Hey fellas! How would you like to live somewhere that's been run entirely by women since 1891? Because Noiva do Cordeiro, a rural town in the scenic hills outside Belo Horizante, Brazil, is looking for volunteers. Just follow every single one of their rules, and don't make any stupid jokes about "Death by Snu Snu." They probably won't like that very much.

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Biologists from the Federal University of Paraíba in Brazil have discovered a new species of porcupine that - to the uninitiated - basically just looks like an amazing, pug-nosed, spiky monkey.

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Move over, Guy Fawkes. The new face of resistance to government authority is NSA leaker Edward Snowden, and we have the creepy masks to prove it. In Brazil, activists opposed to the NSA's spying programs made masks of Snowden's face, and like-minded senators borrowed them to wear to a hearing.

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From the first few frames of this video, you can tell that something has gone wrong with the car being filmed, though it takes our intrepid videographer a little while to get to the bottom of exactly what happened. What happened seems to be a sinkhole opening in a Brazilian road and swallowing an automobile whole like an enraged mud elemental. For those of you who can spare 3 full minutes of your Friday afternoon to watch this hatchback be claimed by the proud and ingenious mole men who dwell just beneath out feet, we fully recommend watching the entire thing, for the sake of context and narrative. If you're busy folk like us, though, feel free to skip to about 1:30 to see the real fun begin as the hole widens and a full-sized automobile does it's best impression of a Hot Wheels car being flushed down the toilet by a toddler. Bye bye, car!

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Last year, the Madeira River in Rondonia, Brazil was drained for a hydroelectric dam. At the very bottom, were six of these creatures, writhing about looking like penises, except that they're all about 30 inches long. Now, biologists have confirmed that they are Atretochoana eiselti, an extremely rare species of caecilian with no known living population.

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Recent filings with the Federal Communications Commission alerted hawk-eyed watchers to the existence of a new model of PlayStation 3: The "CECH-4001X." Up until now, however, it wasn't known exactly what kind of changes Sony would include in this new model. That's where Anatel, which is effectively the Brazilian version of the FCC, comes into play. Their own documents apparently included a series of images purported to be of this fantastical new design.

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So, let's say you're the nation-state of Brazil. And let's say that you're really keen on celebrating this year's exchanging of the national flag at the Praça dos Três Poderes in the capital city. Obviously you're going to need to have a sweet fly-over by some Mirage 2000 fighter jets. But what happens when you have those fighter jets go supersonic so low to the ground? The answer, after the break.

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Not too long ago, we brought you the story of the Brazilian Batman. At the time, we experienced a mix of awe and worry for retired soldier  André Luiz Pinheiro. After all, taking on serious criminals, no matter what your training, is not a safe job. But thanks to a new BBC report, we've discovered Pinheiro has it a bit easier than we originally thought. He's scaring the crap out of kids. After you give that a look, hit the jump and see if Batman's famous batarangs could work when thrown in the real world by an expert. 

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I've often remarked on how surprised I am that no one has actually taken up the mantle of Batman yet to fight crime in our world. Sure, we've seen real-life heroes acting like Batman (but in plain clothes) and people walking around pretending to be Batman (in costume) but no one has actually been the Dark Knight. That is, until now. This is the true story of a Brazilian man who's been asked by local police to help them fight crime, as Batman. 

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According to a recent report from Internet security firm Kaspersky, India is currently the number one country in the world when it comes to generating spam email. According to Kasperksy, in the third quarter of last year, spam accounted for about 79.8% of email traffic, and the top three countries responsible for generating it were India at 14.8%, Indonesia at 10.6%, and Brazil at 9.7%. This is a little bit up from a reported low point this summer, and India might be to blame.

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Modern animators are finding some really great ways to spice up the traditional approach to animation, and this video promoting MTV Brazil is no exception. This quick little cartoon uses balloons popping sequence filmed with a camera moving along a track, appearing to move flip-book style. Best of all? Ozzy eats a bat. (via Dude Craft)

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The natural world is a terrifying place, and it just got a little scarier -- especially for ants. Wired reports that scientists have reported that they have discovered 4 new kinds of fungus in Brazil that infect ants, effectively turning them into zombies that serve the will of the fungal infector. Fungus of the genus Cordyceps are not new to science, though their surprising diversity and how they take control of their hosts is still quite mysterious.

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Reports are circulating from Brazil that an evangelical cult known as "Paz do Senhor Amado" has banned USB devices from the homes of its followers on the grounds that the USB symbol looks like Satan's trident. The Guardian translates from the Portuguese:

The evangelical cult "Paz do Senhor Amado" ("Peace of the beloved Lord") in the interior of Brazil forbids its followers to use any USB technology by contending that it uses a symbol that shows sympathy for the devil. According to its founder, the "Apostle" Welder Saldanha says that this is just another symbol of Satan, which is always present in all Christian homes. "The symbol of that name (a name which he doesn't even like to pronounce) is a trident, which is used to torture souls that go to hell. Use only a symbol of those shows that all users of that vile technology are actually worshipers of Satan" - explains the" Apostle". Measures were taken so that all the USB connections of his followers were exchanged for common connections and even the Bluetooth (sic), which according to Saldanha Welder is permitted, for "Blue was the color of the eyes of our savior Jesus Christ".

Good thing Welder Saldanha hasn't heard about SATA. (Guardian via BuzzFeed)

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Following the surprise "Antennagate" conference during which Apple announced free bumpers for all iPhone 4 users, we got our first look at the company's secret Infinite-Loop lab, the multimillion dollar facilities where the iPhone 4's connectivity issues were tested. We were in awe, and the uproar about smartphone antennae soon faded into obscurity. We noted then that the antenna lab's 17 futuristic anechoic chambers would make for an awesome Half-Life map (modders, assemble), but Canada-based Geekosystem reader Max did us one better: He's discovered that Steve Jobs may have had some dystopic thoughts on his mind when designing the facilities' interior...

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(image via Threadless.)

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