Meet Dan Price, a real life hobbit who has been living in his underground hole in Oregon for the past twenty years. He manages to survive with only $5,000 a year – $100 of which goes on the rent for the land he resides under – and doesn’t believe in “houses or mortgages.”

Dan used to be an office job type of guy, working as a photojournalist in order to support himself, his wife and their two kids and pay the mortgage on their house. He didn’t really give his life too much thought until he read a book by Harlan Hubbard which described an existence without the everyday commodities of modern life. After reading the book, Dan soon packed his bags and moved to a peaceful meadow where he tried out various housing options- a cabin, a flophouse and a tepee, before settling in the hobbit house he lives in today. The 8-foot hole in the ground barely accommodates Dan, a stove, his books, a CD player and some clothes, but it’s everything he really needs. Price, who wants to live a life without stress says “everything is at arm’s length when you are sitting there. It’s human scale. The idea is that you can see everything, no fumbling for stuff – that creates stress.”

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A restaurant owner in Moscow promises you will have such a great time in his establishment that you are going to see double, not because of the strong vodka, but because the staff is made up exclusively of identical twin brothers and sisters.

Aptly called Twin Stars, the Russian restaurant employs only twin bartenders and wait staff as a gimmick to attract more customers and prides itself on being the only such restaurant in the world. Alexei Khodorovsky, the owner of Twin Stars, says he was inspired by a 1960s movie where a girl finds herself in a parallel universe and discovers there’s another version of her – her twin. The idea seems fun and both the customers and the twin staff say they’ve enjoyed the experience thus far. “We worked as barmen before this summer in a different establishment. It was an internship for us,” Artyem, who works with his identical brother Roman at the bar, says. We really liked that internship. That’s why we decided this profession suits us and we came here to work.” Finding people like Artyem and Roman was a true challenge. Identical pairs with experience working in a restaurant were very hard to track down, but the effort was worthwhile because as Nika, another member of the unique staff, says “One pair (of twins) is already fun – when there are two, it’s even more fun.”

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If you live in Yelm, Washington, be very careful where you park your vehicle because Edward Smith may have sex with it. So  far, the 62-year-old car lover (pun intended) has bedded – in lack of a better word – 1,000 cars, which makes him the world’s most promiscuous mechaphile, a colloquial word used to describe people who love machines a little bit too much or who feel an insatiable sexual attraction to cars.

Smith claims he has never been attracted to a human being in his life and that his love for cars started way back in his childhood. He actually lost his virginity to a neighbor’s Volkswagen Beetle. He has had only one female girlfriend 12 years ago but never found it in him to consummate the relationship. In fact, his sexual experience with women began and ended with a one night stand in Seattle. Ever since he can remember, he felt attracted to cars. “When I turned 13 and the famous Corvette Stingray came about, that car was pure sex and just an incredible machine. I wanted it,” he explains. “I didn’t fully understand it myself except that I know I’m not hurting anyone and I do not intend to,” he adds. He’s now in an open relationship with a second-hand Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla, a 1973 Opel GT, called Cinnamon, and an 1193 Ford Ranger by the name of Splash, which he regularly takes for joy rides. However, his heart belongs to Vanilla for which he has real feelings. “When I hold Vanilla in my arms there’s a powerful energy that comes from her,” he says. “I would say it is extremely satisfying but at times a little melancholy because I know she cannot talk to me. But overall I know she feels what I feel and it’s intense. If anything was to happen to her I would be more than heartbroken.”

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Australian Andrew Hellinga recently set a new Guinness Record after riding his bicycle for 337km backwards in a 24 hour challenge to raise money for the poverty-stricken children of Zambia.

Hellinga started the marathon on October 7^th at 6 a.m. and made just one brief stop to mark the 182 km milestone that made him the new Guinness world record holder for the longest distance traveled while cycling backwards. “I had to stop for a quick rest and to share the excitement with my support crew,” he said. After a quick celebration, he continued this difficult challenge hoping to make it to 300km within the 24-hour limit. Not only did he pull through and reached the 300km milestone, but he cycled for another few dozen kilometers, covering a staggering distance of 337km.  After withstanding the ever-changing weather, he ended the lengthy ride with a smile on his face.

