Tribe Practices Finger Cutting as a Means of Grieving

In some cultures amputation is a form of mourning. This was especially true of the Dani tribe from Papua, Indonesia. The members of this tribe cut off their fingers as a way of displaying their grief at funeral ceremonies. Along with amputation, they also smeared their faces with ashes and clay, as an expression of sorrow.

It isn’t very surprising to learn that women were mostly subjected to this gruesome ritual. The religious beliefs of the tribe prompted this sort of ritual. If the deceased person was considered to be powerful, it was believed that their spirits would contain equal power too. In order to appease and drive away these spirits, several shocking practices were followed. Girls who were related to the dead had the upper parts of their fingers cut off. Before being cut, the fingers would be tied with a string for over 30 minutes. After the amputation, the finger tips were allowed to dry, before they were burned and the ashes buried in a special area.

Another explanation offered for the finger-cutting ritual is that the physical pain symbolized the suffering and pain due to the loss of a loved one. In such a case, the finger would be cut by a close family member, like the mother, father or a sibling. In a similar bizarre ritual, the tip of the little finger of babies are bitten off by their mothers. This perhaps originated from a time when most newborns died, from several causes. The hope was that by biting off the finger tip, the baby would be different from the others, and would perhaps, live longer.

The practice has been banned in recent years. However, older women of the tribe are often seen with snipped fingers – all five of them.

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Force-Feeding Young Girls in the name of Beauty

While the whole world is obsessed over getting thin, it seems there are far-flung places in the world today where fat is still considered a thing of beauty. Not in a good way, though. In the West African nation of Mauritania, it is so important for girls to be fat that they are sent away to fat camp – the opposite of the western version – during school holidays, to put on oodles of weight.

According to women’s rights campaigner Mint Ely, girls as young as five are subjected to the tradition known as Leblouh each year. Leblouh is an attempt to groom young girls for potential suitors, involving the consumption of gargantuan amounts of food; even vomit, if it refuses to stay down. Ely says that in Mauritania, a woman’s size indicates the space she occupies in her husband’s heart. So to make sure no other woman can ever have room, girls are sent away for Leblouh at special farms where older women will administer the necessary diet. It’s rather appalling to know that 5, 7 and 9-year-olds are expected to consume a daily diet of two kilos of pounded millet mixed with two cups of butter and 20 liters of camel’s milk. Their daily consumption comes up to a whopping 16,000 calories.

This process is usually done during school holidays or in the rainy season when milk is plentiful. Torture methods are employed in case the girls aren’t eating as much as they are expected to. Fatima M’baye, a children’s rights lawyer, says, “The girl is sent away from home without understanding why. She suffers but is told that being fat will bring her happiness. Matrons use sticks which they roll on the girl’s thighs, to break down tissue and hasten the process.” Some other torture methods include ‘zayar’, where two sticks are inserted on each side of a toe. If a child refuses to eat or drink, the matron will squeeze the sticks together, causing a lot of pain. If successful, the fattening process will cause a 12-year-old child to weigh 80kg. “If she vomits, she must drink it,” says M’baye. “By the age of 15, she will look 30.”

As strange as it seems, the practice of Leblouh is a respected ancient tradition in Mauritania. It supposedly dates back to pre-colonial times, when the white Moor Arabs of the region were all nomads. The richer the husband, the less his wife would have to do around the house. The rich wives were able to sit around the house all day while black slaves took care of all the household chores. Invariably, they got fat, and round bodies became a sign of affluence and of good husbands. Stretch marks, known as ‘tebtath’ were seen as a woman’s jewels. ‘Lekhwassar’, which is fat around the waist, was given lyrical pride. In recent times, however, things were slowly starting to look better for the women of Mauritania. “We had a Ministry of Women’s Affairs. We had achieved a parliamentary quota of 20% seats. We had female diplomats and governors. The military have set us back by decades, sending us back to our traditional roles,” says Mint Ely, about the military coup in 2008. “Until the military coup, we had made strides. Ten years ago we ran information campaigns about the dangers of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The government even commissioned ballads condemning fattening.” But things went back to they were again since General Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz seized power after the elected president tried to sack him.

