannon. Some of you might find it funny, but I just think it’s cruel.

I guess animal cruelty and animal testing are old issues that aren’t going away anytime soon…

Hundreds of Japanese grown-men wrestle each other in the mud water of Mimusubi shrine in Yotsukaido, a settlement near Tokyo. Every year on February 25 these men take part in this strange yet fun looking rite, believed to bring good harvest for the whole year and good health for babies.

Meet Jocelyn Wildenstein, also known as the The Lion Queen, The Cat Woman or The Bride of Wildenstein. She was born in 1940 and in a crazy attempt to stay young forever she is said to have spent around $4.000.000 on plastic surgery. Sadly that only brought her the title of world’s scariest celebrity, from a plastic surgery website, in 2004.

It’s pretty sad when you think about it, if I were her, I’d rather look like a nice old lady rather than as a doll-faced monster. Anyway her boyfriend seems to like her…I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that she’s rich!

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This impressive underwater vehicle was built by a man living in St-Petersburg, Russia. It is officially registered as the smallest submarine in the country and what is most impressive is that it can travel underwater from St-Petersburg to Helsinky and back, without having to make any stops.

This one man, home-made submarine reaches a top-speed of four knots. Not bad!

I have no problems looking at pictures depicting animal moms breastfeeding and literally taking in babies of different species, I even find them very sweet. But for some reason, looking at these photos of women breastfeeding various animals makes me very nauseous, it’s just not natural, no matter what continent your from. Read More »

Mother nature sure loves to play tricks on us, doesn’t she? I mean it’s not every day you see a dog breastfeeding a piglet, but today is definitely one of those days. Look at the dog protecting it and feeding it like one of her own, I guess motherhood doesn’t always care about raise.

So what you see in these photos is practically what you get if you decide to marry in some Ethiopian tribes, a woman with a huge round circle through her lower lip and no lower front teeth…That’s right, in order for her to be able to wear that thing, 2 or sometimes all four lower front teeth are yanked out.

Now I’ve always supported cultural diversity, but this and what they do at Phuket Vegetarian Festival, just make me sick. I wouldn’t go out there and try to impose my culture on them but still…I can’t agree with I’m seeing either. I wonder how they kiss in Ethiopia? Even with that thing off, it’s got to be something nasty! Read More »

Set in Yellowstone National Park in the US, Morning Glory Pool is one of our planet’s many natural wonders. It is one of the park’s many hot springs and it was named in 1880, due to its resemblance to the well-known flower. The pool used to be completely blue, but human kind had to screw things up, as it always does, and because of the debris that’s been thrown in along the years, part of the vent has been clogged. That caused the temperature of the water to decrease, allowing bacteria to settle in, and that’s how the yellow fringe was formed. I’m not saying it’s less beautiful now but, in recent years the bacteria has started moving more and more towards the center of the pool and if the vandalism doesn’t stop, we might soon admire Morning Glory Pool only in photos…

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Photo: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta/Wikimedia Commons

 

Before you go laying the “this is photoshoped” line on me, do a little search on the web and convince yourself it is real. It’s actually one of the most well-known diving places in the world, set in Palau. Actually if any of you watched Survivor Palau, you might remember this as one of the sights.

Jellyfish Lake was once connected to the waters of the Pacific ocean, but is now completely isolated. The large population of jellyfish living here was believed to be missing those stinging cells, also known as nemastocysts, but it turns out they do have them, only they’re really tiny. That’s why it’s perfectly ok for people to swim so close to the jellyfish, our tissue doesn’t feel the sting.

This is definitely one of the “must-go before I die” places, right up there with Devil’s Pool and Morning Glory Pool!

Photo: tata_aka_T/Flickr

Photo: Shinji/Flickr

 

Until these images caught my eye a few days ago, I didn’t even know what a tension ceiling did exactly. Of course I was never really interested in finding out, but now that I did, I’m actually thinking of getting one. Floods can be really nasty, and all that work to repair a flooded ceiling can be really exhausting so why bother, I’d rather have a balloon as a ceiling doing all the work. Take a look, it really works!

How would you feel if you were hanging on a metal arm atop of the eighth-tallest building in the world, the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas? I know I’d be terrified, but if you’re one of those thrill seekers that will gladly swim in Devil’s Pool, you might like this.

The X-Scream is, according to many, the ultimate fun ride in the world. Those willing to risk a heart attack are loaded in a cart and hoisted high into the air before the track plunges into a 30 degree angle. Just when it reaches 30mph, the carts comes to a full stop at the end of the track, leaving nothing but 300meters of air between passengers and the ground…now that I don’t want to try! I don’t care about their fancy security measures, that include titanium restraint bars and a manual return mechanism in case of power failure, I ‘m just not getting on that thing!

 

Photos: Stratosphere Hotel and Casino/Facebook