Alexander Pylyshenko, 40, owner of his own private zoo, in the Ukrainian city of Vasylivka, will be spending 35 days caged with two lions, in a stunt he hopes will raise awareness to the poor treatment of lions held in captivity.

The brave zoo owner says he will live like a lion from the moment he enters the cage. That means he will sleep on hay on the floor and eat from the meat that will be given to the lions through the cage bars. As for personal hygiene, Pylyshenko has built a toilet and shower inside the enclosure, but he’ll have to restrain from using shampoo, shower gel or deodorant, as big cats hate sharp odours. While lioness Katya and her mate Samson seem to get along just fine with their caretaker, things might not be as peaceful when they share a living space 24/7, especially since the female is expected to give birth during the five week period, and lionesses are known to be quite over-protective of their cubs.

But Alexander Pylyshenko, who has studied lions his entire life, is confident he will survive this dangerous test, and draw attention to the problems of big cats in captivity. He also plans to paint portraits of the lions while living with them, and sell them to raise money for charity. His 35-day experience living with two lions will be recorded via four webcams, which will broadcast it on the Internet.

Is this a case of consumerism at its worst--or just a hoax?

Business Insider is reporting that a Chinese teenager posted on Weibo, China's version of Twitter, that she would trade her virginity in exchange for an iPhone 4.

Reports of the girl's posting first surfaced last week in Biznewschina and the Korean Herald, which wrote that the girl posted a photo of herself along with basic personal information, because it's her "dream to own a iPhone 4 but her father won’t let her get one.”

The post, which many believe to be fake or a cruel prank played on the girl, has been met with a negative response and considerable criticism.

While it sounds unbelievable, this wouldn't be the first case of a Chinese teen going to extreme lengths for the latest technology.

Earlier this month a 17-year-old high school student named Xiao Zheng reportedly sold one of his kidneys for 20,000 yaun (about $3,100) to purchase an iPad 2 tablet.

Kathy Libraty, an antique doll collector from Brooklyn, New York, has spent the last 25 years searching for antique dolls, and now has an impressive collection of over 1,000 items that’s worth around $2 million.

Believe it or not, Kathy’s fascination with dolls didn’t start when she was a little girl. In fact she remembers she was more of a tomboy and had no real interest in dolls or any girly stuff. Born in France, she and her parents immigrated to the US when she was only 4. After graduating from Brooklyn College with a BA in Art, her passion for photography took her to Europe and the Middle East, where she took a real interest in history and old art. When she and her husband, Frank, bought an old Victorian house, Kathy decided to pursue her love for antiques and started attending country auctions. She was intrigued that people sometimes paid large amounts of money for wigless doll heads, broken limbs and crooked-eye dolls, but not enough to start spending money on them, herself.

It wasn’t until one day, 25 years ago, that Kathy Libraty really became addicted to collecting antique dolls. She and Frank were driving around the neighborhood when they saw a man emptying boxes of antiques into a dumpster. She saw a doll’s leg sticking out and told Frank to stop the car. They went up to the man and asked him if he was going to throw all those things away, and he just replied “Yeah, it’s all dirty old junk”, so they offered to take it off his hands. When they got home and looked through the “junk” they found a rare 24″ George Borgfeldt doll, several composition mama dolls, and a broken bisque Cuno and Otto Dressel Shoulder head doll. She often wondered what other treasures that man had thrown away in the dumpster that day, but the wonders she managed to get her hands on inspired her to go out into the world and discover her own priceless treasures.

In her quest to find more an more antique dolls, Kathy Libraty traveled more than 100,000 miles between America and Europe, where she found most of the items in her collection. Her dolls range from only 2 inches to over 3 feet in size, and cost from one meager dollar to $50,000. Husband Frank and daughter Elisa are also passionate about antique dolls, and help Kathy recondition them. Some of the dolls are restored and sold to other collectors, but some of them she just can’t bare part with.

Although she has over 1,000 rare antique dolls that take up most of the space in her Brooklyn house, and has reached a point where she has to sneak new arrivals past her husband, Kathy just can’t stop collecting dolls. And it turns out her addiction is financially beneficial, as the price of her antique dolls has already reached $2 million and can only go higher.

