Just months after Lebanon set the record for the world’s biggest hummus dish, chefs from the Arab-Israeli village of Abu-Gosh snatched it away with an even greater achievement.

On Friday, fifty cooks mashed up ridiculous quantities of chickpeas, sesame paste, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic and created the world’s largest hummus dish ever, weighing over 4 tons (4,087,5 kg). It was put on display outside the Abu-Gosh Restaurant, on a 20-meter satellite dish, provided by sponsors.

When Guinness official Jack Brookbank acknowledged the new world record and applauded the chefs for not sacrificing quality over quantity,  Jawadat Ibrahim, organizer of the event and owner of the Abu-Gosh Restaurant, shouted that Abu-Gosh is the hummus capital of the world. Clearly taunting words meant for Lebanese chefs, who will most certainly respond with an even bigger hummus dish.

The hummus wars have been raging on between Middle-Eastern countries for a while now, with many of them claiming the tasty dish as a national delicacy. The origins of one of the world’s oldest culinary treats are lost in time, but when has that stopped people from fighting over stuff…

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Chinese designer Daizhi Zheng has created a mobile phone that uses sweet drinks like Coca Cola instead of lithium batteries.

Zheng has been working on this revolutionary device for Finnish cellphone giant Nokia, and claims he has come up with a way of using sugar-based drinks to power mobiles. Any sweet drink, even sugar-sweetened water would be enough to keep the phone running much longer than lithium batteries.

The bio-battery invented by Daishi Zheng generates electricity from carbohydrates, using special enzymes as catalysts. In the process, the device generates oxygen and water. The designer claims his sugar-based bio-battery lasts up to four times longer than a fully charged lithium battery and is much easier to recharge: just pour some more sweet fuel.

Lithium batteries are very expensive and harmful for the environment, so if Zheng’s Coke-powered cellphone turns out to be real, it would be a significant breakthrough.

via Dezeen

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A German company created  a series of sausage-inspired rugs that you can actually place around your house.

Flachbild decide to spice up the carpet industry a little and came up with four cold-cuts inspired rugs. These are just the first out of an entire series and represent salami, mortadella, blood sausage and ham (pimento loaf).

The edible-looking rugs are made entirely from wool, range from one to five meters in diameter and have a thickness of approximately 1.8 centimeters. If you want one of these for your home and can speak some “Deutsch”, check out Flachbild’s official site. Just make sure you keep an eye on your kids, they might try to munch on the rugs.

via If It’s Hip, It’s Here

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The Bulgarian men of Kalofer celebrate Epiphany, an important Orthodox holiday, by performing a traditional dance in the freezing waters of Tundzha river.

On January 6, the small town of Kalofer, located 200 km east of the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, was the scene of an unique event. The men dressed in traditional costumes and, carrying national flags, headed for the neighboring Tundzha river. Here they entered its freezing waters and performed the customary Horo dance.

During the Epiphany ceremony, an Orthodox priest throws a metal cross in the water and young men plunge in to retrieve it. Whoever finds it first is said to stay in perfect health throughout the entire year. After a swim like this, I have my doubts…

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Her name is Jana Danae Groller and her love for baking, challenges and giving to people creates true edible masterpieces.

With help from her husband Matt, Jana comes up with all kinds of cake concepts and together think up different ways of actually bringing them to life. Their collaborative work so far is pretty impressive, especially the Jesus Cake and the Elvis Cake. But according to Jana, this is only the beginning, so we can expect a lot more delicious artworks.

If you want an edible Elvis for yourself, you’ll be glad to know Jana takes orders. Just drop by Jana’s Fun Cakes and check out her work.

via UnusualLife

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That’s right, at Ansan military camp for children it doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or a girl, they’ll make a manly man out of you.

Located about 25 miles from the capital of Seoul, the Ansan military camp gives civilians the chance to strengthen their minds and bodies, by training in extreme conditions. The camp is ran by retired Korean marines who don’t care if you’re in primary school or in college, they’ll have you carrying logs and exercising half naked in the snow.

You can choose to withstand the torture training at Ansan camp for periods ranging between three and fourteen days, depending on how tough you think you are. Check out some more photos of children training at Ansan, we posted a while back.

Photos by REUTERS via Telegraph.co.uk

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Belgian design company dmvA has created an egg-shaped mobile living space, complete with everything a household needs.

The VB-3 Mobile Living Space was constructed primarily out of polyester and features a bathroom, kitchen, bed space and storage niches. The nose of the white “blob’ opens automatically to form a type of porch. The VB-3 Egg is easy to transport and can be used as a mobile home, office or garden home.

via designboom

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That’s right, this is what it has come down to. People now have to display their resumes everywhere they go, in hopes of finding job opportunities.

You Zu Lao Xu, a Chinese internet celebrity decided to wear an LCD displaying his CV, wherever he goes, in order to up his chances of finding a job, but also to raise awareness of the unemployment issue in China.

