“Beauty clinics and spas across South America and South Korea are turning to snail extracts that is believed to be good for the skin. Packed with glycolic acid and elastin, a snail’s secretion protects skin from cuts, bacteria, and powerful UV rays, making mother nature’s gooeyness a prime source for proteins that eliminate dead cells and regenerate skin. Typically beauty clinics employ products made from the sticky mess, but one beauty salon in Russia’s Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk decided to cut out the middleman by placing the snails right onto their clients’ faces. Treatment involving snails has been used as far back as ancient Greece: Hippocrates reportedly prescribed a mixture of sour milk and crushed snails for skin inflammations. These days, it’s marketed as an acne treatment, spot and scar remover, and burn healer.” w/ photos

“Jeepneys are the most popular means of transportation in the Philippines, and are considered a symbol of the archipelago, despite recent controversy regarding their heavily-polluting emissions. The history of Jeepney buses dates back to the final days of World War II. When American forces withdrew from the Philippines, they either left behind or sold hundreds of surplus jeeps. The country’s public transportation had been destroyed by the war, so people started modifying the jeeps to accommodate more passengers and classified them as passenger-style jeeps. Recognizing the wide-spread use of these new vehicles, the Filipino government soon regulated their use.” w/ photos

“Zack Hample, from New York, is a baseball fan and bawl hawk – he’s great at catching and stealing balls. But Zack isn’t an ordinary ball hawk, because no one else boasts a collection as impressive as his: more than 5,800 balls, both home runs and fouled balls. The way he goes after balls at matches can be characterized as almost professional. A typical game for Zack Hample goes kind of like this – running around the Major League ballpark, searching for foul balls or home runs, and sometimes even convincing coaches and players to toss balls into the stands. As you can imagine, being a ball hawk is no walk in the park. It involves a lot of athleticism, a bit of science and loads of luck too.” w/ photos + video

“According to 9news.com, Regan’s ingenious dress started out as a weird collection of pop tabs, which soon turned into a joke, then became a very serious two-year project that culminated on prom night, Saturday night. A couple of years ago, a friend suggested she start collecting pop tabs, and she soon got the idea to make a dress out of them, because she had always thought ‘a great prom dress should pop’. It was a really intriguing project, but she had never made a dress before, let alone one from thousands of pop tabs. Her friend, Sara Sanford, remembers thinking it was a cool idea, but she also believed ‘it would kind of peter out and wouldn’t actually happen.’ She was wrong!… Regan finally fulfilled her dream of going to prom in a unique dress, made of thousands of pop tabs (5,114, to be exact). And just in case you’re wondering, no, she didn’t drink that many sodas herself.” w/ photos + video

“Each year the National Eagle Repository bags more than 2,000 dead birds and freezes the animals before delivering them to waiting Native American Indian tribes to use in religious rituals. Eagles are sacrosanct for many tribes, and the National Eagle Repository provides them with feathers, wings and talons and, in some cases whole carcasses. But the Indians’ demand outstrips the repository’s supply and there is a waiting list running to 6,000 requests for the animal carcasses or body parts. Each year the repository receives about 2,300 dead bald and golden eagles, gathered by wildlife agents and others.” w/ photos

“21-year-old Valeria Lukyanova is an internet sensation in her home country of Russia. Her popularity stems from the fact that she might be the closest anyone’s ever come to looking like a real live Barbie Doll. Valeria looks very unreal, almost plastic. Her face is expressionless, and her body proportions are quite abnormal. It’s highly unusual to find a woman with a naturally tiny waist, a huge chest and plasticy-looking blond hair. Many speculate that Valeria is either a product of plastic surgery, or her photographs have been doctored by photoshop. The girl has no qualms about discussing her looks though, and refers to herself as the most popular woman on the Russian-language Internet, on her blog.” w/ photos + videos

“Could these be the world’s ugliest pigs? Farmer Lan Yi, from Luocheng in southern China’s Guangxi Province decided to raise a pair of the hideous hogs after he discovered them living deep in the mountains. He captured the two ferocious-looking porkers last year when they were just piglets during a trip to the Jiuwan mountain range.” w/ photos

“When it comes to outlandish new design ideas, Dubai is certainly ahead of the curve. The glittering emirate has already got the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, and even the Earth itself – in the form of dozens of man-mad islands just off its coastline. So it is no surprise to hear that architects are set to take on a new challenge – building a half-submerged hotel, complete with underwater rooms offering views of life below the surface of the sea. The ‘Water Discus Hotel’ – a spaceship-shaped building perched in the water and looking not unlike a Jame Bond villain’s lair – is set to be the first of several planned across the region. The designers, Deep Ocean Technology (DOT), hope the hotel will fulfill holidaymakers’ desire to explore the depths of the oceans.” w/ photos

“The wine-colored birth mark on the right side of his face and chest has grown to extraordinary proportions over the years. An office worker finds it hard to walk down the street without someone spitting in disgust because of his facial condition. Mohammad Hussain was born with a wine-colored birth mark on the right side of his face and chest that has grown to extraordinary proportions over the years. The 44-year-old dreams of living a normal life – to marry, have kids, even just to eat in restaurants like we all take for granted. But his facial disfigurement, which could be operated on if he could afford it, has left him living a lonely existence in his hometown of Srinagar, India. He has to face constant ridicule by the general public, with some even running away from him or covering their face thinking his condition is contagious.” w/ photos

“13-year-old Jeff Cokeley discovered an eastern box turtle in his backyard, carved his initials and the year onto its shell and then let the creature go. Flash forward 47 years and the boy’s 85-year-old father, who still lives on the property, finds a box turtle in his backyard, turns it over and discovers it is the exact same one from all those years ago. ‘I picked it up and I thought, ‘Oh geez, this is Jeff’s turtle!’ said Holland Cokeley, who lives in South Strabane, Pennslyvania, according to the Observer-Reporter.com. ‘It’s been here for 47 years and it still has the same markings on it!’… The engraving made by the teenage boy would not have hurt the turtle as its shell is so thick. Discovering the long-lost turtle after taking a walk with the neighbour’s dog, Jeff brought it back to his house, took some pictures and then sent them to his son.” w/ photos