Taiwanese hairdresser Tsai Shiou-ying has won many prizes for her cutting and decorative hair extensions in a four-decade career.

Now she has gone one step further, making decorations including shoes, brooches, fruit and animals from hair left on the salon floor after the cutting is done.

Tsai, who started working with hair in her teens and learned the skills of styling from her mother, recently showed off some of her creations in her small salon in the central city of Taichung.

Her pride and joy is a pair of high heels made entirely from human hair that for her are a substitute for the real thing.

"I personally love high heels very much, but I am flat-footed. I can only look at them and try them on, but if I buy them they will only be stored away until mold grows," the 54-year-old said.

"I can't wear them, so I want to make a pair of heels that I really like. This way, even if I can't wear them, at least I created a work of art."

Only real hair can endure the shaping process, Tsai explains. A single heel needs hair from at least three people, and she asks her neighbours and relatives to contribute to her stock. It takes a month to make a single pair of hairy heels.

"With real hair, I can perm and dye it into all sorts of different colors," she said.

"Also, in the process of making, if I need to shape the hair I would apply instant glue or super glue -- they damage plastic hair, but won't damage real hair."

To develop her hobby further, Tsai is now planning a range of hairy corsets and dresses. But her works, which also include elaborate flower-shaped brooches in purples and greens, a life-size pineapple and a black rat with bright blue eyes, are not for sale.

Asked if she was worried that some people might think her hobby is in rather bad taste, Tsai said there was nothing to fear from hair.

"All the hair was cut off on-site, and even if it was given by my friends, it would be just cut off from someone, so this won't have anything to do with taboos about dead people's hair. Some people watch too many horror movies, so they imagine paranormal events and become afraid."

Outside this improbable spa in a remote part of the former Soviet Union, oil rigs bob on a hardscrabble plain of rocks, shrubs and rusting industrial equipment that could easily pass for a stretch of West Texas.

Inside, Ramil Mutukhov, a lanky 25-year-old, prepares to be pampered and preened, scrubbed and peeled — in a bath of pure crude oil.

He undresses, hangs his trousers and sweatshirt on a peg, pulls off socks and underwear and folds a wad of brown paper towels. He will need them later. Then he steps into a mess of what looks, smells and flows like used engine oil. “It’s wonderful,” he says, up to his neck in oil in a sort of human lube job.

The petroleum spas of Naftalan in central Azerbaijan, one of the little-known but once popular vacation spots of the Soviet Union, are making an unlikely return in a country so awash in oil these days that people are swimming in it.

Here in Naftalan, visitors can bathe once a day in the local crude. They and doctors here say it relieves joint pain, cures psoriasis, calms nerves and beautifies skin — never mind that Western experts say it may cause cancer.

Hoping to tap into the worldwide spa boom, Health Center, where Mr. Mutukhov took a dip recently, opened a year ago. Another spa is being built and two more are planned. “Two years ago, all this was ruins,” Ilgar Guseynov, the owner and director of Health Center, said in an interview. “Every day, every month, Azerbaijan is growing richer.”

At their peak in the 1980s, Naftalan spas had 75,000 visitors a year. That flow became a trickle after war broke out between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians in nearby Nagorno-Karabakh in 1988 — and after the Soviet Union stopped offering free trips. Five of the six Soviet-era resorts were converted into glum housing for refugees. But this summer, about 350 people visited the Health Center, Mr. Guseynov said, up from 250 last summer. A 15-day course costs $450, including meals.

“Azerbaijan is standing on its own feet now,” Amir Aslan, the deputy mayor of Naftalan, said. The town is banking on growth tied to the oil spa, which he said would pull it out of poverty. He has plans for a $3 million, 20-bath spread and is seeking investors.

In her office overlooking the oil field that supplies Health Center, Gyultikin Suleymanova, the lead doctor, said the local crude was unusual because it contained little natural gas or other lighter fractions of petroleum, and as a result was safe.

