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Clever Malaria Awareness Ads Use Mosquito “Murals” to Make a Point

Like what you see? Subscribe to the full RSS feed. A new ad campaign by Africa Directo for malaria awareness uses mural drawings of mosquitoes to make its point. The portraits of despots like Hitler and Stalin - responsible for the deaths of millions - are created by drawing thousands of mosquitoes to define their […]

Poverty Tourism Gets Rio Tour Company in Trouble

A Rio de Janeiro tour company could have its license revoked after being caught offering tourists “intimate” tours of the city’s infamous slums, called favelas. Visitors were given the opportunity to meet the drug lords who rule these slums and even be photographed with them. The story was broken by an undercover reporter who […]

Google Ocean to Map Underwater Topography

There isn’t a lot known about what’s under the oceans that cover more then 70 percent of our planet’s surface. But all that could change if a new application by Google takes off. Tentatively called Google Ocean, the 3-D mapping application is along the same lines as Google Earth. The difference is that in this case […]

Austrian Rugby Team Does the Full Monty in Vilnius

Humiliated at their defeat to Lithuania, the Austrian rugby team apparently decided to humiliate themselves further. The group of twenty players staged a striptease on a street in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius as onlookers clapped and cheered them on. The episode would have remained hidden except for one onlooker who recorded the clip, and posted […]

Cereality Is World’s First Sit Down Cereal Cafe

It’s a concept so simple, you wonder why no one thought of it before. At the Cereality Cereal Bar and Café, customers can choose two different types of cereal, their choice of a variety of toppings, and add as much milk as they want to create a healthy breakfast or snack. With over 30 brands of […]

Google Video’s ‘Real Life’ See-Through Billboards Campaign

A new marketing campaign for Google video is leaving the industry abuzz. The campaign uses a see through billboard to make its point. The billboard is nothing but a giant frame that has been laid out to resemble the screen of Google’s video player. What you basically see while looking at the […]

Annual ‘Crying Sumo’ Baby Contest Held in Tokyo

The annual baby crying contest was held at the Sensoji Temple in Tokyo last Sunday. At least 80 babies participated in the traditional contest that determines which baby cries first as a pair is held aloft by two sumo wrestlers who persuade them to cry. If both babies begin bawling at the same time, the […]

Student Twitters His Way Out of Egyptian Jail

If you’ve been dragging your feet on joining the tweeting army of Twitterers, the story of James Buck might just spur you to join. James, an American student from University of California Berkeley was in Cairo studying the country’s leftists. While covering an anti-government protest on April 10, he was arrested along with his translator, […]

GPS Technology Helps Visitors Trace the Berlin Wall

Visitors to Berlin are often disappointed to find few remaining traces of the Berlin wall, and no delineation between the eastern and western parts of the city. When the wall came down, most of it was sold, frustrating history buffs who might otherwise want to visit the forbidding structure that symbolized the difference between […]

Venezuela TV Station Replaces ‘The Simpsons’ with ‘Baywatch’ for the Good of the Children

Homer Simpson has lost to Baywatch babes in the battle for the minds of Venezuela’s children. A TV station in the country has yanked The Simpsons off air, and replaced it with Baywatch. According to a spokesperson, the decision came after viewer complaints about the characters in the iconic Simpsons show, although neither the country’s National […]

Russian Inventor Rolls Out Sauna on Wheels

A Russian inventor has crafted a mobile sauna – an old military truck fitted with a fully functioning sauna. The truck is fitted with an 88 gallon overhead tank, fired by a wood burning stove to provide steam. It makes sense that the idea comes from Russia. Russians are known for their love of banyas, […]

American Confirmed Dead on Bolivia’s ‘Highway of Death’

An American cyclist has been confirmed dead after his mountain bike plunged off a 70 meter cliff while biking down Bolivia’s infamous Highway of Death. Kenneth Mitchell was part of a tourist group, one of several that conduct biking and cycling tours down the treacherous stretch of road, called Yungas Road. At the height of […]

Cheap Anytime, Anywhere Internet Service for Travelers

An internet service company promises to give business travelers a way around hefty hotel internet fees, and expensive two year contracts with the big providers. For a fee of $5.95 a day, Rovair will ship you a mobile aircard to connect to your computer’s standard USB port to access the internet anywhere. Shipping is quick, and […]

Cell Phone Jammer Promises the Gift of Silence

Annoying ring tones getting on your nerves? The powerful sounding T1000 has the power to jam all cell phones in your immediate vicinity. Built to resemble a cell phone (albeit one from 1995), the gadget will block all cellular phone signals within a 10 foot radius, including text messages. All calls will […]

World’s Oldest Tree (8,000 Years Young) Found in Sweden

Scientists have identified a cluster of spruce trees in the Dalarna Province of Sweden as being the oldest in the world. The Norway spruce trees were found in a mountainous region in Western Sweden. Carbon dating tests have revealed one of the trees to have taken root around 8000 years ago, which officially makes it […]

