Cicada 3301 is often referred to as the internet’s most elaborate and mysterious puzzle, one that often leaves cryptoanalysts and hackers scratching their heads. A sort of cross between a contest, job interview and highly complex puzzle, Cicada 3301 recurs each year, but no one knows who is behind it or what prize awaits the person who solves it. The first internet puzzle appeared online on January 5, 2012, and two subsequent rounds were released on the same day of the following years. During the first year, Cicada 3301 started with a picture on 4Chan, along with the message: “Hello. We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through.” The message was simply signed 3301. The ensuing puzzle provided focused heavily on data security, cryptography and steganography. The clues were scattered in locations all over the world – from the US to France and Poland, within various forms of communication including the internet, telephone, bootable Linux CDs, digital images, and physical paper signs. The clues have also referenced several books, poetry, artwork and music. Clues are always signed by the same cryptic private key to confirm authenticity. Read More »

When 29-year-old Didier Jacquemin set out to get the tattoo of his dreams, little did he know that it would turn out to be a huge disaster. While the image he desired was a beautiful forest scenery complete with birds in flight, the tattoo he ultimately got was the stuff of nightmares! Didier, a resident of Liege, Belgium, said that he found the original pattern on the internet and immediately fell in love with it. So he printed the image and took it to a local tattoo parlor on January 15, asking for a replica. The artist agreed to do the artistic tattoo, but ultimately delivered something that seems drawn by a 4-year-old. Read More »

In an attempt to make long-term inmates more comfortable with modern technology, a Chinese prison has built a fake mini city within its walls. Located in Beijing, the prison campus features a small supermarket, internet café, and even a fake subway station! These structures are meant for inmates who have spent the last 20 years locked up and have no idea of the developments that have taken place outside during this time. “The project aims to give a micro view of the new society that now exists,” said guard Liang Chiu. “Prisoners were very often finding it difficult to adjust to life outside and now they are being taught how bank cards work, mobile phones and even computers, which most of them would have had no experience with before they ended up being jailed.” Read More »

If you happen to be in Japan this Sunday, chances are you’ll be seeing a lot more ninjas than usual. That’s because February 22nd is National Ninja Day in the Land of the Rising Sun. Although not yet an official holiday, Ninja Day has been getting a lot of media attention in Japan, ever since the cities of Iga and Koka started organizing ninja-themed events to boost tourism. Both historical ninja strongholds, they feature a variety of themed attractions, like ninja villages and schools, but authorities go all out on Ninja Day, to really bring out the spirit of the skilled assassins that once thrived there. Read More »

If you’re looking for a quirky futuristic hairstyle, you may want to give “Xpresionpixel” a try. This new trend basically involves dying the hair in block-like sections of varying colors to create a digital-inspired pixelated image. Created by Spanish colorists, Jose Luis Almendral, Marco Antonio Restrepo and Jorge Cancer, of Madrid’s  X-presion Creativos salon, pixelated hair has gotten a lot of attention on social media, both from true fashionistas and girl geeks looking for a new hairstyle to best suit their personality. Many in industry seem convinced the futuristic style is set to become the next big thing in hair styling, a prediction apparently shared by cosmetics powerhouse Revlon, who used pixelated hair in an ad for last year’s autumn campaign. Read More »

San Francisco-based artist Rebecca Szetto uses paintbrushes to create her amazing artworks, but not in the way you would expect. Since 1999, she has been carving the handles of old discarded paintbrushes and turning the essential painting tools into actual works of art. Rebecca’s unique project began almost 16 years ago, while working as faux painting artist, which basically involved making things look old. “I’d amassed a hefty amount of eco-guilt from the sheer amount of waste, in both material and labor, I witnessed. I began collecting brushes and sandpapers from jobsites for many years with no particular end in mind,” she told Bored Panda. Eventually, she decided to either throw away the used paintbrushes or somehow make use of them, as she was running out of storage space. So she started carving the handles into busts of refined Renaissance women, with the paint-covered hairs acting as elegant gowns. Read More »

