  We study equidistribution properties of nil-orbits $(b^nx)_{n\in\N}$ when the
parameter $n$ is restricted to the range of some sparse sequence that is not
necessarily polynomial. For example, we show that if $X=G/\Gamma$ is a
nilmanifold, $b\in G$ is an ergodic nilrotation, and $c\in \R\setminus \Z$ is
positive, then the sequence $(b^{[n^c]}x)_{n\in\N}$ is equidistributed in $X$
for every $x\in X$. This is also the case when $n^c$ is replaced with $a(n)$,
where $a(t)$ is a function that belongs to some Hardy field, has polynomial
growth, and stays logarithmically away from polynomials, and when it is
replaced with a random sequence of integers with sub-exponential growth.
Similar results have been established by Boshernitzan when $X$ is the circle.