U.K. Graffiti Artist Strikes Again with Biggest Work to Date

The anonymous British graffiti artist known as Banksy has produced what is believed to be his biggest work to date. The three story art on a post office building near Oxford Circus reads “One Nation Under CCTV,” and features a little boy painting the words, while a security officer watches. Close to the painting is an […]

Let There (Not) Be Rain: Beijing to Control Weather During Olympics

This isn’t really shocking coming from a country that tries its utmost to control everything within its borders. Even the weather, apparently. In its ongoing attempts to make the Beijing games a spectacular showcase for its Olympic sized sprint from poor to powerhouse, China has set plans to control rainfall at the Games, especially during […]

New Guggenheim “UFO” Museum to Open in Lithuania

Following on the lead of the spectacular buildings at New York and Bilbao, the new Guggenheim Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania promises to be an equally impressive figure on the city’s landscape. The design by Zara Hadid shows a futuristic floating space ship typs of structure that looks like it will take off at […]

Amnesty International’s ‘Signature’ PSA Wins Socially Responsible Advertising Award

Amnesty International’s animated public service campaign “Signatures” has won the Grand Prix at the Socially Responsible Communication Awards hosted by the International Advertising Association. The much acclaimed campaign, which has already won the Golden Lion at Cannes, depicts the power of a mere signature to spark change through animated figures. A man uses one to escape […]

UK’s First Islamic Pub Opens (With No Booze!)

Halal Inn and Islamic Pub, Britain Here’s an idea that might not be catching on any time soon. Two British men have opened the UK’s first Islamic pub where … wait for it … no alcohol is served. The pub is named the Halal Inn. Its owners insist it is like a pub in every […]

Artist Creates “Where’s Waldo?” Easter Egg for Google Earth

A young artist and web designer has created a game that she hopes will take off. Melanie Coles has hidden an enormous 55 ft painting of Waldo – the nerdy, lanky spectacled character clad in a red and white striped top and cane, from the Waldo books - on a rooftop of an undisclosed location […]

Lonely Planet’s Renegade Writer a Fraud

Lonely Planet fraudster … er … writer Thomas Kohnstamm is trying hard to pooh pooh the controversy surrounding his revelations that he made up large portions of his guidebooks. Kohnstamm earlier revealed to an Australian newspaper that his guidebook to Colombia was not even based on an actual visit to the country – he was […]

Chatting with the Mona Lisa in South Korea

A South Korean art gallery has developed technology that allows masterpieces like the Mona Lisa to interact with students. The iconic and enigmatic figure at the Alive Gallery in Seoul talks to visitors about life during the Renaissance period, a feat brought about by the use of digital information technology. Visitors, especially kids enjoy the […]

Chastity Padlocks to Curb Hanky Panky in Indonesia

© HaPe_Gera An attempt by the local government of an Indonesian province to curb prostitution - by making it mandatory for masseuses to padlock their pants - has come under fire by a women’s empowerment minister who termed the move as “highly insulting” to women. Batu in Indonesia’s east Java province sees a steady influx of tourists […]

New Google Earth Program Maps Refugee Movement

© mknobil Google has joined hands with the UN High Commission for Refugees to create a new mapping system that will allow users of its Goggle Earth tool to track the movement of refuges across the planet. The Commission that estimates around 35 million people all over the world have been displaced from their homelands, recently […]

German Nudist Flight May be Grounded

A travel agency that had planned a charter flight for nudists from the town of Erfurt to the Baltic Sea destination of Usedom, has been forced to cancel its plans even before the clothes came off. Internet travel agency OssiUrlaub had scheduled the fabric-free flight in July 2007 and generated considerable public interest. According to […]

Japan’s Male Geisha Emerges

With Japanese women paying to enter clubs where beautiful young boys dress and act as bashful schoolboys to please them, it was just a matter of time before the male geisha emerged. A new trend in Japan has gender roles reversed as successful women pay suave young men to spend an evening with […]

Man Cries Wolf … er … Wombat After “Rape”

To be clear, this is not the alleged wombat rapist © Stygiangloom A New Zealand man who called local police to report that he had been raped by a wombat has been ordered to do 75 hours of community work for wasting police time. Arthur Ross Craddock, a 48-year-old orchard worker from the South Island Town of […]

Absolut Apologizes for Mexican Ad

Absolut Vodka has apologized for running an ad depicting the southwestern states of the US as part of Mexico as part of its ”In an Absolute World” campaign which depicts ideal situations. In the ad, the US Mexican border is outlined as it was before the US Mexican war of Independence in which the regions that […]

Beijing to Promote Condom Use at Hotels, Clubs and Construction Sites

The Chinese government is making further efforts to contain the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Health officials have proposed that condoms be made easily available at night clubs, hotels and … construction sites (huh?). According to the proposed regulation, hotels and resorts would be required to have condoms available in toilets, while “night clubs, bathing […]

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