Bloomberg BMW AG’s new 5-Series sedan can drive itself at speeds as fast as 210 kilometers (130 miles) per hour, turn up the radio with the wave of a hand and warn other cars of fog. But you might not know it has all that gadgetry by looking at it. While BMW has packed one of its biggest profit …

  Nagano / AFP Rising silently before dawn to slip on his monastic robes and begin the solemn duties of a Buddhist monk, Kazuki Yazawa is not your average Olympic athlete. Bowing his shaved head in prayer five times a day as part at the ancient Zenkoji Daikanjin Temple, Yazawa is so committed to his faith very few people would …

Harriersand / DPA Claus Hartmann works with enormous logs of up to 4 metres in length. First he traces out his design on the wood and then he takes a chainsaw and begins to cut out the head and shoulders of a figurehead for a ship. After a week of work in his garden on the river island of Harriersand …