While several middle-class Mauritanians claim that they have abandoned the practice of force-feeding, Leblouh seems to be rampant in the rural areas. According to Mohamed el-Mounir, a political scientist, “Fattening is something from the 1950s. These days girls watch fashion shows on television. Their role models are American actresses or Lebanese singers in sexy dresses. Girls do sport. Yes, Mauritian men like slightly round women. But there is no way we want them obese.” Health and development consultant Mounina Mint Abdellah agrees. She was force-fed as a child, but she says that things have changed tremendously now. “When I left school in 1980, it would have been unthinkable for me to go abroad to study. But now, 30 years later, my daughter is doing her master’s degree in France. We owe a great deal to the fact that all girls are now expected to go to school. Fattening just seems out of date to a large part of Mauritanian society.

Force-feeding young girls may not be as popular as it once was, but there are still areas of Mauritania today were mothers tell their daughters of a magical place where they will go on vacation to the desert to meet other girls and eat sweet food, and return home a beautiful woman. Leblouh, unfortunately, is not as exciting as it sounds, as the poor girls find out soon enough. As Tijanniya, a 14-year-old puts it, “I don’t think fat is beautiful. I love sports and I’m scared I won’t be able to run fast when I’m fat.”

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Black Gums Are Considered a Sign of Beauty in West Africa

I’ve read about people getting tattoos on the weirdest places of their bodies, but this one just beats them all. Never before have I heard of people getting their gums tattooed. Not in any particular design, but just a uniform black color. This is actually a popular practice among women in West African countries like Senegal, because over there apparently, black gums are a thing of beauty.

Tattooed black gums are especially popular in small towns and villages like Thies, in Senegal. Women here practice this ancient tradition to get a smile that is considered more attractive. Of course, the process is nothing short of painful. Marieme, from Thies, is one such young girl to have gone through the procedure. I watched a documentary on YouTube that covered her journey from having regular gums to the more desirable black variety. Before she went for it, she said, “I want black gums to obtain a more beautiful smile. It’s become an obsession. I do fear the procedure. But I’ll be OK.”

Fast-forward into the documentary a bit and you’ll see that Marieme was far from okay. The woman who administered the tattoo did not work out of a parlor, as you would expect, but from the backyard of her home. Her family pays no attention to her, and she herself doesn’t do it for the money but for the love of it. She charges little over $1 for her work, and believes that black-tattooed gums are the way to sound dental health. “I’m doing tattoos out of my own free will. It’s not something my mother taught me. By tattooing the gums we can take care of our teeth. You’ll never see our gums bleeding. We have healthy teeth. We eliminate everything that’s damaging for the mouth and never have foul breath. When you don’t expose your gums when you smile you won’t notice it. But it gives you a more attractive smile,” she said.

The tattoo is done using a black powder – a mixture obtained by burning oil and Shea butter. The customer rests her head on the woman’s lap and the powder is generously applied to the gums. After this, a sharp, needle-like instrument is repeatedly poked into the gums, causing them to be dyed black. This is done in several layers, and by the time the woman is finished, the customer is in a world of pain. Seven layers were planned for Marieme, but she began to struggle right from ‘the get-go’. “It hurts. I would never recommend this torture to anyone,” she said. “It really hurts. I thought I was going to die. But I tried to hang on.” Finally, she got only 4 layers done, and has no regrets now. Because she has beautiful gums.

According to the gum tattoo-artist, “Less and less women are doing this, but some are still interested. Especially young women who are looking for a lover. Listen to me, tattooed gums and a silver tooth: that’s what’s attractive. A woman should not have red gums. Her gums need to be dark. A nice smile attracts men. A nice smile with white teeth.” She also tells us that the custom is not generally meant for men. But there are still those men who get it done as a form of dental care, as a treatment for loose teeth or other problems.

That’s all it takes for some women in Senegal to be happy – black gums, a silver tooth, a beautiful smile. I’d have to say, the end result didn’t look all that bad after all.

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The underground cycle rack that holds 200 bikes below the streets of Tokyo

It is one of the busiest cities in the planet and so space is at a premium.

So it is with little surprise that the Japanese have come up with a way of storing bicycles that takes up very little street space.
This genius storage solution buried 11 metres beneath Tokyo stores up to 200 bicycles and each one takes just eight seconds to store.

The idea came about because it had become so out of hand that finding a place to park one's two wheeler could be a series headache for commuters in the morning rush.

