Seiichiro Nishimoto, CEO of Shelter Co., poses wearing a gas mask at a model room for the company's nuclear shelters in the basement of his house in Osaka, Japan on April 26, 2017. With nearby North Korea increasing its show of power day by day with missile launches and nuclear tests, people in Japan are preparing for the worst by building private nuclear shelters, Reuters reports. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Spectators await the start of a cinema screening at a Kinostar De Lux Multiplex in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, December 7, 2014. Furniture retailer IKEA has converted one of the cinema halls, completely replacing standard seats with their furniture, according to local media. There are 17 double beds fitted in the hall, which was renamed to “It wakes love”. (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)

Actors Justin Timberlake (L) and Mila Kunis present an award onstage during the 2011 MTV Movie Awards at Universal Studios' Gibson Amphitheatre on June 5, 2011 in Universal City, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Sun Jifa, a farmer in China, had his life changed forever when an explosive he planned on using for fishing went off prematurely. He lost his arms and when he couldn’t afford high-end, hospital-made prosthetics he opted for a cheaper set. Finding those to be less than acceptable, Sun started building his own pair of arms, which he currently wears. It’s an incredible story of ingenuity and personal strength.

Selena Gomez performs at the MTV Movie Awards. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision for MTV)

Sprout A Pencil That Grows is a very simple but excellent concept. We all know that as soon as a pencil gets down to the point where there’s only an inch or so left it’s pretty much useless. The Sprout lets you put that little stub to get use. The end of the Sprout has a seed capsule that is water activated, after you plant your pencil and water it a few times the capsule dissolves and the seed’s start germinating. The plants usually take about a week to sprout. The Sprout pencils come in a number of varieties including vegetables, herbs and flowers like rosemary, tomato, marigold, and many more.

People will spout about impermanence of digital records, but books are really fragile, too. Alexis Arnold from San Francisco wanted to illustrate that with her project The Crystallized Book: collecting books and growing Borax crystals on them. Books range from literature classics to magazines, and there’s even a mysterious and arcane tome called “Linux: The Complete Manual”.