“Violet, you’re turning violet!” That’s the classic line from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, spoken by a dad to his naughty daughter who eats blueberry candy and ends up looking exactly like one. It’s funny in the movie, but it’s hardly something anyone would expect to happen in real life. But as it turns out it can and it has. There’s this 4-year-old kid in the UK, Leo Barnett, who turns a bright shade of orange when he eats carrots.

Leo actually suffers from a condition called hyper-beta carotenemia. This means that his body lacks the necessary enzymes to digest carotene, the substance that provides the orange color to carrots and other foods. So carotene just builds up in his body, turning him orange over time. Leo’s mother Angie says the boy is now on a diet devoid of any food containing the substance. The only vegetable that he’s allowed to eat is cauliflower. According to Angie, the problem was first noticed when he was 6 months old and suffered from pneumonia. His kidneys and liver were failing so they had mistaken the color to be a symptom from the disease. But a month after recovery, he was still orange and that’s when they discovered his allergy to carotene.

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While the rest of the world is awakening to the benefits of eating organic food, 21-year-old Kerry Trebilcock is doing just the opposite. Actually, what she eats isn’t even food. The young girl from Cornwall eats (yes, eats) soap and sponges. So far, she’s consumed 4,000 washing sponges and over 100 bars of soap. Well, I suppose she at least has super-clean intestines!

It’s no laughing matter though, as Kerry is suffering from a condition called Pica, which makes her crave things that have nothing to do with food. People with Pica are known to eat a variety of things ranging from metal to sand, and even chalk, coal, light bulbs and furniture. For a long time, Kerry’s diet consisted of sponges dipped in tea or hot chocolate, or spiced up with mustard and BBQ sauce. She would never leave the house without a snack – a small plastic bag of cut up sponges and sauce in a Tupperware.

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It’s nothing short of a modern-day miracle,when envelopes stuffed with cash just keep appearing all over town. And not just small cash, we’re talking large amounts. Since late last year, envelopes containing sums up to 10,000 euros are being mysteriously ‘given’ to those who are in need of money, in the German town of Braunschweig. The donated money that’s been accounted for so far amounts to a whopping 200,000 euros.

While the benefactor is unknown, the beneficiaries have so far “suspected” a hospice, a robbery victim, various charities, and also the family of a handicapped boy. The cash-stuffed envelopes have been left in prayer books in churches, beneath doormats and also in letterboxes. There are several theories as to who is behind this sudden ‘shower’ of cash in the settlement. Some say that it could be a lottery winner and others feel it’s probably someone who’s received a large inheritance. Whoever it may be, the person is being hailed as a present-day reincarnation of Robin Hood, who we’re not yet sure if  is stealing from the rich, but is certainly giving to the needy.

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Just yesterday, we wrote about Dr. Life, the man with a 70-year-old’s face and a 20-year-old bodybuilder’s physique. Well, now in the news is another 70-year-old who seems to have found the secret to eternal youth, only hers doesn’t imply using growth hormones and testosterone. Annette Larkins doesn’t look a day over 40, thanks to the diet and lifestyle she maintains. She looks so young that people mistake her to be the daughter, when she’s out with her husband of 54 years, but I suppose he isn’t complaining.

Mrs. Larkins says the secret to her beauty lies in the raw vegan diet, consisting of organic vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts grown in her own garden, she calls the ‘fountain of youth’. The woman doesn’t touch anything that has been cooked. And another strange thing she does is collect rainwater, to keep her garden blossoming, but also to drink. But the resident of Miami-Dade County, Florida, didn’t always have such a healthy lifestyle. In fact, she consumed meat regularly, as her husband used to own a meat factory way back in the 1960s. It was then that she decided to change her eating habits forever. And what a great decision that was. I mean, just  look at her!

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A German man loves dogs so much that he wants to build a museum dedicated to St. Bernard dogs. So what does he do to raise the money? Why rent out his face, of course. The idea seems so simple, I wonder why people don’t do it all the time. Maybe because no one wants to walk around with a bunch of advertisements TATTOOED on their face. But Uwe Troschel has no such qualms, so he’s perfectly happy to rent out sections of his face for companies to place their advertisements on.

Each section comes at a price of its own. So to put up an ad on Troschel’s forehead costs 50,000  euro, and each cheek, 20,000 euro. The nose is priced at 2,000, and if any company is interested in the entire face, it would set them back a whopping 100,000 euro. His intentions are commendable, but I’m not sure this is the right way to go about helping his four-legged friends. After all, when this is all said and done, they might not even recognize him…

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Neck-up, a 70-year-old man. Neck-down, a 20-year-old bodybuilder. This is what a photograph of Dr. Jeffrey Life looks like. When I first looked at it I thought it was actually a young person whose face is ageing due to an illness, but it’s actually the other way round. The photo is that of a real 70-year-old, and we can safely vouch for the fact that his head hasn’t been photoshopped onto a model’s body. Although, Dr. Life’s methods to achieve the body of his dreams can’t exactly be termed as natural. The man is heavily dependent upon hormonal modifications to look like this.

