Meet Arunachalam Muruganantham, an award-winning social entrepreneur from Coimbatore, India, better known as the nation’s ‘Menstruation Man’. Deeply disturbed by the unhygienic menstruation practices among women in rural India, Muruganantham took it upon himself to find a solution to the problem. After several years of hard work, he invented a machine that women can use to produce their own sanitary napkins, at less than a third of the cost of commercial ones.

Born in 1962 to handloom weavers in Coimbatore, Muruganantham was forced to drop out of school at age 14 to provide for his family after his father’s death. For years he lived in poverty, working a number of jobs – machine tool operator, farm laborer, welder, and sales agent – just to make ends meet. But things were about to change soon after his marriage to a woman named Shanthi, in 1998. He discovered that his wife used filthy rags during her menstrual cycle because they couldn’t afford to buy sanitary pads, and this troubled him greatly.

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It’s been nine years since the last Harry Potter book and five years since the last movie, but Potter mania is still as strong as ever. The instant popularity of a new Harry Potter-themed cafe in Henderson, Nevada is proof of that. When ‘Bad Owl’ first opened its doors on February 13, hundreds of muggles were already waiting to get in, and it has since then been receiving worldwide attention for its delightfully rich Potter-themed decor and menu.

“There was a line outside even before they opened,” said Harry Potter fan Shelby, speaking to Mugglenet.com. “They were opening late because they were on the local news this morning. We waited in line for about an hour to order. The ambience was perfect with a thick velvet curtain darkening the room and little Harry Potter details everywhere.”

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It appears that in some parts of the world, prayers have legit market value. For example, a church in Russia is getting away with a $11,500 debt by promising to pray for the good health of the creditors instead.

The Nizhny Novgorod diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church owed 916,000 roubles to construction company Era for designing a heating system for one of their buildings. The church was only able to settle half the amount, and the company decided on taking legal action. But the owners of the company happen to be religious people, so the church was able to convince them to agree to a pre-trial settlement in which the loan would be written off and the church would pray for them in exchange.

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Worried American parents are resorting to extreme ways of finding out if their kids are into drugs – they’re actually hiring private K9 services to sniff out any narcotics that their kids might be hiding in their rooms, bathrooms or cars. These sniffer dogs are specially trained to find hidden narcotics such as meth, barbiturates, marijuana, heroin, and cocaine. Some of the searches turn up empty, but in most cases the parents’ suspicions are confirmed.

Michael Davis, who runs The Last Chance (TLC) K9 Services in Louisville, Kentucky, says that 90 percent of the time his company’s dogs do find narcotics stashed away by teens. One of his German Shepherds recently found four grams of heroin tucked into a boy’s tube socks. Another teen had hidden marijuana inside his five-year-old brother’s cereal box, which was apparently a brilliant hiding spot because no one else in the family ate that brand.

In Floyd County, Indiana, a father freaked out when he spotted his 14-year-old daughter with new friends and picked up an unpleasant odor from her room. “I’m not a snooping parent,” he said, choosing only to reveal his first name, James, in order to protect his daughter’s identity. I want my daughter to be able to be able to trust me, but I gotta protect her.“ So James was pretty worried about his daughter’s activities when he came across a TLC billboard advertising their services to “worried parents”.

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In light of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris an other parts of the world, Scottish company Osdin Shield has come up with a new bespoke range of bulletproof sofas and chairs. These made-to-measure pieces will come with armor-plating sewn into the cushions, ensuring ballistic protection during a shooting.

“Unexpected gun attacks are becoming more and more frequent all over the world,” founder Darren Osdin said. “We designed the furniture with the natural human reaction to unexpected gunfire in mind: to duck and hide behind a barrier.” So in the event of a firearm attack in a hotel or any other indoor public space, people can immediately dive behind Osdin Shield sofas for cover.

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There is a mysterious river flowing deep through the Amazon rainforest in Mayantuyacu, Peru, that can literally boil small animals almost instantly. While water temperatures along the 6.4-km-long river range between 50 and 90 degrees Celsius, in some parts almost reaching the boiling point of 100 degrees. That’s hot enough to cause third-degree burns in a matter of seconds.

The local Asháninka people have known about the mysterious Boiling River for centuries, referring to it as ‘Shanay-timpishka’, which translates to ‘boiled with the heat of the sun’. Ancient legend has it that the hot water is unleashed by a giant serpent named Yacumama (mothers of the waters) and a large boulder shaped like a serpent’s head lies at the river’s headwaters, as a testimony to the primitive tale’s veridity.