With most of us having to replace light-bulbs every few months, it’s amazing that the Centennial Light-Bulb at Fire Station No. 6 in Livermore, California, has been burning continuously ever since 1901. The exact date the centennial bulb was turned on is unknown, although its birthday is usually celebrated on June 18. However, we do know that it has been alight 24 hours a day since then, shining a dim light over the fire engines. Apart from the few power outages it has faced in the last 113 years, the unbreakable light-bulb has only had two breaks – one in 1976, when it was moved from one fire station and installed in another, and one in 2013, when it was off for 9 3.4 hours. When the bulb was moved, almost 40 years ago, people were so cautious not to break it that they severed the cord, instead of unscrewing it, and transferred it with a full police and fire truck escort. The whole business lasted just 22 minutes, after which it was back to business as usual. The impressive light-bulb is apparently an improved hand-blown incandescent lamp with carbon filament. Debora Katz, a physicist at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., has conducted extensive research on the centennial light-bulb and what makes it so special, using a vintage light bulb from Shelby Electric Co. that is a near replica of the Livermore lamp. “The Livermore light bulb differs from a contemporary incandescent bulb in two ways,” says Katz. “First its filament is about eight times thicker than a contemporary bulb. Second, the filament is a semiconductor, most likely made of carbon. When a conductor gets hotter, its ability to conduct electricity goes down. When the Shelby bulb gets hotter, it becomes a better conductor of electricity.” Read More »

There’s more to the animal portraits painted by Florida-based artist Shannon Holt than meets the eye. If you look carefully, you’ll notice the canvases are actually human bodies contorted into just the right position. The expert body-painter spends between 6 and 12 hours instructing the models to adopt the right stance and painstakingly painting every little detail of the animal she brings to life through her art. After experimenting with various mediums, Holt decided the skin was the perfect medium to express her talent. “The body was the final surface I tried before I decided skin was the key to making my work successful,” she said. “I love it because it happened automatically and beautifully with no planning – it’s a perfect creative example of how cool body painting can be. It can transform into two different images with the repositioning of the model’s arms and hands.” Read More »

The Visha Hindu Parishad (VHP), a right-wing non-governmental organization in India, has recently launched a line of beauty products containing two very special ingredients – cow dung and gau mutra. “The use of gau mutra in medicines and beauty products will help farmers and prevent them from selling cows. Ayurveda talks about use of cow dung to prevent pimples. But people are reluctant to use dung, which is why we are making beauty products out of it,” VHP leader Venkatesh Abdeo said. Just to be clear, gau mutra is not some miracle plant but plain old cow urine, which has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for centuries. Read More »

Meet Jari “Bull” Mentula, a bodybuilder from Finland who looks a lot like the Marvel superhero The Thing, of the Fantastic Four. Not only is he muscular enough to fit the bill, but his head gets so abnormally wrinkly when he flexes his muscles that the resemblance becomes uncanny. Jari has been a familiar face on the IFBB (International Federation of BodyBuilders) tour during the last 15 years, making a name for himself in competitions and even winning the European Bench Press Championships in 2002, 2004 and 2008. But he only became known to the general public last year, when a photo of him working out was posted on popular news sharing network Reddit. The image was captioned “I guess that’s the brain popping out, isn’t it?” And indeed, the bodybuilder’s head looked so incredibly wrinkly that it looked like his brain was about to burst through his scalp. Read More »

Abulfazl Abbas Shakoory not only bears an uncanny resemblance to legendary martial arts master Bruce Lee, but he can also perform his incredible moves almost to perfection. Shakoory has become an internet celebrity of sorts, after putting up videos of his stunts on social media websites. The 20-year-old Kabul resident, who calls himself “Bruce Hazara” has been practicing various types of martial arts ever since he was a child. He had always considered Bruce Lee his hero, and describes the ability of mastering his famous moves as his “only dream”. To accomplish his goal, Shakoory has also started practicing Wushu, a full-contact sport derived from Chinese martial arts. As fate would have it, his face resembles that of the great Chinese actor as well, and adopting his famous bowl haircut made “Bruce Hazara” an almost perfect doppelganger. Read More »

