The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, in the UK, are home to thousands of fascinating plants, but none as lonely as the Encephalartos woodii, an ancient cycad species and, most likely, the last one of its kind.

It was in 1895 that botanist John Medley Wood noticed this interesting-looking palm tree on a steep slope in Zululand, southern Africa. Intrigued by its multiple trunks and arched palm fronds, Dr. Wood — who made his living collecting rare plants – had some stems removed and sent to London in a box.It ended up in the Palm House at the Royal Botanical Gardens of Kew, where it has been waiting for a mate for over a century. Despite numerous efforts to find it a mate, the Encephalartos woodii at Kew remains alone, unable to produce an offspring and propagate its species. For this reason, many consider it the world’s loneliest plant.

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Manusia Silver, or “Silver Men” is a special type of beggar that has become a common sight on the streets of several Indonesian cities.

Beggars have been around for as long as anyone can remember, and Indonesia is no exception, but the South-East Asian country has recently seen the rise of a new type of beggar, the so-called Silver Men. Inspired by the street performers who used metallic paint to transform themselves into living statues and wow passers-by with their doll-like movements, the Silver Men or Manusia Silver, as they are called in Indonesian, simply adapted the look of these performers to their own skill – begging.

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Among the rolling hills and vineyards of the Tuscan countryside lies one of the most stunning tourist attractions not only in Italy, but in the entire world – a cascade of white limestone pools overflowing with warm, turquoise water known as Cascate del Mulino.

Translated as “Waterfalls of the Mill” in Italian, this surreal-looking natural wonder is located on the grounds of an old mill, just a few kilometers outside of the village of Saturnia. Since the time of the Roman empire, people have been coming here to have various ailments cured by the special water of the underground springs in the area, which is rich in sulfur and other minerals. But nowadays, Cascate del Mulino has become a popular destination for tourists and Instagram travel influencers, offering both stunning views of the surrounding Tuscan countryside and attention-grabbing social media pics.

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Surrounded by lush vegetation and dotted with ponds and pools of water, the Chinese village of Ding Wuling should be teeming with mosquitoes, especially during the summertime. However, the tiny bloodsuckers allegedly haven’t been seen here in almost a century.

Located in the hills of China’s Fujian province, 700 meters above sea level, the village of Ding Wuling is home to the hakka minority, a people with a very rich history and culture evidenced by the unique architecture of their stone houses. But in recent years, the culture and architecture of this picturesque village have been overshadowed by a mystery enhanced by national media – the absence of mosquitoes. Despite being virtually covered by a lush canopy and surrounded by vegetation, the village has reportedly been mosquito-free for several decades.

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If you can’t afford to shell out $330,000 on a brand new Rolls Royce Cullinan, you can still get a 1:8 replica complete with the SUV’s iconic accessories and details for “just” $27,000.

Car miniatures don’t usually cost as much as a decent daily driver, but then again this isn’t your average miniature. It consists of more than 1,000 individual parts carefully put together by hand by Rolls Royce experts in about 450 hours. That’s more than half the time it takes the luxury car company to build an actual Rolls Royce Cullinan. Plus, the Richie Rich-worthy toy comes with working exterior lights, as well as a mini version of the 6.75-liter, twin-turbocharged V12 used for the Rolls Royce SUV.

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Borzoi hounds typically have longer snouts than most other dog breeds, but one specimen is getting a lot of attention these days for having potentially the world’s longest snout, with a length of 31 centimetres.

Two-year-old Eris is a white Borzoi Sighthound from Richmond, Virginia, who has been getting a lot of attention online for her unusually long snout. Ever sine Eris’ owner, Lily Kambourian, posted a photo of her nose from an angle that really showed how incredibly long it was, people have been fascinated by her schnozzle. Lily says that it was quite obvious that Eris and her siblings had an overbite (a genetic defect) since they were only puppies, but she didn’t care, and she certainly never expected this to become her most popular trait.

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What do you get a man who can buy anything himself? Well, it better be something special, and high end fabric manufacturer Scabal may have what you’re looking for – a diamond-infused fabric that shimmers discretely but is surprisingly comfortable to wear.

In 2001, Belgian textile company Scabal changed the luxury fabric industry forever by introducing, Diamond Chip, an exclusive fabric infused with microscopic diamond fragments. The process of creating this intriguing fabric remains a closely-guarded secret, but what is abundantly clear is that the world’s super-rich were so impressed by Diamond chip that luxury fabric manufacturers the world over started incorporating expensive materials like 24K gold, platinum or precious stones into their fabrics.

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Yartsa Gunbu, a fungus that infects ghost moth caterpillars on the Tibetan Plateau, is considered by far the most expensive parasite in the world, fetching up to $50,000 a pound.

