Haenyo – The Diving Grandmothers of Jeju Island
The Korean Jeju islanders have something to be proud of – their grandmas are divers. It may seem surprising, but for the people of the island this has been a way of life for centuries now. This tradition, once a thriving profession that drove the economy of the land, is in fact, now fast deteriorating. […]
Millionaire Who Gave Fortune to Charity Now Lives on $1,350 a Month
Karl Rabeder, the Austrian businessman who last year decided to give away his large fortune, because he realized money didn’t make him happy, now lives on just $1,350 a month. It was one of the most shocking headlines of 2010. Karl Rabeder a millionaire from Telfs, Austria, announced he was in the process of selling […]
Artist Creates Mind-Blowing Mosaics from Thousands of Naked Bodies
New York-based artist Angelo Musco is taking the photography world by storm with his incredible mosaics made up of thousands of naked bodies. Touching themes like birth, procreation and gestation, Angelo Musco creates complex structures of the natural world from an ant colony and beehive to a school of fish, using thousands of human bodies. “A […]
Chinese Art Student Builds Home-Made iPad for His Girlfriend
Owning an Apple iPad is not such a big deal these days, but building one for scratch is definitely an impressive feat. That’s exactly what Chinese art student Wei Xinlong did, in the name of love. Like many other college sweethearts in China, Wei Xinlong and Sun Shasha decided to settle for a long distance […]
Smoking Tiger Rug Made from 500,000 Cigarettes
Xu Bing, one of China’s most renown contemporary artists, has created a unique tiger rug from 500,000 cigarettes. And it looks smoking. A real tiger rug is a rare thing to have, but rarer still is one made from hundreds of thousands of tobacco cigarettes. Weighing an impressive 440 pounds, this cigarette rug has to […]
Stunning Landscapes Are Actually Built in a Fish Tank
They may look like some of the most beautiful places on Earth, but they are actually miniature topographies of fictitious environments, built in a large fish tank, by New-York-based artist Kim Keever. The pictures below look a lot like traditional paintings, but the process in which they are created is anything but traditional. In a era […]
Wacky Business Owner Runs Company via Robot Proxy
Richard Garriot, the owner of a Austin, Texas-based video-game development company, has found the perfect way to keep an eye on his employees when he’s out of office – a $15,000 robot called QB60. Garriott, who founded Origin Systems back in the 1980s, a company best known for creating the Ultima franchise (which led to […]
10 Coolest Finds of the Week #13
15 Bizarrely Precarious Planking Positions (Environmental Graffiti) Meet the Real Spice Girl (Daily Mail) Thorntons Breaks Biggest Chocolate Bar World Record (Metro) P Diddy Publishes Book That Celebrates the Female Behind (Dailymotion) Mum Teaches 2-Year-Old to Smoke (Orange) The World’s Richest Beggar (New York Times) Seven Churches Devoured by Lava (Environmental Graffiti) Housewives Set-up Adoption […]
Bian Lian – The Ancient Chinese Art of Face Changing
Bian Lian, or Face Changing, as it’s known in the western world, in an old dramatic art associated with Chinese opera from the Sichuan Province. It is considered a part of China’s cultural heritage and is the only art form to be ranked as a level two national secret. The skill and speed with which […]
World’s Most Expensive Sheep Is Worth over $2 Million
This whole economic boom is just making China weirder with each passing day. Just last week I read they inaugurated their first gold-dispensing machine and now the country’s big bosses are paying millions of dollars for sheep. Dolan sheep, to be exact, a rare breed which according to breeders has very special features that make it the […]
Amazing Works of Art Painted Only with Beer
Artist Karen Eland paints all kinds of portraits and paintings using nothing but beer. The first time we featured Karen Eland on Oddity Central was when she took the art world by storm with her beautiful coffee paintings. She started her artistic career doing portraits with water color and colored pencils, but quickly moved on […]
Savika – Wrestling Angry Bulls in Madagascar
Savika is a rodeo-like sport practiced by men of the Betsileo ethnic group in Madagascar. It’s considered a rite of passage, and any man who dares dance with the angry zebus is considered a hero of the community. No one remembers exactly when savika was invented, but everyone agrees it has been practiced by Betsileo […]
Stan Herd Uses Crop Fields as Canvases for His Art
For more than 30 years, Kansas-based artist Stan Herd has created large scale artworks he calls Earthworks, using crop fields as canvases. Stan Herd was born into a family of farmers and grew up in a very small town in southwest Kansas. Although he was the artist in the family and in school, Stan also […]
Submarine Enthusiast Converts Small Barge into U-Boat Replica
Richard Williams may be 51 years old, but he still has the dreams of a young boy. Sure, he’s not the only one, but unlike others he set out to fulfill them. I guess it’s true what they say, better late than never. As a child, Richard was a big Star Trek fan, but never […]
Chinese School for Gold Diggers Proves Big Hit
Why bother building a successful career, when you can just marry yourself a rich guy that will pamper and take care of you, forever? A Chinese school, ironically named the Beijing Moral Education Center for Women, claims it can teach single ladies how to get their hands on a billionaire. I know, it sounds like new […]