To remedy this problem, construction company Giken have come up with a solution which stores hundreds of bicycles underground using a robot system called Eco Cycle.

Bicycles are stacked on top of each other and costs just 28p to use.
London-born filmmaker Danny Choo, who lives in Tokyo with his wife, said: 'While we do have a load of cars and public transport all over the place - the bicycle is still very much a common way to get around in Japan.

'So much so that finding a place to park is a really big problem - it's even more of a problem when people start to park illegally.
'So this is a really good solution for millions of people and is really helping to keep the streets clean.'

Each well can hold 200 bicycles as long as the length of the bicycle is more than 1400mm and less than 1900mm long and weighs less than 30Kg.

The whole process takes about 16 seconds to store and retrieve each bike.

Users place their bike into the designated zone and mechanical arms clamp it into place. The owner's then swipe their membership card to approve the storage.

It is then taken underground and stored in an individual space and its location is stored in the system ready to be collected.

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World’s First Test-tube Burger

It may look like something you’d chuck on the barbecue without a second thought, but this round of meat costs a very beefy £250,000 — as the world’s first test-tube burger.

After the patty was lightly fried in a little butter and sunflower oil yesterday, the two volunteers chosen to taste it in front of a live audience were hardly effusive, though.

‘I was expecting the texture to be more soft,’ said Austrian food researcher Hanni Rutzler, taking 27 chews before being able to swallow a mouthful. ‘It’s close to meat — it’s not that juicy.’

The second volunteer, food writer Josh Schonwald added: ‘The absence is the fat. But the bite feels like a conventional hamburger. What was conspicuously different was flavour.’

The ‘cultured beef’ takes three months to grow in a laboratory, using cells from a living cow.

Its creator, Dutch scientist Mark Post, claims it could revolutionise the food industry and help save the planet. He believes that artificial meat products could be sold in supermarkets within a decade.

After tasting his invention yesterday, he said: ‘I think it’s a very good start — it proved that we can do this, that we can make it. We are basically catering towards letting beef-eaters eat beef in an environmentally ethical way.’

Asked if he would feed the burger to his children, he said he was saving a piece of the cooked patty to give to them later.

His burgers are created in a four-step process. First, stem cells — which have the power to turn into any other cell — are stripped from cow muscle, which is taken during a harmless biopsy.

Next, the cells are incubated in a nutrient ‘broth’ until they multiply many times over, creating a sticky tissue. This is then bulked up through the laboratory equivalent of exercise — it is anchored to Velcro and stretched.

Finally, 20,000 strips of the meat are minced and mixed with salt, breadcrumbs, egg powder and natural red colourants to form an edible patty.

The secret celebrity backer who bankrolled the £650,000 project was yesterday unveiled as billionaire Google founder Sergey Brin.
Professor Post said: ‘He is as interested in solving the food problems as I am.’

Mr Brin seems to believe quite confidently that man-made meat will do a great deal to help humanity.

In a video message played to attendees at yesterday's event, he said: 'Sometimes when technology comes along, it has the capability to transform how we view our world.

'I like to look at technology opportunities. When technology seems like it is on the cusp of viability and if it succeeds there, it can be really transformative for the world.'

'There are basically three things that can happen going forward - one is that we can all become vegetarian. I don't think that's really likely.

'The second is we ignore the issues and that leads to continued environmental harm and the third option is we do something new.
'Some people think this is science fiction - it's not real, it's somewhere out there. I actually think that's a good thing.'

Professor Post has spent seven years trying to turn stem cells into meat, and was first successful with mouse burgers.

He then tried to grow pork — producing strips with the rubbery texture of squid or scallops — before settling on beef.

His technique, he says, can be used to recreate the flesh of most animals, including rare species such as tigers or pandas, although demand may be questionable.

Before the burger was cooked, he said: 'What we are going to attempt is important because I hope it will show cultured beef has the answers to major problems that the world faces.

'Our burger is made from muscle cells taken from a cow.
'We haven’t altered them in any way. For it to succeed it has to look, feel and hopefully taste like the real thing.'

The raw ingredients are 0.02in (0.5mm) thick strips of pinkish yellow lab-grown tissue.

Professor Post was confident he could produce a burger that was almost indistinguishable from one made from a slaughtered animal.
And perhaps he wasn't far off. After taking a mouthful, taster Ms Ruetzler said: 'I was expecting the texture to be more soft... I know there is no fat in it so I didn't know how juicy it would be.

