Pedal-Powered Ferrari Is World’s Coolest Bike (Autoblog)

Man Wins $1 Million Cash Prize Six Times (Daily Mail)

17 Photos from the World’s Most Colorful Festival (Environmental Graffiti)

Man Completes Triathlon while Joggling (AOL)

Unique Display of 100,000 LED  Lights on a River in Tokyo (Laughing Squid)

Guy Gives Himself Magnet Implants to Attach iPod Nano to Wrist (Geekologie)

Bomb Disposal Robot Is Wedding Bearer at Unique Wedding (Gizmodo)

Japanese Company Launches Ice Bra To Keeps Women Cool This Summer (Huffpost)

Chinese Luxury Car Wash Uses Bikini Clad Models to Attract Customers (China Smack)

The World’s 13 Loneliest Outhouses (Environmental Graffiti)

When someone famous, like the former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, goes on a hunger strike, the whole world knows about it, but Irom Sharmila Chanu, an ordinary woman from India, has been on a political fast for the last 12 years, and hardly anyone even knows she exists.

Irom Sharmila Chanu, also known as the Iron Lady of Manipur, went on a hunger strike on November 4, 2000 in an effort to  have the Government of India withdraw the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) from Manipur and other parts of India. This draconian act practically gives the military the power to do as they wish, as it prohibits any legal or judicial proceedings against army personnel without the previous sanction of the Central Government. It has taken away the people’s right to protest against atrocities or engage in any lawful democratic activity. Simple civilians can easily be labeled as ‘terrorists’ or ‘suspects’ and taken into custody. According to official figures, 25,000 people have been killed in Manipur alone, since this Act came into force, in 1980. Back then, there were only four insurgent groups in the area, now there are 25 on the army’s watch list.

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Lawyers usually sport classic hairstyles, slick suits and expensive cars, but not Patrick Brysbaert. His Mohawk hairdo, multiple face piercings and leather pants make him probably the most eccentric lawyer in the world.

“Lawyers should dare to show what is under their robes. We represent the whole society, so even people who are a little different, like me”, Brysbaert says. Twenty years ago he looked like just another lawyer – he had short hair, always wore a classic suit and drove a boring Saab to work. Then, after he broke up with his partner, Patrick decided to quit his profession and started operating a cafe in Antwerp, Belgium. During this period of “true liberation” the former legal worker got a full back tattoo, an erotic drawing on his shoulder, had various parts of his face pierced and changed his hairstyle to a Mohawk. Finally, he was himself.

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Mark Pearson, a 44-year-old repairman who loves comic books, has spent 14 months of his life creating an almost perfect replica of Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit, from sheets of cardboard covered in fiberglass.

Perason certainly isn’t the first one to build a replica of the famous Iron man suit, but his is definitely one of the most realistic looking, regardless of the materials during the build.  “I don’t know why I did it”, the repairman from Bradford, West Yorkshire, says, “I guess it was just a moment of madness. I decided on making the helmet then I said to my partner – I’m going to make the full suit.” The comics fan bought himself a 12ft cardboard model of Robert Downey Jr. in his iconic superhero suit, started work on the helmet, but simply couldn’t stop. He downloaded the templates from the Internet, and made them into cardboard moulds. Once those were all created, he was able to create the fiberglass parts of his magnificent Iron Man suit.

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He may look like one, but Dominic Deville is not some escaped lunatic out to hurt your kids. He’s an evil clown for hire who stalks young victims for a week, sending them scary texts, making prank phone calls, stalking them from a distance, and ultimately attacks them with a pie to the face. And yes, he expects to get paid for it.

If you’ve ever seen Stephen King’s “It”, you know clowns can be very scary. I myself am terrified of them, to be honest, and I’ve never even seen that movie, just some quick scenes of it. But horror films like this are exactly what inspired Dominic Deville to start up his lucrative business, Evil Clown, in Lucerne, Switzerland. His service requires him to put on an evil clown outfit and scaring a child senseless for a week. During this time, he stalks his “prey” from a distance, sending them creepy messages, making prank calls and warning them they are being watched and that they’ll soon be attacked. “The child feels more and more that it is being pursued,” Deville told Metro, but “the clown’s one and only aim is to smash a cake into the face of his victim, when they least expect it, during the course of seven days.” And if they manage to avoid the hit, they are given the cake as a present.

