The Siberian mountainside was disturbed by a team of geologists in 1978, who discovered The Lykov Family. The Lykov’s fled religious persecution in 1936, during the darkest days of the Stalin

regime and had resided on the side of the mountain in one room. They survived on potatoes, rye and hemp seeds, until the boy of the family learned to trap in the late 50s. Their diet became more

extreme as the mother died when winter ruined their crops, relying on only bark and shoe leather to see them through.

When discovered, the children had never seen another human outside of their family, their language fragmented after having only prayer books and a Bible as reading material. Amazingly, the family

remained in their little room following the discovery, only accepting some equipment, no doubt to modernize their hermit-like lives.

altitude – sorry, attitude – to live in such a place and a head for heights must be born and bred into these people – no vertigo when you practically live on a mountainside.

it is evidence of our effect on many of the planet’s ecosystems, as it used to be home to the Hamoun wetlands fed by the Helmand River. Once a fertile place, home to wildlife and a haven of

agriculture, the area began to dry up in the 1990s through relentless irrigation and drought. Years of war in the nation has failed to return the area to what it was once was, so now the basin, on

the nation’s southern border, has become one of the Earth’s driest spots, despite UN attempts to repair the damage.

the island must be a very hardy folk indeed; sharing an island with polar bears and biting chill can’t be easy, after all. Nor can extremes of day and night, many places experiencing three months

of unending day in the summer and three months of no daylight in winter.

had a penchant to be more creepy than the dead ever could!

So, imagine this sanctuary was invaded, not by insects or pests of any kind, but a totally strange human being. A 57-year-old Japanese man noticed that his food had begun to disappear. Puzzled, he

set up a camera to observe any strange happenings, only to find that an intruder was in his apartment, a trespasser police discovered to be 58-year-old Tatsuko Horikawa. The woman had been living

in an upper compartment of a storage closet in the man’s apartment! She had even stored a futon in there and took showers when the man was out, for a year!

hotels, the city is hoping to cash in on it’s climate, by attracting extreme tourists who wish to indulge in the bitter harsh elements… it’s something different at least!