Naftalan crude contains about 50 percent naphthalene, a hydrocarbon best known as the stuff of mothballs. It is also an active ingredient in coal tar soaps, which are used by dermatologists to treat psoriasis, though in lower concentrations.

The National Agency for Research on Cancer, an American government agency, classifies naphthalene as a possible carcinogen, though Dr. Suleymanova said that is not the case when people bathe in it. Baths are lukewarm and last 10 minutes.

The therapeutic benefits are a product of natural antibiotic and anti-inflammatory agents that seep into the skin, she said. Arzu Mirzeyev is the bath master. With a green frock, jeans stained with oil and a mustache, he looks for all the world like a gas station mechanic and has a job to match. He changes the oil.

Each bath uses about a barrel of crude, which is recycled into a communal tank for future bathers, given the cost of oil these days. Mr. Mirzeyev also uses paper towels to wipe bathers clean, a long, hard process that involves several showers.

He says he likes his job. Until Azerbaijan’s economy ticked up in the last two years, Mr. Mirzeyev, 40 and a father of three, was a seasonal laborer in Ukraine, where wages were higher.

“If we have visitors, then we have work,” he said.

Unlike the oil from Azerbaijan’s offshore deposits, sold internationally under the brand Azeri Light crude, Naftalan’s oil is too heavy to have much commercial value. Luckily, because most of the bath attendants and patients seemed to smoke, it is not particularly flammable, either.

The resort has 80 rooms and 10 tubs, 5 for women, 5 for men. The tubs are not scoured between baths and, as might be expected, have perhaps the world’s worst bathtub rings — greasy and greenish brown.

Oil has been Azerbaijan’s ticket for a long time.

Oil seepages have been noted in Naftalan since at least the 13th century, when Marco Polo passed through and, even today, a reedy marsh, about the size of a football field, has a black patina of oil on the water. The site was a stopping place on the Silk Road to China.

Later, Azerbaijan’s larger oil reserves on the Caspian coast were developed by the Swedish Nobel brothers, the rivals of the American oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller.

In a sign of the more recent past in Naftalan, a museum keeps a collection of wooden crutches left by Soviet-era visitors “cured” by oil at the peak of the Soviet oil spa boom in the 1970s and 1980s.

The museum also has a photograph of a sign that hung at the city limits back then, “He Who Has Naftalan Has Everything.”

Regina Mayer, a 15-year-old girl from Laufen, Southern Germany, rides her pet cow Luna as if she were a well-trained show horse.

The young girl always wanted her own horse, but her parents kept saying “no”, and since she had a stable full of cows at her disposal, Regina decided she was going to try and ride one. After hundreds of hours of training and many baskets of treats, she managed to teach Luna to jump over home-made hurdles, just like a show horse.

Regina remembers that she knew Luna was special ever since she was born, three years ago. The calf came right up to her, she wasn’t shy like most other young cattle, and they developed a special friendship ever since. The 15-year-old began riding Luna about six months ago and she even contacted a riding school in Switzerland, and received some tips on how to train and equip the bovine in a way similar to a show horse. The two went for long rides around the countryside of Southern Germany and Luna become more and more comfortable, especially since her friend Regina made sure to give her delicious carrots during each outing.

Young Regina Mayer says Luna is definitely very clever, she knows what she can do and what she can’t. Right now she’s able to jump over a-meter-high hurdles, but the rider is confident this year they will reach 1.20 meters. She admits people always look at her funny when they see her riding a cow, but she wouldn’t dream of trading Luna for a horse. The trained cow has become her best friend, following her around wherever she goes, something a horse would never do.

An Indian woman lived with her 'husband' for a year before finally discovering that 'he' was really a 'she'.

Minati Khatua, 26, of Rourkela, says she and her family were completely taken in by Sitakant Routray, 28.

"He had impressed everyone in my family and they willingly agreed to our marriage," she said.

As is traditional in India, Sitakant received a substantial dowry including an Indica car, gold ornaments and more than £350 in cash.

But Minati grew suspicious after the wedding when Sitakant avoided any physical contact on the pretext of a religious vow.