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Hiccups, we all get them from time to time, and the most annoying thing about them is they are so darn hard to get rid of. But 13-year-old Mallory Kievman seems to have finally found a cure to this irritating problem – a hiccup-stopping lollipop called the Hiccupop.

Mallory’s quest to find a real cure for hiccups started during the summer of 2010. She had tried to cure her uncontrollable hiccups by swallowing saltwater, making herself gag, eating a spoonful of sugar, drinking a glass of water upside-down or sipping pickle juice. None of those seemed to work on their own, but the ambitious young girl was determined to find a real cure for the annoying problem man has been facing since the beginning of time. Fast forward two years and almost 100 folk remedies tried, Mallory Kievman has reached her goal and is starting a company to commercialize and promote her magic product – Hiccupops.

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Marylin Mansfield, a plus-size model from Staten Island, has turned her home into a creepy nursery filled with over 300 dolls, including reborn babies, Barbies and Goth-like Krypt Kiddies.

We’ve posted our share of wacky doll collectors here on Oddity Central, like this lady with a thing for antique dolls, this other one who loves clowns, or the couple who share their home with love dolls, but Marylin actually treats her plastic collectibles like real babies. “I take them anywhere you would bring a real baby. I don’t do it for the shock value. I do it for myself because it makes me happy. I just loved when my kids were babies — and these babies stay babies forever. I buy them clothes. They never grow out of them and they never get dirty”, the tattooed platinum blonde says about her peculiar hobby.

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A young married couple, from Mijas, Malaga, have decided to quit their jobs, sell everything they own, and go on an adventure around the world, with their two little children, in a caravan.

Do you ever get so tired of your boring life and tedious job that you feel like leaving it all behind and going on an exciting adventure? I know I do, but I’m just too much of a coward to say goodbye to a comfortable lifestyle and venture into the unknown. Fernando Fernandez and his wife Fleur, both 29, were also a little scared to put everything they knew behind them and go on a trip around the globe, but they managed to lock their fears away and pursue their life-long dream of seeing the world. They realize it’s going to be tough living in a camper with their two small children, Aisha (5) and Noah (1), but they feel it’s a sacrifice worth making in order to truly live their lives.

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Emer O’Toole, a 28-year-old Irish journalist has created an Internet buzz after she appeared on a morning show and revealed her hairy armpits and legs. The confident young woman said she hasn’t shaved in 18 months, since she decided to challenge the notion that women must shave their body hair in order to be happy and feel attractive.

It’s true Emer isn’t the only woman in the world who doesn’t shave her armpits and legs, but in modern society, woman bodily hair is one very big social taboo. But the graduate student from Dublin started examining her relationship with her body and her body hair and realized she had first started shaving when she was 14 just because it was expected of her, not because she had to. So she decided to make herself the main protagonist of an experiment that would challenge society’s notions of female beauty. She simply stopped shaving her body hair for the last 18 months.

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It appears in China the saying “study till you drop” is taken quite literally by some, as photos show students receiving amino acid IV drips as they hit the books during late evening studying session for college exam.

You thought you were studying too hard? Well unless you’ve ever needed intravenous medication to keep you from passing out or collapsing due to excessive studying, you have it pretty good compared to these young students at a high school in Xiaogan, central China’s Hubei province. Photos taken late one evening, and posted on popular Chinese site Sina Weibo, show a brightly lit classroom full of students studying National College Entrance Exam, commonly known as “gao kao”. Students appear buried among piles of books, with dozens of IV bags hanging from lines traversing the classroom.

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Daniel Suelo, 51, is a very special person. in 2001, standing on the edge of a highway, he left his life savings, $30, in a phone booth and walked into the desert to start a new life, one that wasn’t based on the rules of modern capitalism. He gave up using money and began living in caves, foraging for wild berries and scavenging for roadkill raccoons and squirrels.

