A Taiwanese plastic surgeon has been getting a lot of attention for sharing a video of performing a vasectomy on himself on social media, as a gift to his wife.

Chen Wei-nong, a father-of-three who works at a plastic surgery clinic in Taipei City, went viral this week after sharing a rather unusual clip on his Facebook and Instagram profiles. To put his wife’s mind at ease, the young doctor decided to get a vasectomy, and to make sure there was no risk of botching the procedure, he performed it himself, recording the entire process for educational purposes. After presenting a list of 11 steps involved in the operation, Chen got local anesthesia and then started working on himself, so to speak. Because operating on yourself isn’t very common, a procedure that usually takes about 15 minutes ended up taking an hour, but it was a success.

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There are around 45,000 species of spider in the world, all of them carnivorous, with one exception – Bagheera kiplingi, a jumping spider known for feeding almost exclusively on plants.

Native to the forests of Central America and Mexico, Bagheera kiplingi is only 5-6mm long and spends most of its time on the old leaves of acacia trees, waiting for their opportunity to snatch their favorite meal – the Beltian bodies that grow on the very tips of young acacia leaves. There is only one problem, in order to gorge on their meal of choice, these tiny jumping spiders need to go through a gauntlet of aggressive ants that also feed on Beltian bodies, quickly clip it off with their fangs, and then run away to a safe place to feast on it. Rich in lipids and proteins, Beltian bodies are very nutritious for insects, but extremely unusual for arachnids,  the vast majority of which are carnivorous.

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For over a month now, the Gaîté Lyrique Theater in Paris, France, has been taken over by a group of homeless migrants who needed a roof over their heads during winter.

The occupation of Gaîté Lyrique began on 10 December when the cultural venue hosted a free conference titled “Reinventing the Welcome for Refugees in France”. Ironically, the 250 African migrants who attended the event refused to leave after it was over, and they were later joined by another 50 or so migrants who didn’t have anywhere else to hide from the cold Paris weather. It’s been over a month since the Gaîté Lyrique was occupied, and management admits that it was forced to cancel all performances until at least January 24, which threatens to bankrupt it, as the institution relies on such performances for 70% of its income, with the other 30% coming from the state as subsidies.

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An Australian woman asked to have her marriage annulled in Court, claiming that she was tricked into it by her husband who told her that it was just a stunt to boost his Instagram following.

The woman, whose name has not been revealed by the Court, told the presiding judge that she met her husband in September 2023 on a dating app. They started seeing each other regularly in Melbourne, and in December of that same year, he invited her to a “white party” in Sydney, telling her to bring a white dress to fit the theme of the event. The young woman accepted, but when she arrived at the party venue, he was “shocked” and “furious” to see that the only other people there were her partner, a photographer, the photographer’s friend, and a marriage officiant. Her partner took her aside and explained that he had planned a fake wedding to increase his social media following and asked her to play the bride.

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A 53-year-old woman was scammed into paying hundreds of thousands of euros to a person posing as Hollywood megastar Brad Pitt as payment for hefty medical bills he couldn’t cover due to his divorce.

For more than a year, Anne, a French interior decorator, thought she was in a long-distance romantic relationship with Brad Pitt. This bizarre tale started in February 2023, when the middle-aged woman joined Instagram to share photos from a recent skiing vacation in the Alps. She was immediately approached on the social network by someone claiming to be Jane Pitt, the mother of legendary actor Brad Pitt, who started chatting with Anne and telling her what a good match she was for her son. It wasn’t long before someone posing as Brad Pitt approached Anne on Instagram. They chatted online every day, and before long, Anne fell in love which made her an easy target for a surprisingly effective scam.

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An Arizona tattoo artist has come under fire for tattooing an American flag on a 9-year-old girl’s arm after she asked to get Trump’s portrait on her neck.

A video posted on social media by a tattoo artist at the Black Onyx Empire Tattoo parlor in Yuma, Arizona, has been getting a lot of attention online because it shows a nine-year-old girl getting her arm tattooed. Shared by the artist, who goes by ‘cutzsosa’ on Instagram, the video sparked a heated debate about inking minors, even with their parents’ consent. According to the artist the girl and her parents traveled to the tattoo parlor from out of state specifically to get a tattoo. She initially wanted a portrait of Donald Trump on her neck, but Sosa allegedly convinced her to get something more patriotic done, a US flag on her arm.

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The Sony PVM-4300 is an ultra-rare television set that achieved legendary status for being the largest Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT) TV ever sold.

Announced in late 1988 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Sony’s Trinitron brand, the PVM-4300 was an incredibly expensive, made-to-order device that most people could only dream of buying. It went on sale in Japan at a retail price of 2,430,000 Japanese yen ( about $17,500 by the 1988 exchange rate) and featured advanced technology designed to reduce eye-straining flicker and improve image clarity on large-size screens and a 108cm picture tube, the largest of its kind ever made. The world’s largest CRT TV was so heavy that it had a special, forkliftable casing, as well as handles that bolt onto the sides of the monitor for improved grip. According to Sony’s installation manual, at least six people were required to lift the TV set safely.

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A Shanghai man was shocked to find the apartment he had rented out two years ago had been turned into a chicken coop and damaged beyond repair.