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Martha Mason was an extraordinary human being who spent over 60 years of her life in immobilized in an Iron Lung after becoming paralyzed in her childhood years as a result of polio. Despite her seemingly desperate situation, Martha lived a fulfilling life, graduating from high-school and college with the highest honors, hosting many dinner parties and even writing a book called  “Breath: Life in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung”, in which she portrayed the challenges and joys of her life.

Martha was born on May 31, 1937, in Lattimore, a small town about 50 miles from Charlotte. Her story took a tragic urn when she was only 11 years old, after the death of her brother Gaston who had suffered from a terrible condition which left him paralyzed before eventually killing him. After his burial, young Martha realized she had also contracted the dangerous viral illness but kept it to herself as not to distress her parents even more. “I knew that I had polio. I didn’t want anyone else to know,” she wrote in her book. “The day before I had heard Mother talking to a friend about the iron lung Gaston had been in. . . . I knew I wouldn’t have that difficulty because I had excellent lungs.” But soon she  too found herself  immobilized in the iron lung, dependent on it to do the breathing for her. “Iron lung” is only a colloquial term used to describe a pressure ventilator, a type of medical device which helps paralyzed people breathe by decreasing and increasing air pressure inside of a large iron tank. Ms. Mason has lived almost her entire life in such a tank with the pressure contracting and expanding her lungs when her weak muscles couldn’t. Doctors told Martha’s parents to take her home and make her happy for a year, as that was how long she had left to live. She outlived them both thanks to an avid curiosity and a desire to learn about the world.

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Like most people concerned about their eating habits and trying to lose weight, Alex Fontaine, an award-winning businesswoman, had tried virtually every diet ever invented. From hypnotherapy, acupuncture to “a flotation tank with whale music – which was lovely, but still didn’t do the trick,” you name it, she had tried them all, but with no real results. There had been no way of stopping Alex from reaching into her desserts cabinet and devouring everything in sight, until a party where she had a strong aversion to the bad smelling food she was served. Having rediscovered her brain’s behavior of associating food with smell, Alex managed to create an odor so foul that will instantly make you lose your appetite. With her Stick Yourself Slim fragrance and her beloved Sally the Skunk always by her side, Alex lost 10 kg and now wants to share her weight-loss philosophy with the world.

As you probably already guessed, the key ingredient of this perfume is the foul stench! It works by using the cool ability our brain has of associating bad odors with food that has gone bad. Our hunter gatherer ancestors often used this ability to determine which fruits and meats were safe to eat. Although we no longer use our olfactory system to determine how fresh and edible a morsel is, odors still govern our food likes and dislikes as well as determine our cravings for meals without even being hungry. With this principle in mind, Alex believes that with bad smells we can train out brain to reject fattening foods by making them seem undesirable.

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Tim Friede, an unemployed factory worker and snake enthusiast, is a strong believer in the saying “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”.  In an attempt to build immunity to venoms and poisons, he has been injecting himself with diluted venom proteins from some of the deadliest snakes on Earth. He claims that as much as 100 snakes have sank their poisonous fangs into his flesh, including a black mamba which can kill a person in under 20 minutes.

His experiments aim to prove that humans can become immune to poisonous substances by gradually exposing the body to snake venom. Each time he injects the venom, his body produces more and more antibodies to eliminate the harmful substance. By doing this, he hopes to generate the necessary research needed to create a stronger and more efficient antivenin. “I hope through developing my own resistance to poison some solid groundwork can be laid to build a vaccine for the 125,000 people that die from snakebite every year,” Tim explains. So far he’s proven that his body can indeed withstand toxic quantities of snake venom. Numerous pictures and videos show him being bitten by the lethal serpents with him surviving every time. His trials do have some side effects including life-threatening allergic reactions that cause the bitten hand to swell up and deep puncture marks left by the sharp fangs.