"I would try hard to find out and confirm his gender but failed repeatedly," she told the Calcutta Telegraph.

"However, one day I managed to force open the bathroom door when he was having a bath. My worst fears came true. He was a woman."

Inspector Jyotirmaya Hota confirmed that police were investigating the case.

Great grandmother Lillian Lowe today claimed she is the world's oldest Facebook user at 103 - and she updates her status from her iPad.

Cyber centenarian signed up for the website to keep track of what her seven grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren are up to.

Just two months away from her 104th birthday, the family of young-at-heart Lillian believe she is the oldest of the social networking website's 500 million users around the world.

The pensioner is thought to have taken the crown of oldest Facebook user from 104-year-old Ivy Bean who died in her sleep in July.

Lillian said today that she is a big fan of the social-networking site.

'I love it - it is very exciting. It's a wonderful way of finding out about things. But I must say it's a dreadful waste of time. I'm sure there are lots of other things I should be doing rather than playing on a computer.

'I have been on Facebook for a few weeks now, some of the grandchildren do get up to some antics.

I have seen a few things over the years, so nothing really shocks me these days anyway.

'I go on the Facebook about twice a week, I have about 30 friends at the moment so there's quite a lot to catch up on. At the moment I use my grandson's iPad but I am very hopeful to get one of my own, there are some great new models out at the moment.'

The retired hotelier and businesswoman uses her grandson's iPad to get on the internet and has 34 Facebook 'friends'.

Lillian, from Tenby, Pembrokeshire, south Wales, said it was 'just lovely' seeing her latest photographs and messages every time she logs on.

She said: 'I can recommend it for any grandparents to keep in touch with their family with ringing all the time.'

Lillian was born in 1907 when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was Britain's Prime Minister - and she can still remember the news of the Titanic sinking in 1912.

The great-grandmother - dubbed Supergran by her family - was already at school when the First World War started and was 12 before she had a radio in her house.

Lillian said: 'I think virtually everything has been invented during my time. What I particularly like now is this Google Earth.

'When I was 84, I visited Australia with my young sister Mary, who will be 100 next year.

'We had a lovely trip, so yesterday I took myself off have a look at the Swan River.

'I've always read a lot during my life, and this computer has just taken the place of a book.'

Her grandson Steve set Lillian up with her Facebook account - and gave her his iPad to use.

Tenby RNLI mechanic Steve said: 'Lillian is incredible, she has an amazing memory and loves to keep in touch with what everyone is doing.

'I even went round the other day and she told me Microsoft had brought out a new touchpad computer she quite liked, she is dropping hints I think for her own.

'At the moment she has about 30 friends and she likes to check the news feed, she loved a video we did of one her great-grandchildren dancing in front of the TV.

'Now and again, she might raise an eyebrow at a few of the teenage antics she sees on Facebook, but she's pretty broad-shouldered and takes it all in her stride.'

Ivy Bean, 104, was the previous oldest Twitter and Facebook user.

The OAP, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, became a friend of pop singer Peter Andre online and he was regularly in touch with her care home before her death.

Gordon Brown's wife Sarah led the tributes to Mrs Bean who had clocked up an astonishing 56,300 followers on Twitter, and another 5,000 on Facebook.




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Sports Car Model made of five kilograms of gold, displayed at a gold shop in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province. The gold sports car is worth more than 3 million Renminbi yuan (about 450,000 U.S. dollars).

Members of a local winter swimmers' club walk to go swimming in the Yenisei River with the air temperature at about -36 degrees Celsius (-32.8 degree Fahrenheit) in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk December 12, 2010.

Leave it to the good imam to tell us what woman really want and need. Notice that the feminazis are not all over this.

We have seen many imam videos describing the proper way to honor, aka beat, your wife under sharia (islamic law). And while it is not new, it is important to note that it is accepted practice: Islamic text is cited, Muhammad is quoted, etc. In other words, it is rooted in Islam.
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Astonished medics are trying to save the hands of tormented Zhang Chuanqiu who was chained so tightly in an illegal prison that his flesh grew over his shackles.