Imagine putting all of your savings into buying and renovating an apartment, and then renting it out for a small profit only to find out that the tenant has been using it to raise chickens. It sounds like a joke, but it’s the true story of a Chinese man who was recently alerted by his neighbors that there were strange noises and a foul smell emanating from the apartment he had rented out to a tenant two years ago. Content to receive the monthly rent on time, the man hadn’t checked the flat until last month when he was shocked to find it full of chickens roaming and flying around the place.

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A middle-aged Japanese man known as ‘Uncle Praise’ has been making a living by standing on the street and showering strangers with praises for a small fee.

Uncle Praise first made news headlines in Japan in September of last year when Fuji TV released a short documentary on his unique “profession”. The 43-year-old man reportedly used to work for a company in his hometown of Tochigi, but at one point in his life, he got so addicted to gambling that he lost both his family and his job. His father fell ill, he lost his job and couldn’t pay the mortgage anymore, his family eventually cut ties with him, and he found himself living on the street. It was a rude awakening that helped him beat his gambling addiction and really assess his life. The middle-aged man had always dreamed of being a street performer, but he had no special skills such as magic tricks or singing, so he came up with the idea of praising people for money.

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Fogvid-24 is a new conspiracy theory doing the rounds online, and it’s a doozie! People are claiming that the thick fog engulfing parts of the US these days is a man-made chemical weapon.

In the first days of 2025, large parts of the United States were blanketed by a “mysterious” that made some people experience strange smells, breathing problems, and unexplained fatigue. Viral videos of people shining their flashlights into the fog at night to show “unusually large particles” have been shared thousands of times on social media platforms like X and TikTok, sparking fears that this was no ordinary fog but a chemical-filled biological weapon. Some conspiracy theorists have linked the fog to the mysterious drone sightings around the country, while others reported a high number of chemtrails in the sky just before the fog set in.

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The Welsh village of Cyffylliog was “invaded” by bargain-hunting shoppers looking for a non-existent Aldi supermarket that internet trolls added to Google Maps as a prank.

The “add a missing place” feature on Google Maps can be very useful when used correctly, but when abused by pranksters, it can cause headaches for entire communities. Case in point, Cyffylliog, a quiet Welsh village in Denbighshire whose inhabitants have seen a flood of confused shoppers looking for a “phantom Aldi supermarket” that only exists as a pin on Google Maps. Believed to have been added by a local internet troll, the listing has so far led thousands of people to a grassy field, tens of miles away from the nearest checkout lane. After a milk truck became stuck on a narrow village truck trying to deliver its cargo to the phantom Aldi, locals said that they have been visited by vans trying to deliver groceries and bread to the non-existent supermarket, as well as confused shoppers led there by their smartphones.

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Russian police have been enforcing the country’s controversial anti-LGBT legislation by arresting people for dressing in ways that made them “look too gay”.

“Trying to arouse interest in non-traditional sexual relations” has been considered a crime in Russia for over a decade, but the law was usually enforced against individuals and organizations that published and promoted LGBT “propaganda”. However, a recent analysis of court documentation by an independent news outlet revealed that the Kremlin’s strategy to promote ‘traditional values’ now includes detaining and fining people for “looking too gay”. The Russian news website Verstka revealed an incident that occurred back in February of last year but was never covered by the media in which eight individuals were detained by police for wearing clothing that promoted “non-traditional sexual relations”.

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An Uzbek zookeeper tragically lost his life after going into the lion’s enclosure at a private zoo to film himself petting the large felines only to get mauled by them.

On December 17, 44-year-old F. Iriskulov was working the night shift at a private zoo in Parkent, Uzbekistan, when he decided to impress his fiancee by filming himself going into the lions’ enclosure to pet three full-grown African felines. A short clip retrieved from the man’s phone shows him unlocking the lion’s cage and casually walking in while talking to the lions and addressing them by name. At one one point, the felines, which had been lounging on wooden pallets, become alert and approach the zoo keeper who continues to film, seemingly unaware of the danger he is in. The video cuts off with Iriskulov screaming as one of the lions attacks him.

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Every year, during the rainy season, a scenic road winding through China’s Poyang Lake like a mythical dragon becomes flooded, offering a unique driving and visual experience.

Yongwu Road is the only stretch of road connecting Wucheng, one of the oldest townships in China, to neighboring townships and counties. Part of the X219 county road, this 5.05 km piece of infrastructure was built straight through Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake, making it one of the most famous tourist attractions of Jiangxi Province. But Yongwu is most popular with tourists at the onset of the rainy season, during Spring when the water level starts rising. When the level of the surrounding lake reaches about 18.6 meters, water submerges segments of the road, turning Yongwu Road into “China’s most beautiful road under the water.”

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A landlord in northern France is trying to force his tenants to leave in the middle of winter by removing the doors and windows on his property.

In France, as in many European countries, it’s illegal to evict tenants in wintertime, even if they are behind on rent. However, one landlord in Pas-de-Calais, a department in northern France, is trying to skirt around the law by forcing his tenants to vacate the property without actually asking them to leave. On December 20, a team of workers arrived at the property and started disassembling the doors and windows under the pretext of replacing them. However, the tenants claim that they just loaded up the old doors and windows in a car and drove away, leaving them to brave the cold and face potential intrusion at all hours of the day and night.

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