Dr. Life’s life (that’s weird) changed at the age of 60, when he started to take fitness pretty seriously. Until then, he was overweight, a borderline diabetic and stressed-out. It was when he came across a 12-week fitness challenge on Muscle Media Magazine that he decided to make a few changes in his life. So he sent in his before picture as required by the challenge and started to work out big-time. After the 3 months were up, he had lost over 25 pounds and considerably cut-back on body fat. This, however, was not long-lived and at age 64, his body could no longer hold muscle mass and began to shrink. The culprit – a condition known as andropause – involving a steady decline of testosterone levels.

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Are you a die-hard fan of the Flintstones and have an extra $3.5 Million to spare? If the answer is yes, then you actually have the chance to live in a house styled in the theme of the popular cartoon. If not, well then you can just make do with looking at the pictures.

The house, located in Malibu, presently belongs to TV and Radio legend Dick Clark and his wife, but is up for sale and pretty fresh on the market. Apart from being the perfect place for a ‘Modern Stone-age Family’, there’s several other good things going for the house. For instance, the property has a 360 degree ocean and mountain view. Now, that’s probably a luxury that even Fred and Wilma wished they could enjoy. From the 23-acre estate’s glass windows, one can comfortably view the Pacific Ocean, Boney Mountains, Channel Islands, Serrano Valley and also Los Angeles. Sounds awesome, but that’s not all. The place is only minutes away from the beach, has a wine cellar, and the living and dining rooms have vaulted ceilings that open up the space. Surprisingly, there are only two bathrooms and one bedroom in the sprawling mansion. I suppose it is the ultimate place for a romantic getaway for two. Two Flintstones-lovers, that is.

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A 95-year-old Chinese woman, thought to be dead and placed in a coffin, terrified her family and neighbors by climbing right out after six long days. Must have scared the living daylights out of her neighbor Mr. Qingwang, who was the first to discover the empty coffin.

Ms. Xiufeng lives alone in her home in China’s Guangxi Province. She had recently suffered a head injury,  and Mr. Qingwang found her motionless one morning when he went to give her breakfast. “No matter how hard I pushed her and caller her name, she had no reactions,” he said. “I felt something was wrong, so I tried her breath, and she has gone but her body was still warm.” So believing her to be dead, Mr. Qingwang and his son made funeral preparations, placing the old woman’s body in a coffin. Fortunately, in Chinese tradition the coffin is retained for several days, until family and friends pay their respects. Also, he chose not to nail the box shut until the day of burial.

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Incredible Animal Treehuggers (Environmental Graffiti)

Polish Ghost-Hunter Plans Census to Monitor Vanishing Ghosts (Austrian Times)

14-Year-Old Builds Working LEGO Printer (Bit Rebels)

Chinese Man Builds His Own Plane Out of Junk (Metro)

World’s Oldest Vacuum Cleaner Still SUcks after 108 Years (Mirror)

World of Warcraft Full Back Tattoo (Geekologie)

Portrait Made from 15,000 Push Pins (Dailymotion)

1550 Chairs Stacked Between Buildings (My Modern Met)

Spider vs. Wasp: A Deadly Battle in Pictures (Environmental Graffiti)

World’s Longest Tree-Top Walkway (Amusing Planet)

It’s hard enough being dumped, but not even knowing why could be pretty brutal. Especially if your ex happened to just vanish without a trace. I suppose it’s pure torture to deal with not just the loss of a partner, without breaking your head over what could have possibly gone wrong. But this doesn’t have to be the case anymore, not if you make use of this new Australian website, WotWentWrong.com.

Founder Audrey Melnik describes the website in simple terms, “WotWentWrong is the breakup app for couples who never really broke up.” Since confronting a person who simply faded away from your life could be difficult, the website provides you with an opportunity to do so without having to face them. WotWentWrong actually allows you to get in touch with your ex and ask them for detailed feedback about what went wrong that made them leave you. This helps to give jilted lovers closure, and also a few handy tips about what they could do better the next time around. As part of the feedback, there are questions about kissing skills, attractiveness, dressing and more. Survey ratings are also provided along with various reasons for the silent treatment to be selected from.