That’s a pretty bizarre way of asking for a job…Expensive too. I wonder if he managed to land one.

via ImagineChina

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Better get a napkin and wipe the drool off the corners of your mouth, or you’re going to need a new keyboard.

In a tasty effort to remind people of how important drinking milk (especially vitamin-D fortified milk) is during the winter months, the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council heated up the world’s largest cup of hot chocolate, in Bryant Park, New York.

The giant mug was filled with 487 gallons of hot chocolate, covered with bags of marshmallows and heated to a perfect temperature of 120 degrees. Between 6,000 and 10,000 cups of delicious hot chocolate were distributed to passers-by, for free.

It seems hot chocolate is one of the best ways to stock up on vitamin-D, during winter. Who knew?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a keyboard to clean.

via Blisstree

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The yearly event organized by the “Friends of the Rootless Forest” is just a nice way of parting with the evergreens that were once adored Christmas trees.

But you know how we humans are, we like things just as long as they serve a a purpose. Same thing with Christmas trees, once the holiday season has passed, most of us just abandon them on the street corners. The Friends of the Rootless Forest patrol the streets of San Francisco, gather all the trees they can find and give them a proper “burial” by setting them aflame.

The tradition of the Post Yule Pyre began in 1990 and more and more people have joined the ranks of the Friends of the Rootless Forest, since then. Every year, after the holiday season, they stack the evergreens on Ocean Beach and watch them burn. But what’s even more impressive is these guys actually clean the ashes off the beach, after the event is over, and plant a number of trees to compensate for the gases released during the Post Yule Pyre. How commendable is that!

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To celebrate the release of the Iron Man 2 movie, Superherohype-forums member Masterle 247 is building a replica of War Machine’s costume, complete with all his gadgets.

Masterle 247 posted some cool photos of his work so far, and I have to say it already looks very impressive. The suit is made up of high impact urethane pieces, held together by around 600 rivets, it features a shoulder minigun and rockets, an arc reactor, light-up eyes and even repulsor gauntlets.

But Masterle 247 says his creation is far from finished. He wants to make his war Machine costume bulkier, more tank-like, so every part of his body is covered when he wears it.

I’m really glad War Machine and Iron Man will be able to get together in real life soon. Oh, if you guys really meet, make sure you take some photos and send them over.

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Created back in 2008, by British artists Benedict Radcliffe, the wireframe replica of a Lamborghini Countach is now up for grabs.

The 14 feet-long, 6 feet-wide see-through Lamborghini replica was created using 160 feet of 10-millimeter steel tubing and was parked on display on a London street where people could stare at it as long as they liked. Now Radcliffe decided it’s time to cash-in on his original creation, so he put the wireframe Lamborghini Countach up for sale.

The price is nowhere near that of a real Lamborghini Countach, but it’s not cheap either. $65,000 isn’t easy to part with in these troubled times.

via Autoblog

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Kevin van Braak, a young artist from the Netherlands, has transformed his common caravan into an extensible garden he can take anywhere.

In a world where real gardens, with trees and grass are still available, Kevin’s creation can seem a bit odd, but in a few years, it might be the closest many of us will come to real nature.  It looks just like any other caravan, from the outside, but the artist cut it in two, so it would reveal the lavish garden inside, when open.

Kevin van Braak’s mobile garden comes with fake trees, silk grass,  stuffed animals, an electric barbecue and even bird-songs coming through the van’s speakers. It sounds fake, but the young Dutch says many people prefer his garden over the real thing. His caravan garden is for sale, he just hasn’t fixed a price yet.

via Daily Mail

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Record attempts are very frequent in Mexico and most of them have to do with food. On January 3rd, Mexican chefs managed to create the world’s biggest sweet bread, called “Rosca de Reyes”.

Popular around the Three Kings holiday, in Mexico, Rosca de Reyes never looked as big and tasty before. The cooking of the sweet bread has been sponsored by Mexico’s National Bakers’ Association, but this year the bakers outdid themselves and came up with the largest Rosca de Reyes ever.

Measuring 720 meters in length and weighing over 10 metric tons, the world’s largest Rosca de Reyes took over 21,000 man hours and $128,000 to make. 50,000 eggs and 2,900 kg of sugar were “sacrificed” during the cooking process.

The giant Rosca de Reyes was shared among 250,000 locals gathered in Mexico City’s Zocalo Square. Many of them couldn’t afford to buy sweet-bread on their own so this event came like a godsend.

Photos via Xinhua

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A pest in the United States and pretty much everywhere else, Cuitlacoche, or Corn Smut, is considered a delicacy in Mexico.

Cuitlacoche is sold at a higher price than healthy corn and used to make tortillas. The diseases attacks the kernels, turning them into spore-filled tumors that apparently taste way better than healthy corn. The smut-infected corn is picked before it reaches maturity, so the kernels are still moist and taste sweet, savory, woody, and earthy.

After high-profile chefs and government officials tried to convince the American  people to stop regarding Cuitlacoche as a disease and start treating it like food, cans of Cuitlacoche found their way on to store shelves. But people are still reluctant to try it…I wonder why.

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