To relax after a hard week’s work, Qatar’s car enthusiasts jump in their powerful 4×4 vehicles and drive out into the desert to engage in “dune bashing”, an adrenaline pumping pastime that has passengers hanging to the edge of their seats.

What do you do to relax on weekends? Hang out with your friends, go camping, or stay home and watch TV all day, that kind of stuff, right? In Qatar, the crazy rich have found a different, more dangerous way to unwind after a stressful week. They take their specially prepared Toyota and Nissan 4×4 vehicles to remote desert locations, deflate their tires for extra grip and surf the endless dunes, racing each other and performing unbelievable stunts. There is no police, no speed limits and no rules. The drivers are as skilled and experienced as they come, but accidents are still very common at dune bashing events, and some of them result in fatalities. But that doesn’t seem to scare the other drivers from engaging in this insane and exhilarating activity.

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Aaron Evans is a natural-born athlete who can jump further and higher than most average humans. His signature move – jumping over cars moving towards him at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour.

Milwaukee-based Evans says he was just five years old when he discovered his talent for extreme jumps. He was watching a Bruce Lee movie when he saw the legendary martial artist run up a wall and do a backflip. Curious to see if he could pull off the same stunt, he went into the backyard and nailed it on his first try. He’s been pushing the limits of his incredible jumping abilities ever since, and today he holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest jump over three moving cars. That’s three vehicles coming at him at an average speed of 30 miles per hour. Most people would just jump out of the way, but not Aaron, he flips over them. “I pick a point as where I’m gonna meet it, and as soon as it gets there and I’m at a certain point, I get ready and take off,” the 25-year old acrobat tries to explain how he manages to clear the speeding obstacles every time. I just like to think of it as a real-life superpower.

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Everyone, put your hands together for Bryan Bednarek, allegedly the fastest clapper in the world. In a YouTube video that recently went viral, he was able to clap 802 times in just 60 seconds,thus  setting a new record.

How fast can you clap your hands? You probably think you’re pretty good at it, but try keeping your fastest rhythm up for a whole minute. I tried it and I almost pulled a muscle in the process. And it’s all Bryan Bednarek’s fault for making it look so easy on camera. A friend of his filmed him pulverizing the current official record for most claps in one minute, and posted it on the internet, just to make the rest of us feel bad. According to the video counter, Bryan managed to smack his hands together 802 times, a whopping 81 times more than what Guinness record holder Kent French managed back in 2003. I don’t know if the count is right, but just the way he manages to keep up the insane clapping pace is unbelievable. This guy is like The Flash of clapping.

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Pizza and movies are a popular combination, so Domino’s in Brazil decided to mix the two in a single package – a heat-sensitive movie DVD that looks and smells like their delicious pizza.

Domino’s Pizza teamed up with Brazilian advertising agency Artplan to create a truly ingenious campaign for their popular products. Taking advantage of the fact that movie rental stores are still very popular in the South American country, the creative minds at Artplan used thermal ink and flavored varnish to transform 10 new release titles such as Argo, 007, Dread and Dark Knight into appetizing disks that looked and smelled like pizza. They partnered with 10 video rental stores in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro which distributed the media to unsuspecting clients. The DVDs were painted in black thermal ink and featured the movie title, but once the heat emitted by the player started affecting them, they gave away a pizza smell, and the black coloring was replaced by a delicious looking pizza image and the message “Did you enjoy the movie? The next one will be even better with a hot and delicious Domino’s Pizza.”

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I pity the fool who would dare try to compete with 64-year-old Andres Gardin in a coconut peeling contest. The Mr T. lookalike has been using his strong teeth to peel off the fruit’s hardened shell for over 50 years, but he is till waiting for Guinness to add his name to their famous record book.

The B.A. Baracus fan from Rio Alexander, a small and humble town in the province of Colon, Panama, has been entertaining neighbors and colleagues with his amazing talent for over half a century. While most men his age are thinking about retirement and playing with their grandchildren, Andres Gardin is busy using his vice-like jaws to peel off coconuts. He’s been doing it since he was just 11 years old, after seeing his own father use his teeth to angrily bite through a coconut that had fallen on his head, knocking him unconscious. He reckons he has since then peeled off over 100,000 coconuts, and claims his dentures are as strong as they’ve ever been. Still, he says ripping off the fruit’s tough shell is not as easy as it looks; it requires strong jaws and teeth, as well as the power of God. Gardin’s biggest wish is to have his name mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records. He says he can peel 500 coconuts in just six and a half ours, more than enough to beat any who would dare challenge him, yet no official has ever come to verify his feats.

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Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to say goodbye to privacy in the place where it mattered most – the restroom. A wacky cafe in Vienna has installed see-through toilet doors that only turn opaque if the users lock them.