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The San Antonio prison on Venezuela’s Margarita Island is not your typical penal institution. Whilst in other penitentiaries the inmates are forced to obey strict regulations harshly imposed by armed guards, in this atypical slammer, it’s the prisoners who make the rules. From cooking their own food to watching TV, surfing the web on their laptops and managing illegal businesses on their cellphones, the San Antonio inmates are free to go about their day as they please. The only thing they can’t do is leave. Any attempt to escape can result in instant death courtesy of the sharpshooters up in the prison’s watchtowers. But thankfully, most of the prisoners are so happy here that a potential escape is the last thing on their minds.

At San Antonio, prisoners enjoy many privileges, have jobs and make real money. Some are barbers, some sell drugs while others manage the local cock fight club which generates a decent gambling revenue. There is even a guy who photoshops pictures of inmates leaning against a Hummer, using his own digital camera and laptop. Other lazy folk lie around in their air conditioned cells watching TV in the company of their wives or girlfriends who are free to come and go as they please. To the men’s satisfaction, a 54-unit women’s annex was built in 2009 which naturally caused the number of romantic liaisons between inmates to increase. The inmates’ children can also use the prison as a playground and spend the day swimming in one of the prison’s four pools. On weekends, the prison is even open for any visitors who want to have a good time of excess and depravity in its Reggaetón clubs. This really is a prison unlike any other.

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Buttery and succulent, the related oil fish (Ruvettus pretiosus)  and escolar (Lepidocybium flavobrunneum)) are considered to be two of the most palatable fish in the world. But before you run out to your local fish market in search of these delicacies, you’d better stock up on toilet paper because you’re going to spend a lot of time in the restroom after your scrumptious meal.

With such a large number of species in danger of  being over-fished and others posing health risks due to their high mercury content, the seafood industry needs alternatives that taste great, are cheap, sustainable and healthy to consume. The oilfish and escolar seem perfect choices, and although they’ve been popping up in restaurants and fish markets around the world, there is one dirty little secret that those who sell them sometimes forget to reveal – they cause explosive, oily, orange diarrhea. I know it sounds bad, but there is a way to avoid this embarrassing and highly uncomfortable side effect. The fish are safe to eat if they are consumed in portions smaller than six ounces, but most people are either unaware of the consequences or they just can’t help themselves because they are so damn delicious, so they go for full servings. People who actually went through this kind of ordeal have reported the oily discharges are almost impossible to control and often lead to embarrassing accidents.

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Named after the river on which it takes place every year from late spring to early summer, the Blooming of the Tisza is an incredible natural phenomenon that attracts tourists from all around the world to Hungary. As millions of long-tailed mayflies reach sexual maturity, they shed their larvae skin and burst from the river in search of a mate before dying just a few hours later.

There are around 2,000 species of mayfly worldwide. Measuring up to five inches from their head to the end of their appendages, Tisza’s Palingenia longicauda, also known as the long-tailed mayfly, is Europe’s largest. Mayflies live most of their lives as larvae in large colonies on the bottom of rivers. After three years, they shed their larvae skins and emerge from the water as sexual mature adults. Because they have a limited amount of time to reproduce -about three hours – as soon as they are able to fly, they prowl for potential mates. Males try to pass on their genes to the next generation at any cost, often forcing themselves on the females, and even clinging to them when they are still in larvae form. This mating frenzy lasts for three or four days, during which time the whole area around the Tizsa river becomes engulfed in a seemingly impenetrable humming fog.

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Wars always leave behind empty monuments that serve as reminders of hard times. Although haunted by the memories of conflict and often death, these abandoned structures sometimes blend with their natural surroundings, revealing breathtaking landscapes of poetic proportions. One such place is the Haʻikū Stairs popularly known as  the“Stairway to Heaven”, in Hawaii, a 3,922-step ascent into one of the most vivid and stunning natural sceneries on Earth.

The first steps begin in the Valley of Haiku near Kaneohe, on the island of O’ahu and climb up to 2,800 feet at a 30-degree angle. The first ladder was built during World War II, out of wood, to help string antenna cables from one side of the valley to the other. Thus, the personnel at Haiku Valley Naval Radio Station, located at about 2,800 feet above sea level, was able to communicate with the US Navy submarines as far away as Tokyo Bay. In the 1950s the ladder was rebuilt out of galvanized steel and expanded in order to accommodate the activity of the Omega Navigation System station of the United States Coast Guard. A total of 3,922 18-inch wide steps were built from ship ladders, bolted together in sections of seven and secured into the rugged hills.