For a lot of people, the term “ethical fur” is nothing more than an oxymoron, since it still involves killing animals for their pelts, but one fashion designer is actually legitimizing the expression by using roadkill for her fur accessories. Pamela Paquin, founder of the aptly-named Petite Mort fashion label, picks up animal carcasses from the side of the road and turns their pelts into fur accessories that sell for up to $1,000 a piece. All of her creations, from gloves, to leg warmers and hats are marked with a specially-designed silver disk that lets people know they are ethical products. “People need to look at the fur and say okay, that’s Petite Mort, it’s an ethical fur,” Paquin said about the distinctive label. I would add that it’s also a great heads-up to animal activists not to smear the expensive fur accessories them with paint, as they tend to do at public events. The idea of roadkill fur had been in Pamela’s head for a few years, before she actually decided to actually make it happen. But after traveling the world as a global sustainability consultant and living in Denmark for seven years, she and her daughter returned to New England, looking to start over. She told the Washington Post that she found herself “sitting in the woods literally staring at the trees. Winter was coming. I was like: ‘What am I doing to do with myself?” There was that dead raccoon on the road the other day. My cousin’s a hunter. Maybe I should just do this.'” Read More »

Hu Juan, a 28-year-old mother of two from Hunan, China, suffers from a rare condition known as Cutis laxa which has caused the skin on her face and neck to age at an accelerated rate, leaving her looking like a woman in her 60s or 70s. The young woman’s nightmare began 11 years ago, right after she gave birth to her eldest son. She started noticing that her appearance was changing fast and just six months after giving birth, her youthful looks had deteriorated drastically to the point where she could hardly recognize herself in the mirror. Hu Juan was diagnosed with Cutis laxa, an extremely rare connective tissue disorder that causes the skin to become loose, saggy and wrinkled at a very rapid speed due to loss of elasticity. It has only affected her face and neck, and several medical checkups over the years revealed that she is otherwise  in good health. Hu Juan is the only known Cutis laxa sufferer in China and one of ten worldwide. Read More »

Johnnie Walker Whisky and Harris Tweed Hebrides, two of Scotland’s most iconic brands, teamed up with Heriot Watt University to create a new smart fabric that permanently smells like whisky. Because who doesn’t want their clothes smelling like booze all the time, right? Recently launched in Berlin, the smelly fabric is said to have key notes of malt, vanilla, red fruits and dark chocolate tones, which closely resemble the aroma of Johnnie Walker Black Label.  “The unique scent, inspired by the nose of our liquid, echoes the masterful whisky production process. The key notes of rich malt, golden vanilla, red fruit and the trademark dark chocolate tones have been layered onto the fabric to achieve the unique final nose and finish of the Johnnie Walker Fabric of Flavour”, the famous spirit maker declared in a press release.  The colors of the fabric match the colors of the Johnnie Walker label (that is, black, gold, and off-white). Read More »

A purring feline in the Bulgarian seaside resort town of Varna has been making headlines because of its unusually emerald green fur. Although several theories have tried to explain the radioactive color of the stray animal, the true cause of its coloration remains a mystery. The ‘green cat of Bulgaria’, as the brightly colored feline has come to be known online, was spotted prowling the streets of Varna a few days ago, and as soon as photos of it appeared on the internet, it became an international news topic. Truth be told, it’s not every day that you get to see a real-life emerald cat, and the inexplicable cause of its bizarre color simply made the topic even more intriguing. According to some sources, until not too long ago, the stray feline only displayed a hint of green on its fur, but gradually grew greener until attaining the bright emerald color you see below. This makes the original assumption that vandals had dyed its fur green as a cruel joke, unlikely. Before this report from local eye witnesses came to light, Bulgarian animal lovers had even set up a Facebook page entitled “Punishment to the perpetrator of this criminal act!”

Photo: YouTube Read More »