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Maikon Alves | Instagram

Some people have such amazing control of their bodies

Meet Maikon Alves, a dancer from Brazil turns heads on social media with moves so fluid and robotic that people around question if he's human.

In one particularly viral video, Alves dances to "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eyed Peas—to say his moves are impressive would be an understatement. Alves pops his chest to the beat while slowly stepping in place making it look like he's gliding from move to move. Some movements are crisp and sharp like a robot while others are so fluid it's nearly unbelievable that it could be coming from a human.

While the man's moves do look slightly out of this world, he is indeed a real person, or at least he appears to be in other videos on his page.

Comments ranged between being in awe of his abilities and questioning if he was human.

"Loved. I like how everything is in sync - from the music to the moves to face expressions. 👏👏👏 and your cool personal style," one person writes.

"Doesn’t even look real it’s that good..!! Love this," someone says.

"You will be the dance instructor for the children of our AI overlords someday," a commenter thinks.

"Nah, this is God-level pop-locking," someone compliments.

Even Nicole Scherzinger, actress, singer and former member of the pop group and dance ensemble, Pussycat Dolls gave Alves praise saying, "you are a legend!"

Alves' uncanny robot dance even made its way to season 19 of America's Got Talent. His audition routine included pretending to play the Violin and a fun moonwalk to robotic themed music.

Gotta hand it to folks like Alves, who remind us all what amazing feats the human body is capable of, and how dance can instantly spark joy. Whether you're the one performing the moves or not.

To catch even more of his nifty routines, follow Alves on Instagram.

This article originally appeared last year.

via Poliana Console de Oliveira / Facebook

In 2020 at a residence in Itaperuna, a city north of Rio de Janeiro, Henrique, a three-year-old child of a worker on the property, snuck away from his parents' supervision and wandered over to the pool.

Security camera footage shows the young boy and fellow three-year-old, Arthur de Oliveira, sitting next to the pool when Henrique reaches for an inflatable floaty and falls into the water.

A frantic Arthur looks around for help, but there is no one to be found.



For ten seconds, Henqriue struggles to keep his head above water, until Arthur bravely extends his hand and pulls the boy up. If Arthur didn't have the strength, he could have fallen in the pool and both boys could have died.

Luckily, Arthur's strength held up and he pulled the boy to safety.

"This video serves as an alert for those who have a pool at home and children," wrote Arthur's mom, Poliana Console de Oliveira on her Facebook page.

"Thank God the ending is happy, because God sent the land under my care, my son, my little Arthur, a true hero! Real life hero, my pride."

"Arthur saved his friend's life," she added.

Arthur hopes to be a police officer one day, so after the local police department learned of his bravery, it sent him a new basketball and a whole lot of candy.

Well done, Arthur.


This article originally appeared on 8.24.20

Pop Culture

This ancient mountain that inspired Avatar's Pandora is one of the oldest formations on Earth

You don't need to travel to other planets to witness breathtaking beauty.

Fandom.com,@geology_peru/Instagram

You don't need to travel to Pandora to witness breathtaking beauty.

James Cameron’s “Avatar” film series introduced us to Pandora, a lush biosphere teeming with life, where exotic plants, animals and lemur-like humanoids thrive.

While Pandora might be a fictional place, it was inspired by real places on good ol’ planet Earth, including a sandstone mountain so ancient it dates all the way back to the Proterozoic Eon.

Mount Roraima, which can loosely be translated to “great blue-green house of spirits,” is a vast flat-topped mountain (or tepui) nestled between the borders of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana. Estimated to be over 2 billion years old, many consider it to be one of the oldest geological formations on earth.

Because the area experiences rainfall year round, it’s not uncommon to see giant waterfalls spontaneously fall from the plateau’s cliffs. And on cloudy days, the tepui more closely resembles some kind of sky island.

In other words, it’s magical. The indigenous Pemón and Kapon certainly felt this way. According to their folklore, Mount Roraima is the stump of a sacred tree that once held all the fruits and tuberous vegetables of the world. The tree was struck down by the trickster god Makunaima, unleashing a terrible flood.

Throughout history, Mount Roraima has enchanted Native tribes and travelers alike. English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh climbed it in 1596 on his quest to find the legendary golden city of El Dorado. His findings were said to have inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel “The Lost World,” which depicts an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals still survive.

Being home to several species of plants and animals that can only be found on the plateau—including carnivorous pitcher plants and the black and yellow Roraima Bush Toad, which is listed as a vulnerable species—it's no wonder that Mount Roraima helped bring science fiction worlds to life.

Mount Roraima isn’t the only real-world place that helped create Pandora, by the way. China’s Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Hawaii’s Hamakua Coast, Jamaica’s Bioluminescent Lagoon, New Zealand’s Glowworm Caves and the caves of Thailand’s Khao Sok National Park are just some of the filming locations used for “Avatar” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” collectively.

Many of us love to watch movies that transport us to mystical imaginary places, but the planet we live on has so much natural beauty to marvel at.

Strays cats and dogs are a massive problem pretty much everywhere around the world. Globally, it is estimated that there are 100 million or more feral cats, and at least 60 million of those can be found in the United States alone. While they can have a massive ecological impact, most are just trying to survive and looking for new homes.

Leon was one of these stray cats roaming the streets of Brasília, Brazil. That was until he managed to sneak into the Order of Attorneys of Brazil building. Employees adopted Leon and let him hang out in the reception area, but when people started to complain about the cat, they found a pretty interesting way around it: they hired Leon as a lawyer.

Yes, he has his own ID card. The world was alerted to this lawyer cat when Dr Jeanette Laredo posted photos of Leon on Facebook, writing:


"After a heavy rain, this little guy here seeking shelter from the storm went inside the OAB building (the Brazilian equivalent of American Bar Association) and decided to stay."

"Unfortunately some people started to file some complaints about the fact that at the reception desk there was a stray cat hanging around and trying to make friends with the newcomers."

"In order to avoid some new complaints the board gave the solution: Hire the cat as an employee."

That post quickly went viral, with more than 11,000 shares and 30,000 likes. And to reward Leon for his hard work and making the company a viral sensation in Brazil, he was prompted to a lawyer.

In an interview with Bored Panda, a spokesperson for Dr. Leon explained that people had filed complaints because he was small when he first arrived at the building as a kitten, and they were afraid that they'd step on him. He's since grown up, so that's probably not a problem anymore.

The spokesperson went on to explain:

"In February it rains a lot in the state of Amapá (Amazonia), so he arrived at OAB fleeing from the rain and thunder. For a week, he was fed and protected in a box. Until he got hired."

"[They said] that there was no space for him because it is a serious institution. So the President [of the OAB] determined the hiring and gave him an employee badge."

Leon is now a valued employee, in charge of hugs and cuddles.

Leon has even inspired the OAB to launch an animal rights institute – called Instituto Dr Leon.

"Two months ago Leon was neutered and is already fully recovered. But veterinarians say he had a problem with his vocal cords as a result of suffering as a baby. He hardly meows, but we keep taking care of him. This motivated us to create the institute to help abused and abandoned animals."

"Unfortunately, we cannot house all [the animals], so we will fund the NGOs in town. We will be an example for Brazil [to follow]."

Someone needs to make a television series out of this.