For the rest of the world, however, this natural oddity was just that – a legend. Apart from a few references dating back to the 1930’s there was no scientific documentation of the boiling river and most geologists simply dismissed its existence based on the fact that it would take huge amounts of geothermal heat to boil entire sections of a river, which would be impossible because the Amazon basin is located 400 miles away from the nearest active volcano. Except for a few tourists who visit Mayantuyacu each year to experience the traditional healing methods practiced by the Asháninka people, the civilized world was oblivious to the existence of a real boiling river.

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Designer Susan McLeary is taking the jewelry world by storm with her incredibly stunning accessories made from living plants. She uses real succulents hand-picked from her family-owned greenhouse to craft intricate headpieces, necklaces, rings, bracelets, and other pieces of  bio-jewelry that literally grow on you.

Each piece from McLeary’s ‘Passionflower’ collection can be worn for two to four weeks before the plants begin to grow off their metal base. When this happens, wearers can simply remove the succulents from their metal base and re-pot them to keep in their homes. The brass jewelry bases can still be worn on their own. If the pieces are worn for special occasions like weddings, the potted succulents become all the more significant.

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A restaurant owner in Paris is thoroughly miffed with bankers, so much so that he’s banned them from entering his establishment. A sign outside the place reads: “Dogs welcome, bankers banned (unless they pay an entry fee of €70,000).”

Alexandre Callet’s obvious displeasure towards bankers stems from the fact that many of them turned down his request for a loan of €70,000 ($77,273) to open a second restaurant. He said that he felt humiliated because the amount he asked for is “nothing” compared to the €300,000 turnover of his Michelin-ranked restaurant, Les Ecuries de Richelieu. In fact, most of the bankers who turned him down know Callet and have actually dined at his place.

“I believe in reciprocity,” the 30-year-old said. “They have treated me like a dog, so I have denied them access. As soon as I see a banker that I recognise I won’t let them enter my restaurant. This is not just a kebab shop. My restaurant is in the Michelin guide and film stars come in.”

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We’re used to reading about people struggling to find a decent job, or any job, really, but this story is about a small town clinic that has been unable to attract any applicants for a job that pays over $400,000 a year.

While the people of Norman Wells are struggling to find a hairdresser willing to move in and tend to their needs, another small town halfway across the world is dealing with an even more pressing problem. Tokoroa, town in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North island, is finding it hard to attract young doctors willing to work for a salary most people would kill for – $400,000.

Dr Alan Kenny, co-owner of Tokoroa Family Health clinic, has been trying rather desperately to fill the position of GP, but he hasn’t received a single application in four months despite the huge salary he’s offering. He’s also promising no weekend or night duties and co-ownership of the clinic, but that hasn’t gotten anyone interested either.

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La Modelo prison in Botogá, Colombia, is notorious for the free reign that its 11,000 odd inmates enjoy. The prisoners completely run the show, with easy access to guns and grenades, while the prison guards do not carry any weapons inside the premises.

The inmates frequently resort to violence in order to settle disputes between the left-wing rebels and the right-wing government supporters and paramilitaries that inhabit the north and south wings of the prison, respectively. The rivalry between the two sections has lead to several killings, all of which were carried out in the central area in between the two wings. Members of the guerrilla movement FARC who are imprisoned in the north wing actually carry out their military drills within their section of the establishment. Ammunition is smuggled into the prison and sold at about $1,000 per gun, thanks to the cooperation of corrupt officials.

Guns aren’t the only perks that the inmates enjoy. They use cell phones freely and have access to satellite communication, which allows them to carry on with their criminal activities in the outside world, like drug dealing, kidnapping, and extortion. They even have restaurants inside the prison, one of which is sponsored by FARC and provides free food to left-wing rebels. Other restaurants are run by individual inmates, who pay taxes to the gangs every month. But the most baffling of perks enjoyed by La Modelo inmates is ‘Ciambiazo’ or ‘big change’, in which a prisoner can change places with a visitor from the outside for only 2,000 to 2,500 dollars.

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New Zealander Danielle Daals is taking up a 30-day ‘Living like Lolita’ bathtub challenge in Miami to protest the captivity of a killer whale named Lolita. For the next one month, the 29-year-old activist will sit in a bathtub from 10am to 7pm outside Miami Seaquarium, in order to represent Lolita’s plight. Since 1970, the 22-foot whale  nicknamed ‘the world’s loneliest orca’ has been confined to a 60x80x20 foot pen, the smallest whale enclosure in North America. 