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A while back, we did this story on OC about a dog that wouldn’t leave his master’s grave. So I wasn’t exactly surprised when I heard about Wang Cai, but the faithful dog certainly deserves a mention. After all, he has waited for his master outside a local bank, from 9 am to 5 pm, every single day for the past 4 years.

Wang Cai was a homeless dog found wandering on the streets of Chongqing, China, four years ago, when a kind soul decided to adopt him. Ever since, he has been accompanying his new owner to work every morning and waited outside patiently for the next 8 hours, only to return home in the evening. According to the dog’s master, the behavior perplexed him at first, since he didn’t really train Wang Cai to do anything of the sort. The owner suspects that the dog might be waiting for his previous master, but he has no issues with the strange behavior.

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Her eyes looked dazed, her expression blank. And yet, her hands worked in perfect coordination, shooting a basketball through the hoop with practiced precision. This is the story of 18-year-old Maggie Meier who was able to shoot hoops while comatose, at age 14.

In 2008, Maggie started to complain of headaches and suffered nonstop seizures. At the time, she was a freshman and star athelete at Blue Valley High School in Overland Park, Kansas. When she was taken in to the hospital, she was diagnosed with a rare brain infection called mycoplasma meningoencephalitis that causes swelling in the brain. Maggie soon slipped into a coma, and remained in a vegetative state for nearly three months. During that time, her family made sure she was moved every two hours so her limbs didn’t stiffen up. And so that she wouldn’t forget her identity, a basketball was put in her hands as she sat upright on a wheelchair. It was then that her dormant memory kicked in and she could shoot hoops for a while, before slipping back into a coma.

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Hiring people to strip at a bachelor’s party has been a long-standing and extremely popular tradition. That’s why this South-African company wants to take it one step, or rather several steps further. Natural Cleaning Co. is “the world’s only all-naked service company.” With a description like that, I’m pretty darn sure they’re never going out of business.

The 1-month-old companywas founded by Jean-Paul Reid, who couldn’t find a decent job as an accountant. Their website is quite interesting, with pictures of the ‘Gorgeous Staff’ and ‘Tempting Services’ that include semi-naked and naked cleaners, lawyers, accountants, computer geeks and handy men. They even let clients customize their own nude service where they can provide their own entertainment request for an hour. The only thing the company does not condone is prostitution, which is a point stressed by Reid. The aim of Natural Cleaning Co. is purely to provide entertainment, he says.

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“Turning eight is the new 18” – I seriously wonder how and where people get such ideas. But, apparently they do, and 51-year-old Sarah Burge is one of them. She thinks it’s perfectly normal to gift her 7-year-old daughter plastic surgery gift vouchers worth £8,000 ($12,700).

The vouchers are meant to be a present for the occasion of Poppy Burge’s 8^th birthday. At an age when most girls expect to be given dolls or a new bike, a plastic surgery gift is absolutely bizarre. More so, since Poppy is so young that even her front two teeth are yet to come in. It’s no surprise that Sarah herself is a plastic surgery addict, having spent over £250,000 ($400,000) on altering her own appearance. So according to her, all she’s doing is giving her daughter a chance to be happy with her looks and grow up with confidence. “I’m investing in my child’s future. I’m giving Poppy the freedom to do what she wants,” says Sarah. “That’s what Poppy wants for her birthday.”

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If I told you of a place where babies are repeatedly flipped, spun, swung and dunked underwater, you’d waste no time it telling me it was baby-hell. Or at least some kind of baby-torture camp. But it’s neither. It’s really just a session of Baby Dynamics.

People who are not familiar with the routines involved in baby dynamics are usually, and quite understandably, horrified. Especially when the babies being subjected to the movements are obviously uncomfortable, crying and even vomiting. But the practitioner Lena Fokina simply smiles and asserts that it’s all good for the babies. The 51-year-old Russian has been practicing the techniques of baby dynamics for over 30 years and guarantees that no harm has ever been done to a baby she has handled. “It’s very good for babies and not dangerous at all,” she says. “Some babies cry at first, but then they begin to enjoy it.”

Considering how careful people are to just lift babies into their arms, it is rather shocking the way Lena simply holds one by the ankle or wrist and twists and turns the little one with ease. Again, she insists that this is nothing but normal. “Most people think young babies can only lie in bed, eat and cry. But babies are born with natural reflexes, which we can use to help them develop physically and intellectually.” So baby dynamics is actually meant to help babies with skeletal or muscular problems, and is also suitable for healthy children. It’s an age-old practice that originated with ancient African tribes. Dr Igor Charkovsky, a Russian midwife, adapted the techniques to suit modern times and was later joined by Lena. Baby dynamics is offered to children up to two years old and workshops are held to teach parents how to practice it at home.

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