'It's close to meat. It's not that juicy. The consistency is perfect (but) I miss salt and pepper!'

Professor Post pointed out that livestock farming is becoming unsustainable, with demand for meat rocketing around the world.
Unveiling the research last year at a science meeting in Vancouver, Canada, he said: 'Meat demand is going to double in the next 40 years. Right now we are using 70% of all our agricultural capacity to grow meat through livestock.

'You can easily calculate that we need alternatives.'
The 'artificial' meat is produced using a complex process - in effect turning a mere dish of stem cells into a burger that can be grilled or fried.

First the stem cells are cultivated in a nutrient broth, allowing them to proliferate 30-fold.
Next they are combined with an elastic collagen and attached to Velcro 'anchor points' in a culture dish. Between the anchor points, the cells 'self-organise' into chunks of muscle.

Electrical stimulation is then used to make the muscle strips contract and 'bulk up' - the laboratory equivalent of working out in a gym.

Finally the thousands of beef strips are minced up, together with 200 pieces of lab-grown animal fat, and moulded into a patty. Around 20,000 meat strands are needed to make one 5oz (142g) burger.

Other non-meat ingredients include salt, egg powder, and breadcrumbs. Red beetroot juice and saffron are added to provide authentic beef colouring.

A major advantage of test-tube meat is that it can be customised for health, for instance by boosting levels of polyunsaturated fats, said Professor Post.

Before the taste demonstration Professor Post was asked if he would feed lab-grown beef to his children.

He said: 'I ate it myself a couple of times without any hesitation whatsoever.

'Now a couple of people are going to taste it and my kids are jealous. I'd be very comfortable for them to taste it.'

Manufacturing steaks instead of minced meat presents a much greater technical challenge, requiring some kind of blood vessel system to carry nutrients and oxygen to the centre of the tissue, he added. Making artificial chicken or fish from stem cells might be easier.

Dr Neil Stephens, a sociologist based at Cardiff University who has studied test tube meat, told AFP that the project was an attempt to spark a debate about an issue that many in the field believe is still not taken seriously enough.

He said that the developers want to demonstrate to the world that in-vitro meat is viable, and that it's something to be taken seriously.
'What will be interesting is, in the coming weeks, watching the response to see how many people are convinced by the technology,' he added.

The animal welfare organisation Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has welcomed the research.

A spokesman said: 'One day you will be able to eat meat with ethical impunity. In-vitro technology will spell the end of lorries full of cows and chickens, abattoirs and factory farming. It will reduce carbon emissions, conserve water and make the food supply safer.
'Lab-grown meat will provide people who were addicted from childhood to the saturated fat in flesh with the ‘methadone’ for their habit.'

The Food Standards Agency said: 'As the competent authority for novel foods in the UK, the Food Standards Agency is closely following emerging technologies and developments concerning novel protein sources as food.

'In-vitro' or cultured meat is not yet commercially viable, but the technology used to produce cultured meat could be advanced enough for trials to take place.

'Any novel food, or food produced using a novel production process, must undergo a stringent and independent safety assessment before it is placed on the market.

'Anyone seeking approval of an in-vitro meat product would have to provide a dossier of evidence to show that the product is safe, nutritionally equivalent to existing meat products, and will not mislead the consumer.

'This would be evaluated under the EU regulation for novel foods, prior to a decision on authorisation. There have been no such applications to date.'

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Woman's 4 and a Half-Foot Afro is the World's Largest Afro

Proud of her record-breaking afro, Aevin Dugas says her hair is inspiring legions of women to ditch chemical straighteners and 'go natural'.

The 37-year-old, whose hair entered the Guinness Book of Records at 4ft 4ins around, says everyone from toddlers to grandmothers are following in her footsteps.

Aevin said: 'At one time I strived to get hair that was bone straight and now all I want is it big and poofy'.

She believes her voluminous hair may have grown even bigger, but she cannot reveal its size until Guinness take an official measurement.

'When my hair is stretched out to its complete length and pressed, it goes down to my butt. But I don't wear it like that because it looks weird.'

The newly single care worker is proud of her unique style but usually ties her hair back when going on first dates, only revealing her secret later.

