Raccoons are not native to Japan, yet in the last few decades, the furry critters have become naturalized in 44 of the country’s 47 prefectures, causing all sorts of problems for humans and other animal species. And to think it all started with a cute anime series…

In 1963, American writer Sterling North launched his most popular book, Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era. It told the story of a young boy called Sterling who went on adventures with his raccoon sidekick Rascal, and it became such a huge hit that Disney decided to turn it into a live-action movie. In Japan, Rascal’s adventures inspired a 52-episode anime series called Rascal the Raccoon (Araiguma Rasakaru), which ran for a year in 1977 and made raccoons the most sought-after pets in the country. There was just one problem – there were no raccoons in Japan, so people started importing them from the United States at a rate of about 1,500 raccoons per month.

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Indigirka Salad, a Russian fish salad that originated in Yakutia, the coldest inhabited region in the world, was recently voted the worst dish in the world by the readers of online food guide Taste Atlas.

Indigirka is a rather simple dish – it consists of diced whitefish such as broad whitefish, elma, and muksun combined with onions, and seasoned with oil, salt, and pepper. That doesn’t sound so bad, right? Well, at least not so bad as other dishes we’ve featured on Oddity Central in the past. The problem with Indigirka salad is that the fish is not only raw, but frozen solid, which is to be expected from a dish born in a region where temperatures routinely drop below -70 degrees Celsius. The dish is usually served as an appetizer, accompanied by lemon wedges and a shot of vodka.

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Isolated on an island in the middle of the southeastern Pacific Ocean, the bees of Easter Island are free of all the pathogens and pesticides ravaging the global bee population, and therefore produce the purest honey on the planet.

The beekeepers of Chile’s Easter Island are fully aware that their bees may one day become the salvation of the world’s most important polinator. With bee colonies all over the world struggling to survive serious threats like pesticide poisoning, new diseases and climate change, the bees of Easter Island are probably the only ones in the world yet to be affected by such problems. And their owners hope to keep it that way. They have managed to convince the local government to ban the importation of bees, because of the significant risk of contamination.

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Wanessa Moura, a 29-year-old Brazilian model and online influencer, has been getting a lot of attention because of her new perfume, which she claims includes her body sweat as an ingredient.

The Sao Paolo-based model claims that she was inspired to use her sweat to create her signature fragrance, Fresh Goddess, after her boyfriend and her ex-partner both praised her natural body odor as ‘sexy and exciting’. Each bottle of perfume contains 8 milliliters of sweat ‘for a touch of sensuality and femininity’, making it the ideal fragrance for dating and attracting the attention of someone you like. Moura claims that online followers who used Fresh Goddess confirmed its power of attraction with one person allegedly getting invited on a second date by her crush because of the perfume.

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Japanese power tool manufacturer Makita recently unveiled a first-of-its-kind portable microwave oven powered by two large batteries that can be recharged and replaced on the go.

Mockups of a cordless microwave have been doing the rounds online as April’s fools for years, but this year Japanese power tool giant Makita decided to surprise everyone with a market-ready, battery-powered oven that can reheat dozens of foods and drinks on the go. The new Makita MW001G microwave oven is able to deliver 500W of power for up to eight minutes, after which it automatically switches to a lower power 350W mode to conserve battery life. It weighs just 19.4 lbs (8.8 kg) and can reheat about 11 refrigerated lunches or 20 drinks on two fully charged XGT 40V Max 8Ah batteries.

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Bees are considered an omen of good fortune in China, so when a man found a swarm of bees building their nest in his car, he decided to just drive the car with his new winged companions.

A man from China’s Anhui province recently went viral after posting a series of videos of himself calmly driving in his car with bees swarming around inside the vehicle. Most people would freak out at the sight of a single bee flying around their head, but the Chinese driver, surnamed Yao, was all smiles and even boasted that he was ‘going to be rich,’ referring to the belief that bees visiting one’s home was an auspicious omen. It’s unclear how the bees got into the car or why they chose it as their place of congregation, but the viral videos gave many on social media goosebumps.

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Vets in Plymouth, UK, scrambled to save the life of an alcoholic labrador retriever that had become addicted to booze because its late owner kept leaving his drinks outside overnight.

Coco, a two-year-old Labrador cross, almost lost his life and spent a month in intensive care after becoming addicted to alcohol. Staff at the Woodside Animal Welfare Trust in Plymouth, Devon, rescued Coco and another dog after their owner passed away, but they had no idea about the problems the two canines had. It turned out that they were both alcohol addicts, having gotten hooked on booze over years of enjoying open bottles that their late owner left out in the yard before going to sleep. The addiction was so bad that the other dog passed away during the withdrawal period and Coco himself had to be sedated for four weeks.

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Animal rescuers in Brittany, France were stunned by a wild duck that seemed to lead a perfectly normal life despite having a knife stuck in its neck.

