The Dark Hedges – Ireland’s Real-Life Fantasy Setting
Along Bregagh Road, near the village of Armoy in Northern Ireland, lies a tranquil byroad called The Dark Hedges. For the past three centuries, a stretch of Beech trees have been guarding either side of this road. They have reached up and intertwined with each other, creating an ethereal tunnel of trees with shadow and […]
Dutch Town Has Street Names Inspired by Lord of the Rings
Geldrop is a small town in the southern part of The Netherlands, with a population of 28,000. Not much information on this place is available online, but it seems like a perfectly ordinary Dutch town. But there is something special about it (apart from the fact that ‘Geldrop’ sounds like some kind of candy). The […]
Chinese Rich Kid Offers $170,000 to Rent a Girlfriend for Upcoming Spring Festival
This Chinese man is so rich he is willing to shell out one million yuan (US $170,000) just to rent a girlfriend. The news was first reported on China’s leading social networking website, Weibo. The post came from an account called ‘Host of Henan newscast’. Paying a girl to date you might give people the […]
Mr. Incredibeard and His Truly Incredible Beard Styles
29-year-old Isiah Webb is blessed with amazing genes that have helped him grow a truly legendary beard. It’s rare to find men these days with such a thick overgrowth of facial hair. But Webb isn’t content with just having a long beard. He has transformed it into various weird shapes and styles, posted pictures online […]
Meet Steven Kutcher – The Guy Who Gets Insects to Act on Camera
Have you ever wondered how the insects in movies do exactly what they’re supposed to? How do they know they’re even in a movie scene and play along with the plot? Like the spider that bites Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) in Spiderman. The bees that swarm Matt Damon in We Bought a Zoo. The spider […]
Young Russian Spends Eight Months Living Alone Like in the Early Middle Ages
24-year-old Pavel Sapozhnikov is putting himself through one of the most epic socio-psychological experiments in history. He is trying to replicate the lifestyle of his Russian ancestors from around the year 1100, and practicing an ascetic lifestyle with very little human contact for the entire duration of the experiment. The project began in September 2013 […]
The iPod of Prison – What Makes Sony’s 15-Year-Old Pocket Radio So Popular with Inmates?
Now that smartphones are so popular, it’s hard to think of a world without them. But I remember a time when bulky portable music players were all the rage. I had a Sony Walkman myself as a kid; it was one of my prized possessions. No one uses that kind of devices anymore, or so we […]
Stroganina – Raw Frozen Fish Served as a Delicacy in Northern Russia
Stroganina is a raw frozen fish delicacy from Yakutia, in northern Russia. It is a winter dish, consisting of long, thin slices of frozen Arctic river fish such as whitefishes, white salmons, cisco or sturgeon. The dish is served with a dip made of equal parts salt and black pepper powder. It is sometimes decorated […]
The Manchineel – World’s Most Dangerous Tree for Several Reasons
The Manchineel tree, native to the Western Hemisphere, is known as the most poisonous tree in the world. In places where it grows – Florida, the Caribbean and the Bahamas – the manchineel is often marked with a red band to warn passersby not to get too near it. The tree is poisonous on so […]
New ChocoChicken Restaurant to Specialize in Chocolate Deep-Fried Chicken
After the insanely popular Cronuts (Croissants + Donuts), the latest trend in food mashups is all set to hit the market. A new restaurant in California is combining two of the world’s most favorite foods – chocolate and fried chicken. ‘ChocoChicken’ is the brainchild of Adam Fleischman, founder and CEO of the patty chain Umami […]
Human Air Pump Inflates Car Tires with His Nose
If Nie Yongbing was in a comic book, he would probably be ‘Super-Lung Man’ (lame name, I know, but I’m open to suggestions). The 63-year-old has lungs of steel that allow him to inflate car tires using only his nose. According to recent news reports, the Chinese man displayed his strength in Chengdu, Southwest China, […]
X-Alps – The World’s Most Amazing Adventure Race
For most people, the route from Salzburg to Monaco is by road. But who wants to go on a boring road trip, when you could climb mountains and paraglide across the Alps instead? Of course, to do that you’ve got to have a real taste for adventure. If you do, then the Red Bull X-Alps […]
English Artist Turns Dirty White Vans into Works of Art on Wheels
You don’t really need an expensive canvas to make beautiful art. Rick Minns, from Wicklewood in Norfolk, proves that a dirty old van will do the trick. Seriously, if someone like Rick lived in my area, I’d never clean my car. I would just leave it coated with layers of filth, hoping he’d find it […]
Meet Yacouba Sawadogo – The Man Who Stopped the Desert
Yacouba Sawadogo is an exceptional man – he single-handedly managed to solve a crisis that even scientists and development organizations could not. The simple old farmer’s re-forestation and soil conservation techniques are so effective they’ve helped turn the tide in the fight against the desertification of the harsh lands in northern Burkina Faso. Over-farming, over-grazing […]
Insane Synchronization – Japan’s Unique Precision Walking Routines
The video of a 47-year-old tradition at Japan’s Nippon Sports Science University went viral in November last year. ‘Shuudan koudou’, which means ‘Collective Action’, is a unique routine where a group of students put up an amazing display of synchronized walking. On November 14, 77 students performed before a crowd of 11,000 people at the […]