A close relative of the tropical parasite that infects ants and turns them into zombies, Ophiocordyceps sinensis is only found on the Tibetan Plateau, where it infects the larvae of ghost moths while they are buried deep underground and feeding on plant roots. The larvae are most vulnerable in the summer, when they shed their skins, becoming more easily infected. The parasite slowly grows in its hose by consuming it during the fall and winter, and just when the snow starts to melt, it pushes its dying larvae host upward and grows a plant-like, spore-filled stalk that pierces the ground, becoming the way to spot the valuable Yartsa Gunbu. It is then harvested by local villagers and sold modest prices that turn into a fortune as the fungus passes through several middleman, costing the final client more that three times its weight in gold.

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Chicago-based Jim Bachor is one of those rare street artists’ whose works can be classified as both art pieces and a public service. The man specializes in fixing up pot holes by filling them up with his beautiful and durable mosaics.

In fact Jim’s career as a pothole artist began with a trip to the ancient city of Pompeii, in Italy, where he learned just how durable mosaics really were. The tour guide pointed at a 2,000-year-old artwork and said that although it had been set in mortar, the marble and glass pieces had not faded. The realization of the artwork’s staying power blew him away, and a few months later he was in Italy learning the secrets of ancient mosaic art. He pursued it as a hobby for a few years, but then he started doing commission works and in May of 2013 he got the idea of applying his skill to fixing a pesky pothole in his neighborhood.

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Made famous by Canadian rapper Drake, the Grand Vividus mattress by Swedish manufacturer Hästens and artist and designer Ferris Rafauli is a work of art that only the super-rich can afford.

This month, Architectural Digest magazine featured Drake’s 50,000 square-foot mansion in Toronto, and despite all the cool amenities presented, all anyone could talk about was the rapper’s luxurious-looking mattress. As you can probably imagine, this isn’t your run of the mill mattress, but a bespoke, hand-made masterpiece fit for an internationally-acclaimed artist worth over $150 million.

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In 2016, Arshad Khan was a “chaiwala” (tea maker) on the streets of Islamabad, in Pakistan, but then he looked into a stranger’s camera at exactly the right moment and that photo catapulted him to stardom.

Arshad’s family has been making tea in Islamabad for almost 30 years, but he had only joined their stall for a few months when professional photographer Javeria Ali spotted him, in September of 2016. Somehow, the young chaiwala managed to look into Ali’s camera at just the right moment to have his striking blue eyes forever immortalised in a photo that has been shared online ever since. Hours after the pic was shared on Twitter, it went viral, and everyone started asking about the handsome chaiwala.

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The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania, Australia, isn’t the only museum to have shut its gates because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it stands out because of its unique, human artwork.

As hard as it is to believe, Tim is both a man and an artwork. A former tattoo parlor owner from Zurich, in Switzerland, he agreed to have his back tattooed by artist Belgian artist Wim Delvoye in 2006, and has been exhibiting his body art in museums and art galleries ever since. He has been coming to MONA since 2011, for stints that can last up to six months at a time and see him sitting with his legs crossed on a plinth, in complete silence, showing off Delvoye’s artwork. And even though MONA closed down on March 18, he continues to sit in the empty museum for six hours a day. That is his job…

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A 22-year-old Chinese woman who suffered from a persistent cough was shocked to learn that she had a piece of chicken bone lodged in her lung.

After 14 years of checkups and X-rays to figure out what had been causing her persistent coughing for the last 14 years, a 22-year-old unnamed woman from China recently learned that it had all been caused by a chicken bone. The woman’s problems started after she suffered a serious coughing fit when she was seven or eight years old, and despite numerous hospital visits, no one could spot any anomalies that might be causing her uncontrollable coughing.

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An Indonesian fashion designer/Instagram ‘rich kid’ recently found himself at the center of an online controversy because of a fashion handbag he allegedly created from alligator tongues and an “ethically sourced” human spine.

Arnold Putra originally showcased the controversial fashion accessory on his Instagram account back in 2016, but it went relatively unnoticed until a a few days ago when a tweet about it went viral, sending thousands of people flocking to the young designer’s Instagram, to check if the bag is real. Scroll down Putra’s page to content from 2016 and, low and behold, the creepy bag shows up complete with a description that reads “alligator tongue and human osteoporosis spine bag by me”. Obviously, people started asking questions…

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Akie Nakata describes herself as a “stone artist”, but there is more to her craft than simply painting river stones into familiar animal shapes. Every one of her pieces goes through a complex process that begins with choosing the right stone and continues with bringing out the life in it.

The Japanese artist, who goes by Akie on social media, has a very special way of looking at looking at stones. While most of us choose to ignore them, she considers them similar to living organisms, in that there is a rich history behind them and they all have a story to tell. She is just someone enabling that story to come out with her paintbrush. She believes that every stone she chooses in turn chooses her, giving her the ok to paint what she sees on it. Akie feels that her art is a collaborative effort of hers and the stones’, and she always shows her respect by never altering or processing a stone to better suit her design.

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