'I did tell one guy and he was shocked and he Googled me and was like 'oh, wow'.

'But then when I saw him again - he was wearing an afro too.'

Aevin, who has won fans from Brazil to Italy, has spent the last 14 years growing her hair.

Her jaw-dropping look brings her attention wherever she goes but it does have its drawbacks as she often gets it caught in trees, car doors and people's earrings.

It can also take two days to wash and dry and is so big she struggles to see clearly out from beneath it - which means she cannot drive with her 'hair up'.

To get her hair ready for a night out she shampoos it and then uses up to five conditioners.

She then puts her hair into two French braids and from then it takes about two days to dry.

But the positives far outweigh the negatives and she has become a hero in her hometown of Napoleonville, Louisiana.

Her biggest joy is inspiring young girls to stop using chemical straighteners, which can cause long-lasting damage to hair.

She said: 'I don't know why but there's something very important to me about little girls appreciating my hair and then wanting to wear their hair the same.

'I tell them there is nothing that I did special, there is no magical formula, we are born with our hair like this.'

Aevin was originally inspired by a picture of her mum Deborah Dugas wearing an afro in the sixties - and she remains one of her biggest fans today.

Mrs Dugas, 62, who runs a care home, said: 'I'm humbled by the fact she did this because she liked my natural hair, way before she was born.

'It was about half the size of Aevin's and everybody loved it.'

She added: 'Her hair has definitely had an impact on the community.

'She made her decision when wearing your hair natural was considered unattractive in the black community.

'But, against all that, she started wearing her hair natural years ago. I am really proud.'

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China’s World’s Most Crowded Swimming Pool

If you think your local swimming pool becomes unbearably crowded on hot summer days, just check out these photos of the so-called Dead Sea, a salt-water swimming pool in China’s Daying County where thousands of people gather every weekend to escape the heat.

Inspired by the real Dead Sea in the Middle East, the Chinese resort build around an underground salt-water lake in Daying County covers an area of 30,000 square meters and is able to accommodate up to 10,000 swimmers at one time. It’s pretty big even for Chinese standards, but apparently not big enough. According to the Chinese press, over 15,000 people, most of them equipped with large swim rings, descended upon this popular summer retreat last Sunday making it look like a giant bowl of human cereal. I’m not even sure the term “swimming pool” even applies to this place on such occasions, considering it’s nearly impossible to move without hitting somebody, let alone flap your hands and feet to swim. The good thing about this place is the high salinity of the water which makes “swimmers” float freely, so there’s no real risk of going under. If that were to happen I can’t see how a person could rise up again…

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The Photo-Realistic Pastel Drawings of Ruben Belloso Adorna

Ruben Belloso Adorna, a young artist from Seville, Spain, has taken the art world by storm with his incredibly detailed portraits of real-life and fictional characters drawn exclusively in pastel on wooden canvas.

Painting hyper-realistic works of art with oil paints requires great talent and skill, but drawing them with pastel sticks and crayons seems almost impossible. It appears the word “impossible” is not in Ruben Belloso Adorna’s dictionary, as the young Spanish artist manages to create stunning photo-quality masterpieces using only pastels. Born in 1986, he studied Fine Arts at the University of Seville, and has already made a name for himself in the art world, participating in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and winning several awards. Looking at the quality of his colorful drawings, and the way he is able to bring out the emotions of his subjects, it’s easy to see why many are already calling Ruben a genius of the 21st century.

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InvisiBra the Ultimate Strapless and Backless Bra?

While London’s busy Regent Street certainly sees a colourful cross-section of life in the capital, it is doubtful it has ever seen anything quite like this. Shoppers today were treated to the sight of 10 women striding down the street wearing blue jeans, high heels… and very little else.

The stunt was part of the promotion of InvisiBra: a new strapless, backless bra that all the women were wearing to maintain their dignity.

The bra claims to be a backless, strapless, self-adhesive bra that will lift and enhance cleavage but won’t slip off.

it also aims to bring an element of fashion into the strapless bra market, with the Invisibra coming in a range of colours and fabrics rather than the traditional ‘nude’ shade.

The silicone InvisiBra is priced at £48 while the less padded Fabric InvisiBras cost £38.

Unsurprisingly rather shocked tourists stopped and openly stared at the scene as the girls flaunted their bodies.

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