Suelo became an inspiration for thousands of Americans affected by the economic crash and activists like members of the Occupy movement, after his friend, Mark Sundeen, started documenting his way of life. A friend of Daniel, Sundeen admits he though he had gone crazy or suffered a mental break down the first time he heard he had given up money and moved to the desert, in Moab, Utah. They had been out of touch for a few years, but after the economic crash of 2008, he started thinking about his old friend’s ideas. Suelo had once said money was just an illusion, it wasn’t real, and when the money everyone thought they had just started disappearing, Sundeen began to realize Daniel had a point. Because if your house was worth $500,000 today, and just $300,000 the next, what happened to that $200,000, what was that money in the first place? That was when the author got in touch with Suelo and started studying his life.

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Scientist David Edwards teamed up with French Designer Philippe Starck to create the WA|HH mouth spray that gets you drunk instantly, but only for a few seconds. And the best part is you won’t have to deal with and splitting headaches when you wake up the following day.

Ever wish you could feel what it’s like to be drunk without actually drinking anything? I have a few girl friends who have never drunk more than a few sips of beer, but have always been curious to know what it’s like to feel intoxicated. Thanks to the innovative WA|HH Quantum Sensations spray presented during a Paris exhibition, now everyone can experience being drunk for just a few seconds, and without any of the nasty side-effects. According to its creators, the spray produces an immediate shock, like a sensorial alarm, but only lasts a few seconds. Each puff equals 0.075 milliliters of alcohol, so it would take about 1,000 to equal a real drink. ‘We asked ourselves whether we might provide the same agreeable sensation as comes with a sip of alcohol without running the risk of drunkenness,’ Starck said about the spray.

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Hugvie, the huggable robotic pillow-phone invented by Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, of Osaka University, has a heartbeat and internal vibrators meant to make it seem more human-like as you put your arm around it imagining it’s the person hundreds of miles away.

The concept of enhancing long-distance phone conversations between loved ones isn’t new. Kissinger, the long distance kiss messenger, and the kiss transmission device invented by other Japanese researchers have also tried to make long-distance conversations more personal by making the protagonists feel closer to each other. Hugvie is basically a robotic pillow with a human shape that acts as a port for your mobile phone. It’s got its own heartbeat and internal vibrators that react faster and stronger, depending on the tone of the conversation. It sounds like an interesting device, but a lot of people find it just a little bit creepy.

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EVA Air has recently announced the transformation of two of its Airbus A330-300 airplanes into airborne tributes to Japanese icon Hello Kitty. I’m pretty sure this proves there is nowhere to hide from the magic of Hello Kitty.

The adorable kitten created by Sanrio, in 1974, has become a powerhouse brand in Asia, worth several billion dollars. Everybody seems to love Hello Kitty so Taiwanese airline EVA Air decided to associate itself with it in an attempt to boost their struggling sector. Analysts say there is no risk in the move, and that despite having to pay Sanrio a sum of money for licensing , the company has a high chance of reaching its goal. After all, this is their third Hello Kitty plane, so they must have had some success with the previous two.

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Stepping in dog poo is said to bring good luck, but for most people it’s one of the worst things that could happen as they walk through the city. Owners not picking up their pets’ droppings is a global problem, but a Mexican Internet portal has come up with an invention that might just inspire people to do the right thing. It’s called Poo Wifi and it’s pure genius.

Walking through the park trying to avoid every dog poo that comes in your way is an almost impossible task, but it wouldn’t be a problem if owners would just clean up after their pets. So Internet portal Terra has teamed up with ad agency DDB to create something that would motivate people to actually pick up their dogs turds. After some brainstorming, they came up with Poo Wifi, a machine that offers a free wifi connection in exchange for dog poo. So after they’ve picked up the droppings, people can drop the bags in a special box on top of the machine, after which the machine offers a number of minutes of free wifi, depending on the weight of the poo. Obviously, large dog owners will get more free wifi, which makes sense since their dogs’ droppings are the messiest.

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