Zhang, 27, had been chained to a cowshed in Hunan, southern China, in 2005 after falling out with village officials over a loan to build his house.

But his chains had been so agonisingly tight that Zhang's own flesh began to absorb them.

"The only person who did not give up on me was my mother who waited for her time and rescued me," he explained.

Now Zhang is trying to raise the 1,000 GBP surgeons have told him he needs for an operation to remove the chains and save his hands from further infection.

"They cause me a lot of pain. They are always inflamed and ooze pus all the time. But we have no money so I have to rely on charity or the good heart of a hospital or doctor to save my hands," he said.


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A Taiwanese woman said Sunday she had "married" herself by throwing a wedding banquet.

The 30-year-old Chen Wei-yi, who has been an Internet sensation since announcing her "wedding" plans last month, held the ceremony in a Taipei hotel Saturday witnessed by 30 relatives and friends.

"Marrying myself is a way of showing that I am confident and upbeat and that I accept myself for who I am," said Chen, who is an office worker.

"We must love ourselves before we can love others. I must marry myself before marrying the special someone," she told AFP.

Chen's supporters have hailed the move as "creative," with some suggesting a group wedding for those who wanted to "marry" themselves, according to her Facebook page.

Taiwanese authorities have said that many women now choose to marry at an older age or to stay single, which is seen as a major factor causing the island's birth rates to dwindle to one of the world's lowest.

A record low 117,000 Taiwanese couples tied the knot in 2009, down nearly a quarter on the previous year, according to government figures.

Source : Presurfer And News Yahoo

For centuries Japanese have worn beautiful, hand-crafted kimonos, but soon there will be no one left with the skills to make one of the nation's most enduring cultural symbols, say craftsmen.

Yasutaka Komiya, an 84-year-old craftsman, sat on a woven tatami mat floor flicking through piles of exquisitely decorated rainbow-hued silk.

"I started learning how to dye kimono fabrics in this style when I was 12," he said. "A few hundred years ago, thousands of people were doing this. But today? We are one of only three families left in Japan who can do this work."

The kimono industry, which produces one of the most enduring cultural symbols of Japan, is in crisis. Previously sustained by the need to dress an entire nation in traditional costume, it has today shrunk to a fraction of its former size.

Now leading figures in the industry are warning that within a decade the art of traditional kimono making, a crown in Japan's cultural heritage, could die out altogether as a generation of Japanese craftsmen who have spent a lifetime using specialist skills inherited from their own parents are now in their eighties.

Soichi Sajiki, whose family has made the garments for 200 years, said: "Japan's kimono industry is at a critical stage. We are seriously struggling to find ways of passing on our precious craftsmanship to the next generation.

"From the silk cocoon to the final product, there are more than 1,000 processes involved in one kimono, each carried out by different specialist craftsmen. It can take 40 years to master a single technique.

"Most craftsmen today are over 80 and within the next 10 years, many will pass away. We are in real danger of losing thousands of years of kimono-making techniques."

Once the garment of choice for samurai, aristocrats and workers alike, kimonos are rarely worn by today's young Japanese, who prefer to wear Western clothes. Even if a formal occasion does demand a kimono, they are likely to put on machine-made version - much cheaper than a traditional handmade kimono which costs between 180,000 and 1 million yen (£1,400 - £7,800).

As kimonos have gone out of fashion, the number of companies making them in Tokyo has shrunk - dwindling from 217 to 24 over the past 30 years. Even in Kyoto, the historic centre for traditional Japanse culture, there are now just 64 kimono makers left.

Mr Sajiki gave his warning in the refined tearooms of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Tokyo's historic Nihonbashi district – once a major hub for the industry.

Dressed in an immaculate grey kimono fastened with a jade green clasp, Mr Sajiki, 54, gestured towards the sweeping views from the 38th floor. He said: "Nihonbashi used to be full of kimono makers. But things have changed. Sales are just one tenth of what they were were 30 years ago.

"We desperately need to encourage more young people to embrace the kimono, train more young craftsmen and diversify by selling our beautiful textiles internationally."