Nicknamed Donald the Duck by the members of the Pinocchio et Sauvageons association, the mallard with a red knife handle sticking out of the left side of his neck had long attracted the attention of people in Saint-Nolff, north-western France. What really stunned those who saw the wild duck was how unaffected he seemed by the wound, swimming alongside other ducks, walking around on its webbed feet and being able to feed normally. However, animal rescuers at Pinocchio et Sauvageons worried that the knife could become a serious problem with time, so they decided to take it out.

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Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla recently unveiled an unexpected new product for its loyal client base – GigaBier, a special brew that comes in bottles inspired by its unreleased Cybertruck.

GigaBier was originally revealed in October 2021, to celebrate the inauguration of Tesla’s Gigafactory in Berlin. That grand opening was delayed for over 260 days due to environmental activists and permit problems, and so was the new beer. Things slowly got back on track, and Musk’s popular automotive company recently made its special “cyberhops” beer available to the masses. The beers come in packs of three, bottled in glossy black bottles with sharp edges that emulate the sharp shapes of the Tesla Cybertruck. One pack of three 330ml bottles costs a whopping 89 euros ($98).

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Popular Youtuber and DIY master ‘The Q’ recently unveiled the world’s smallest functional bicycle, which, despite its deceptive size, can support up to 100 kilograms of weight.

Named Big Boy, the world’s smallest rideable bicycle was made from scratch, using rollerblade wheels and a strong iron frame. The Q goes into great detail about the build in his impressive YouTube video, which has over 1.4 million views at the time of this writing, but it’s obviously not something that anyone can make at home. Building a tiny bike is one thing, but making sure that an adult can actually ride it is something else entirely. Obviously, Big Boy isn’t the most comfortable bicycle to ride, even for small children, but at The Q demonstrates in his viral DIY video, it can definitely be done.

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A Dutch man who fathered more than 550 children has been accused of threatening the well-being of the children out of his sheer desire to reproduce in all corners of the world.

Jonathan M., a 41-year-old serial sperm donor from the Netherlands, is being accused of prioritizing his urge to constantly reproduce above the physical and mental well-being of his children. Dutch guidelines state that a man can only donate their sperm for up to 25 offspring or for 12 families, in order to minimize the chances of incest and to protect the mental health of the children. However, the mother of one of his many children and the Donorkind Foundation, an organization for donor children, claim that he blatantly disregarded the rules and fathered hundreds of children over the last decade or so. They are now taking legal action to prevent him from fathering any more kids.

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Prominent cryptocurrency company LunarCrush recently announced plans to have the private key to a crypto wallet containing 62 Bitcoins etched onto a lunar rover bound for the moon on a SpaceX rocket.

California-based social intelligence company LunarCrush has partnered with planetary mobility firm Lunar Outpost to set up the first lunar treasure hunt in human history. Two years ago, Lunar Outpost unveiled the digital concept for MAPP, a new generation moon rover, and the company apparently has plans to launch the exploration vehicle to the moon on a SpaceX rocket in the fall of 2023. This allegedly innovative lunar vehicle also doubles as a treasure chest. LunarCrush announced that it will have the private key to a crypto wallet containing 62 Bitcoin (currently worth around $1.5) etched onto the body of the rover for the first humans on the moon to find.

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A Spanish sewer worker developed a roundworm infection so bad that doctors could see the larvae crawling right under his skin.

The New England Journal of Medicine recently published the unusual case of a 64-year-old sewer treatment employee from Spain who realized that something was wrong with him after experiencing mild diarrhea and itching all over his body. He reported to the University Hospital in Madrid where doctors diagnosed him with a parasitic roundworm infection that had become unusually serious. Strongyloides stercoralis infection is usually asymptomatic, but in this particular case, it had become so serious that doctors could see the worms crawling under the man’s skin.

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A male professional powerlifter recently entered a women’s competition by simply stating that he identified as a woman and easily won first place by smashing the regional record for bench pressing by almost 100 pounds.

Avi Silverberg, the head coach for Team Canada Powerlifting, entered the Heroes Classic women’s tournament in Lethbridge, Alberta on Saturday by identifying as a woman, despite being fully bearded and having undergone no hormone therapy. The tournament rules stated that participants “should be able to participate in the gender with which they identify and not be subject to requirements for disclosure of personal information beyond those required of cisgender athletes,” so Silverberg decided to prove a point. He casually walked on stage and bench-pressed nearly 370 pounds, beating the Alberta women’s record (275 pounds) by almost 100 pounds.

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An Australian company specializing in cultivated meat recently unveiled a giant meatball allegedly made from lab-grown meat using wooly mammoth DNA.

While most cultured meat companies are focused on producing alternatives to conventional meats like chicken, beef and pork, Australian start-up Vow is taking a different approach. It is focusing on mixing and matching cells from different unconventional animal species, even ones that have been extinct for thousands of years. To prove that it can be done, Vow took the DNA sequence for mammoth myoglobin, a key muscle protein in giving meat its flavor, and filled the few gaps in the strand with elephant DNA. They then put this sequence in myoblast stem cells from a sheep and grew the tens of billions of cells necessary to create the lab-grown meat.

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