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Do you know about the ingenious Panamanian golden frog which lives near loud waterfalls and communicates by waving? The people of Kuşköy, a small Turkey village, have proven that they can be just as creative and resourceful as the little poisonous frog. Long before they even had electricity, they invented a brilliantly simple way of communicating over long distances, by whistling.

They call it the “bird language” or “kuș dili” as it originated in Kuşköy, which itself means “bird village”. This fascinating means of communication was created over 400 years ago as a consequence of working in the fields of the Pontic Mountains. The terrain is irregular making travelling very difficult even on short distances, and because of this, the villagers felt the need for an alternative to speaking and shouting , one that made long distance communication easier. Inspired by the songs of birds, they started whistling the syllables of Turkish words which proved to be much more effective and less energy-consuming than yelling or walking all the way to the person they needed to speak with. Villagers notify each other about visitors, ask for help and make invitations for tea. They can even have complex, long conversations just by whistling. The songs of the bird people resonate over distances as long as 1km. If the distance is longer, the neighbors are kind enough to pass on the message to each other until it reaches its destination.

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We are living in an era of technology when direct human interaction is becoming more and more infrequent. If it weren’t for their jobs, many people wouldn’t even interact with others every day, relying solely on social networks, email, and text messaging services. But human interaction is not only about communicating messages; it is also about exploring our emotional nature, the importance of which is often forgotten.

According to numerous studies, physical contact is crucial to promote attachment between mother and infant but also to ensure the baby’s healthy physical, emotional and intellectual development. Adults also need physical contact to maintain their mental and emotional health which contribute to their overall happiness. It comes as no surprise that people like Jacqueline Samuel have found a way to service those in need of a cuddle or snuggle and make a living out of it. Travis Sigley is the father of professional cuddling. He studied psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and believes that through physical touch, people can learn to overcome the anxiety and fear that often accompanies social situations.  Through cuddling, Sigley hopes to teach people to relax and gain trust in themselves as well as in others.

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Meet 22-year-old Xiaolian. He is not wearing some bizarre special effects makeup, that is actually a real nose growing on his forehead. As strange as it looks, this is apparently a pretty common nose reconstruction technique.

No too long ago, Xiaolian was involved in a car accident that damaged his nose. After he refused medical treatment, the wound became infected and in a few months time the bacteria had corroded the cartilage of the nose, making it impossible for doctors to save. But since we’re living in an age where medical miracles are possible, they decided to remove the infected tissue and grow the young man a new nose. This was done by by placing a skin tissue expander onto Xiaolian’s forehead, cutting it into the shape of a nose and planting a cartilage taken from his ribs. It’s taken Chinese doctors in Fuzhou, Fujian province, nine months to grow the nose, but it was worth it, because the organ developed perfectly and it’s almost ready to be shifted in it the place of Xiaolian’s original nose. Read More »

Most people couldn’t run a marathon if their life depended on it, but world-record juggler Joe Salter ran the whole 26.2-mile Quad-Cities Marathon backward, while doing what he does best, juggling.

32-year old Joe Salter can practice his juggling skills pretty much anywhere. In the past, he swam a half-mile in the Gulf of Mexico, doing the backstroke while juggling three balls, juggled for 16.2 miles on a bike and ran and juggled for four miles. He also holds the world records for the fastest time to run a mile backward while juggling (7 minutes, 32 seconds) and fastest juggling triathlon (1 hour, 57 minutes), but he was hungry for a Guinness World Record, so he challenged himself to run the entire Quad-Cities Marathon, in Illinois, backward, while juggling. Unfortunately, Guinness rules are very strict and for Joe’s unique feat to qualify as a record, every second of the race had to be recorded, which was impossible as videotaping is prohibited along several miles of the course that run through the Rock Island Arsenal. Although slightly disappointed, Salter found an upside to the whole situation. “I actually feel better, not having the stress,” he said before the race, and indeed the lack of added pressure helped him finish the entire 26.2-mile marathon in just 5 hours and 51 minutes.

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