Forty-eight carefully selected young Japanese women were due to parade in their kimonos and make speeches about their love of the garment as they competed for the coveted title of Tokyo Kimono Queen - the climax of the city's first ever Kimono Week, launched by Mr Sajiki as chairman of the Tokyo Kimono Business Association.

But the youth and glamour of the accompanying concerts, fashion shows, and exhibitions were far from the staid discipline of Japan's ageing kimono makers. Among the nation's most endangered artisans are five women in their eighties who live in the remote mountains of Niigata prefecture – the only remaining people who know how to use one particular 1,000-year-old hemp weaving technique.

In his workshop in Tokyo, Mr Komiya is the only artisan still able to undertake a delicate form of handpainting kimono silk in pure gold.

His own unique skills have, at least, been recognised by the governemnt, which has granted him the revered status of Living National Treasure – a living, breathing cultural asset to be protected.

Backed with government subsidies, he has been able to pass on the techniques he learnt from his own father to his son Yasumasa, 54, who in turn is training his two grandsons.

"It's important for the kimono industry to evolve and modernise in order to survive," said the younger Mr Komiya. "Traditional craftsmanship should ideally be passed on from generation to generation, but this is not going to be possible in the future."

Kimono makers need to seek customers abroad, said Chie Hayakawa, communications director at the Mandarin Oriental hotel where last week's events were being held.

"Kimonos are exquisitely beautiful, made from the finest silks in the world," she said. "These handcrafted fabrics should be more widely used internationally, with more collaborations with high profile fashion designers. There is so much potential."

A stone's throw from the hotel is the Nihonbashi landmark Mitsukoshi, one of Japan's oldest department stores which began its life in 1673 as a kimono store.

Today, its "kimono salon" spans an entire floor and is home to more than 30,000 handcrafted costumes, one of the biggest collections of handcrafted in the country.

Designs range from seasonal images - cherry blossoms, autumn leaves and sweeping scenes of nature - to delicate abstract patterns created using old dyeing techniques, hand painting or gold embroidery.

Vivid hues such as scarlet are reserved for young women. The unmarried wear long hanging sleeves. Designs for older married women are in more subdued hues, with less flowing sleeves and subtle motifs.

As lunchtime shoppers and office ladies perused the rolls of silk and hanging kimono, Shigeru Tezuka, a manager, said: "We are trying to target young women with more modern products – contemporary designs and bright colours and competitive prices.

"We're also talking to one very famous Italian fashion brand at the moment about a collaboration - to make bags to go with kimonos."

The hope is that Japan's kimono industry might be saved if its products could one day be worn by the world's supermodels.

Dieter Kapsch : Flight attendant has collected 1,760 spoons from 447 airlines
If you're ever short of a spoon you can always rely on Dieter Kapsch – he’s got 1,760 of them.

The flight attendant has amassed his unusual collection from 447 airlines.

Explaining how his unusual hobby started, he said that his first spoon reminded him of a nice holiday and from there it escalated.

He said: 'It all started 13 years ago when I went on vacation with my sister, Gunda, to Spain and she thought it would be good to have a spoon with us during our stay.

'After returning back home she left the spoon with me and I was using it in my kitchen and liked it a lot. It always reminded me of a nice holiday.

'From that point I decided to collect spoons from every airline I was flying with and after some time I wanted to have them all.'

One of his oldest is from Imperial Airways, a British operation that ran from 1924 to 1939, and he also has one from the China Clipper, a Pan Am flying boat of the 1930s.

‘My friends love my collection and they’re very supportive – they have added to it a lot,’ said the 38-year-old Austrian, who added: ‘I hope there will be some more coming.’

Source : Tree Hugger

People picnic and have breakfast on the main deck of the Sydney Harbour Bridge during the Breakfast on the Bridge event in central Sydney October 10, 2010. More than 7,000 people gathered together to have breakfast on the main deck of the Sydney Harbour bridge. According to local media, Australia's national soccer team, the "Socceroos" agreed to attend this event to help increase Australia's chances of hosting the 2022 World Cup.