Daals, who has a permit to protest outside the park’s private property, will also carry a poster with a picture of Lolita and the words: “Swims 100 miles per day; confined to equivalent of a bath tub.” She hopes that her campaign will be effective in freeing the 3.2-ton whale from captivity and reuniting her with her pod of extremely rare and endangered Southern Resident killer whales near Puget Sound, off the coast of Seattle.

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Japanese student Reikko Hori is in the news for choosing to be a real-life castaway on the uninhabited island of Amparo in Indonesia. After 19 days of complete isolation, during which her only companions were a spear and a magnifying glass, the 22-year-old claims to have returned to normal life with a newfound appreciation for civilization.

The paid experience was arranged by Docastaway, a tour company that specialises in holidays in remote islands across the world, with packages that include varying levels of comfort. Hori, a self-described loner, chose ‘adventure mode’, the most extreme category, therefore becoming the first female voluntary castaway in history.

But the company was worried about her choice because she had no survival training whatsoever and was completely unprepared to live all by herself in the wild. According to their official website, Hori wouldn’t answer any questions or respond to their emails during the preparation phase a few months before the actual experience. She apparently wanted to survive in the wild as naturally as possible, with very little interference from experts.

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Over 7,000 people visit this beautiful phlox moss garden in Shintomi Town, Japan’s Miyazaki Prefecture on any given day in the months of March and April, drawn both by the beauty of this scented purple carpet and the touching story behind its very existence.

The story of this popular tourist spot can be traced back to 1956, when Mr. and Mrs. Kuroki, a newlywed couple, purchased a plot of land in Shintomi. They built a house and a dairy farm on it and worked hard for several years, tending to a herd of 60 cows. They hoped to take a trip around Japan when they eventually retired, but things didn’t quite turn out as they had planned.

At age 52, after 30 years of marriage, Mrs. Kuroki developed an eye condition and went blind a week later. Devastated at the prospect of living with a disability, the poor woman grew depressed and shut herself from the world, choosing a life of seclusion. Mr. Kuroki was saddened to see his normally cheerful wife in so much pain. Because she couldn’t travel across Japan as they had always planned, he wanted to find a way to bring the whole of Japan to her.

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Meet Bagel, a.k.a ‘Sunglass Cat’, who became a social media sensation because of an eye condition that requires her to wear sunglasses at all times. Her shades are decorated with stick-on jewels, giving her a cool vibe that has earned her a reputation as one of the internet’s coolest cats. 

The Los Angeles feline was born without eyelids and her eyes are unable to produce tears. She was rescued from a shelter by Karen McGill when she was a two-month-old underweight kitten. Karen had to nurse her back to health, feeding her by hand every thirty minutes. Later, Bagel got three surgeries for her eye condition, and Karen still needs to apply drops to her eyes several times a day.

To protect Bagel’s sensitive eyes from harsh sunlight and dust, Karen came up with the idea of putting shades on her all the time. Over time, Bagel has come to associate her glasses as a means of comfort and protection. Without shades, her eyes are at a constant risk of being damaged due to cornea damage. Karen removes the jewel-lined glasses from time to time so Bagel can wash her eyes, but the keeps them on at all times in public. The cat also has allergies and cannot regulate her body temperature, which is why she is seen wearing clothes in a few photographs.

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Thanks to these new sneakers, you don’t need to wait for space tourism to take off to experience walking on the moon. Aptly named ‘MoonWalker’, these shoes rely on magnets to allegedly simulate walking in a low-gravity environment. 

On their Indiegogo campaign page, startup Moonshine Crea reveals that the ingenious shoes are made from an “incredibly durable yet soft and breathable” synthetic fabric on the outside, while the inside is made of a DuPont Tyvek synthetic polyethylene used by NASA in space station modules. The sole, made of memory foam, is designed to perfectly fit the unique shape of each wearer’s foot.

So far the shoes seem like regular sneakers, but what sets the 20:16 MoonWalkers apart are the two special layers hidden beneath the memory foam, which are embedded with the world’s most powerful magnets . According to the company, “each layer is made up of powerful N45 magnets that are strategically placed so the north poles face each other. This creates a repellant force, which leaves you light on your feet and happy as an astronaut.”

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