For a lot of people, using the toilet in public places is uncomfortable enough, but the owners of Cafe Diglas, in Vienna, Austria, decided to make it even worse for them by replacing the regular bathroom doors with transparent glass ones that allow anyone who walks in to literally catch them with their pants down. Luckily, it’s not really as bad as it sounds. You see, these are smart toilet doors that turn opaque at the turn of a switch. All the user has to do is lock the door when they’re inside and watch the see-through glass become opaque as a light above them projects a no-entry sign onto it. It’s a really cool trick, but the viral YouTube video that shows them in action doesn’t come with an explanation of the magic that makes them switch in an instant.

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Talented balloon artist and Toy Story fan, Jeff Wright, has managed to bring the popular space ranger Buzz Lightyear to life with an incredibly detailed inflatable costume made from hundreds of interwoven balloons.

A picture showing the awesome Buzz Lightyear costume created by Wright recently went viral on social news sharing site Reddit, racking over 170,000 views in just a few hours. Capturing all the features that make Buzz such a popular character and children’s toy, the attention to detail on this helium-inflated masterpiece is simply stunning. There’s not much information on how long it took to complete or how many balloons were used in the process, but I did find a cool video of the guy wearing the costume doing a funny impersonation of the lovable Toy Story hero. In the past, Jeff Wright has collaborated Balloon Distractions, a company that tries to make ‘the world a better place, one balloon at a time’. This Buzz Lightyear costume was definitely a great way to start, but Jeff and his wife Rachel didn’t stop there. They’ve also created an amazing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle outfit out of over 500 colored balloons, and are now moving to Bolivia as volunteers at the Life Center Orphanage, where they’ll be entertaining kids with all kinds of cool balloon creations. How awesome is that?!?

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A heartbreaking video that recently went viral on YouTube shows a heartbroken wolf-dog laying over the gravestone of his owner’s grandmother,shaking and making what appear to be sobbing noises.

Over the years I’ve posted some truly heartbreaking stories about dogs displaying their feelings over the loss of their masters, pets waiting by their owner’s graves for years, or visiting familiar places and awaiting their return, but I had yet to see an animal actually crying over their deceased human companions…Until today. In a short clip posted on YouTube by user Sarahvarley13, Wiley, a wolf-dog from Lockwood Animal Rescue Center (LARC), in Ventura County, California, appears to be sobbing over the loss of his owner’s grandmother. He is shown laying on her gravestone shaking and making heartbreaking noises that a lot of people believe express his pain over the terrible loss. The video has sparked a debate between YouTube users who believe Wiley is sobbing over his friend Gladys, and those who are convinced dogs cannot cry and that the wolf-dog is actually suffering from allergies or breathing problems.

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You know how the skin on your hands gets wrinkly every time you spend a little too much time in the bathtub? Imagine what your hands must look like after ten full days of being submerged underwater. Tim Yarrow doesn’t have to imagine it; he is the current record holder for the longest time spent underwater and he has the hands to prove it.

Back in 2002, South-African Aquaman Tim Yarrow spent 240 hours submerged in a small water tank in a Johannesburg shopping mall. He beat a record that dated back to 1986, but it was much tougher than you think. Breathing issues aside, the man had to eat, sleep and do his “business” underwater for 10 days, while groups of shoppers gathered around the tank and watched. He used a low fiber diet delivered through a tube, and a catheter to eliminate waste from his body. Scary stuff if you ask me, but not nearly as scary as how his hands looked when he finally came out of the water. Even though he wore scuba gloves the whole time, the guy had the hands of a 200-year-old. The Science Channel’s “Outrageous Acts of Science” TV show explains why Tim’s hands became so freakishly wrinkled.

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38-year-old Chris Weir is so fascinated with Batman that he spent around $100,000 transforming his large basement into a veritable Batcave, complete with a custom home-theater, a secret entrance and even a life-size Batman suit used by the Dark Knight in the latest trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan.

Chris’ fascination with the caped crusader started at age three, when he and his uncle played Batman and Robin in the yard. Like many other young boys, he spent his childhood years playing with action figures from the Batman universe, and at 14 he bough his first comic book “The Legends of The Dark Knight”, and continued paying for a monthly subscription with his pocket money. Nothing unusual for a young boy, but Weir never really grew out of it. Even as an adult, he kept buying comics, action figures and posters of his favorite superhero, only at one point it just wasn’t enough anymore. He wanted to take his passion for everything Batman to a new level, and when he and his wife decided to look for a new house, Chris got the opportunity he had been waiting for. Weir wanted his very one Batcave so bad that when shopping for houses the deciding factor was always whether their future home would have enough basement space for his dream. In the end, he gave his wife Joanna two options to choose from, one of which happens to be their current home.

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Ravi Fernando, a student at Stanford University and a member of the World Cube Association has mad Rubik’s cube solving skills. In a recent video, he solves three cubes while juggling them, in less than six minutes.

