Helping cats: Cat owners in Peru who have a sick cat have a place to take their felines for tender care. A woman in Lima named Maria Torero feels so sorry for cats who become sick with feline leukemia (which is a fairly common illness in cats) that she opened her home to them. Her two-story house has eight rooms and most of them are filled with the furry animals. Torero is a private-duty nurse and much of her salary goes toward buying medicine for the animals. Private donors have also helped her to financially support her cat sanctuary.

Body heat: A teen from Victoria in British Columbia (CAN) came up with something quite unique for her local science fair, a flashlight that does not need batteries. Instead, it is powered by the user’s body heat. Ann Makosinski also presented her project at the Google Science Fair and won for her age group division. Without getting too scientific, Makosinski used the idea of thermoelectric technology in her project and she went through several attempts using special materials to make her flashlight work just by holding it. She now has a patent pending on her idea.

Bad art: A museum in Boston, Massachusetts (US) uses the following tagline: “Art too bad to be ignored.” That may seem like an odd way to advertise a collection of artwork, but the tagline actually fits, considering the fact that the venue is The Museum of Bad Art. The works on display might include a piece that didn’t quite turn out as expected by a talented artist, or a crude but exuberant painting by an amateur. However, the museum advertises that all of its 600 pieces, of which about 60 are displayed at one time, have some kind of special quality worth viewing.

Desert oasis: There are lots of beautiful, famous cities and towns around the world, but there are also many unique and amazing places that are not well-known. One such place is Huacachina in south western Peru. Built only a few decades ago in the 1930s, Huacachina is located in a desert oasis. It seems to be snuggled into the surrounding dunes and sits on the edge of a natural lake. It is rumoured that a mermaid lives in the lake. The area is popular with sandboarders and buggy riders who make great use of the high sand dunes.