This is probably the coolest thing you’ll see today. I’ve watched Ravi’s YouTube video a few times now and I still can’t believe it can be done. He is somehow able to juggle three Rubik’s Cubes and solve them at the same time. The only way I can solve one Rubik’s cube in less than an hour is by taking off all the colored stickers and gluing them back in the right order. Pathetic, I know, but this isn’t about me, it’s about this skilled math undergrad who has a cube solving record of just 7.65 seconds ( no juggling, obviously). That puts him in the 48th position on the list of the world’s fastest Rubik’s Cube solvers. Pretty cool, but it’s not just about speed with this guy, as he can also solve the tricky puzzle blindfolded, with just one hand, and with his feet. And you thought you were special just being able to solve one of these darn things, huh?

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Remember Mary Poppins, that lovable nanny played by Julie Andrews in the 1964 movie adaptation of P.L. Travers’ children books? Growing up I always asked myself if floating around with an umbrella was possible in real life. Now, thanks to the stunt of extreme athlete Erik Roner, I finally have an answer.

I remember wanting to climb on to the roof of my parents’ house to test out Mary Poppins’ umbrella-powered traveling technique, but as crazy as that sounds to me today, it’s nothing to the stunt pulled by Erik Roner. The famous daredevil teamed up with camera maker GoPro to conduct a “retro-tech” experiment and see if Mary Poppins was actually more than a delightful fairy tale. Using a sturdy garden umbrella instead of a parachute, he jumped out of a hot air balloon, over Southern California. “We’re gonna see if an umbrella actually slows you down, like Mary Poppins’ does…What am I thinking?” Erik says before detaching the umbrella from the supporting balloon and starting his descent. For a few moments, his umbrella flight seems quite smooth, but the pressure of the air ultimately turns it inside out and tears the fabric to shreds.

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David Garibaldi is a successful performing artist who combines his passion for painting, dance and music in truly inspiring performances. Holding a paintbrush in each of his hands, he strokes the canvas as he dances to modern tunes, creating incredibly detailed portraits of pop icons.

Born in Los Angeles to entrepreneur parents, David Garibaldi moved to Sacramento when he was just four years old, for his dad’s business. Ever since he was very little, David had a strong sense of creativity, and although they didn’t share his passion for the arts, his family always encouraged him. He started by drawing cartoon characters, then moved on to encyclopedias, comic books and anything else kids his age were into back then. Then, during middle school, he started getting into hip-hop, so his friends suggested he use his artistic talents to do graffiti. It helped him develop his own style and explore all kinds of new design elements, but all those late nights he spent leaving his artistic mark on the walls and trains of Scaramento really affected his education. By the time he realized he was neglecting school, it was too late, and he couldn’t graduate with the rest of his class. It’s one of his biggest regrets, but also one of the things that motivated him to become the great artist he is today.

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When we were kids, we played this game where we would twist a pencil innumerable times into a loop of thread and then let it go, watching with fascination as it spun around at top speed. It was a fun game, but I never imagined that somewhere in the world, the same thing was being done to living creatures.

Brodilovo is a small, remote village in the South-Eastern part of Bulgaria. Here, villagers are so afraid of rabies that they have a centuries-old tradition to ward off the disease. The bizarre ritual involves the spinning of dogs, just like the pencil game, on a rope, hanging over a small stream. It is practiced once a year and is believed to help keep rabies at bay. The process that the dog is put through is quite enough to give animal rights activists nightmares. Dogs are twisted in a rope that is stretched out tautly over, and are then let go. The dogs spin out of control and then tumble into the water below. Since they reach very high speeds, they are often unable to swim when they hit the water. A net is held at the bottom for the animal to fall into, and then helped out of the water. Read More »

It sometimes amazes me how humans are able to find a source of livelihood in almost any type of environment, in accordance with their surroundings. Case-in-point, the coin divers of the Yamuna River, in Delhi, India’s capital city. This unique group of men works around the year, braving the bone-chilling cold waters even during winters, to dive into the river and retrieve coins from the bottom. The same coins that are thrown into the waters by passengers of boats crossing the river, as an offering to the River Goddess. Wondering what such an offbeat job pays? Well, sometimes as little as 100-200 rupees (US $ 2 to 3) a day, and sometimes as much as a diamond ring.

22-year-old Sartaj Ahmed has been in the profession of coin-diving for the past 6 years. The brave young man says he started diving when he was just a boy, but it was only when he turned 18 that he began hunting for coins. “Some days I get 100-200 rupees but on lucky days, I can find small trinkets. I have even found a gold ring once.” 34-year-old Sajad Ahmed has been at it for 20 long years. He says it gets harder and harder each other, but they really do not have any other choice. 21-year-old Amit Kumar, who’s been doing this for 10 years, says, “We dive into the river and collect coins, brass, copper, sometimes even silver and gold.” Diving for coins is the only source of his daily income. “What can be done, I have to do something for my living. We live here so we keep diving here.”  Vicky, another young diver, says, “I dive and normally take home money for my daily expenses.” Raju says that he prefers coin diving because he doesn’t like working for a boss.

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