A Kentucky oncologist who studied nearly 5,000 near-death experience cases over the last 37 years, claims that he has come to believe that “there’s certainly an afterlife”.

Jeffrey Long was an oncology resident when he first came across an article describing a near-death experience. He was studying how to best treat cancer using radiation at a library when he came across this fascinating case that ended up changing his life. Up to that point, he had been taught that people were either alive or dead, but here was this cardiologist describing the incredible experience of a patient who had died and then came back to life. Long was eager to learn more about near-death experiences or NDEs, and he became so obsessed with them that after his residency he founded the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation, and he has since collected and studied thousands of NDEs. His conclusion – there is definitely life after death.

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11,000 runners out of the 30,000 participants at last month’s Mexico City Marathon have been disqualified by organizers for cheating by cutting out sections of the 26.2-mile course.

Marathon cheating is not exactly unheard of. In fact, it occurs at almost every major event, and offenders include some of the world’s most acclaimed athletes, like Australian ultramarathon runner Joasia Zakrzewski, who was accused of using a car during a race, or Kelly Agnew, who allegedly hid in portable toilets to avoid running several race laps. However, this year’s Mexico City Marathon may have set a new record for the highest number of disqualifications due to suspected cheating. A whopping 11,000 runners, more than 1 out of 3 participants, were disqualified for using various means of transportation to cut out sections of the race.

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A 60-year-old Spanish man who claims to be desperately lonely and suffering from serious health problems has been trying to be let into a state prison, because he doesn’t want to commit any crimes.

Justo Márquez, a 60-year-old from Granada, Spain, has been standing outside the Alhaurín de la Torre Prison in Malaga for days, hoping to be allowed inside. He has been photographed holding a sign that reads “I want to go to prison” and he told journalists that he has already met with the prison warden who has so far denied his voluntary incarceration. Márquez, who reportedly suffers from cancer, depression, anxiety, and heart problems, said that he is desperate to “stop being lonely 24 hours a day,” and that prison is his best option to do that.

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After an Indonesian groom disappeared on his wedding day, his father assumed responsibility and married the bride just so the expensive event would not be canceled.

What was supposed to be the happiest day in one Indonesian woman’s life quickly turned into a humiliating nightmare after her husband-to-be disappeared right on their wedding day. The young woman, identified only as SA by Indonesian media outlets, hails from the village of Jikotamo, South Halmahera, and was said to be in a long-term relationship with the groom. However, on August 29, on the day of their wedding, the man ran away, leaving her to explain to the guests that the wedding was off. This was apparently considered inconceivable by both families, as the wedding preparations had cost a small fortune, and the dowry had already been settled, so the groom’s father stepped in and married SA.

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Unable to fight the desire for a phone she could not afford to buy, a Chinese woman ended up stealing a new iPhone by ripping through the anti-theft cord with her teeth at an Apple Store.

The woman, surnamed Qiu, became the talk of the internet in China earlier this month, after the security cameras at an Apple Store in Fuzhou City, China’s Fujian Province, caught her stealing an iPhone in a rather unusual way. Footage that has since gone viral online shows the woman entering an electronics store and heading straight for the smartphone section, where she proceeds to inspect the device on display. She can be seen glancing around furtively to see if anyone else is around, before grabbing an iPhone and starting to chew on the anti-theft cord securing the device to the display stand.

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Chinese scientists at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan have developed a new, ultra-slippery toilet bowl that almost nothing sticks to.

Porcelain has been the most common toilet bowl manufacturing material for quite a while now, and while it may be a while before a new material upsets it, we already have our eye on an intriguing new material. One of the most important qualities of a good toilet bowl is slipperiness, and while porcelain is ok, it’s definitely not the best. Excrements and other types of waste usually disposed of in the toilet tend to stick to it and require scrubbing and cleaning, which results in wasted water. But what if the waste just slipped down into the bowl with no or very little water? Scientists in China have unveiled an innovative toilet bowl made of an ultra-slippery material that almost nothing sticks to.

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Ever wish your eyes were blue or green? Well, now you don’t have to turn to contact lenses or risky artificial iris implants to make your dream come true. You can simply have your own eyes permanently tattooed.

Originally developed as a way of dealing with patients suffering from disfiguring corneal opacities, keratopigmentation, aka ‘corneal tattooing’, has seen a boost in popularity among people seeking a mere aesthetic change. Safely changing eye color has long been an impossible dream, but today there are actually several types of procedures that allow you to do just this. Ten years ago, we wrote about the controversial artificial iris implant that came with provided excellent results but came with its share of health risks. Then, in 2017, there was the revolutionary laser surgery that could change eye color from brown to blue in just 20 seconds. Nowadays, however, it’s all about kaeratopigmentation, a seemingly safe procedure that uses advanced machinery and biologically compatible pigments to permanently change eye color.

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Government employees working in a decrepit building in Telangana, India, have taken to wearing motorcycle helmets to prevent slabs of concrete from the ceiling falling on their heads.

A video of several male employees at the ‘Development Office’ of Jagtial district, in Telangana, wearing motorcycle helmets while working has gone viral on Indian social media. Ironically, the Development Office is tasked with developing the district by giving the internet to villagers and creating infrastructure, but the workplace is in such a terrible state that workers have to protect themselves against falling debris. Local media reported that the staff have been demanding relocation to a safer office building after a colleague nearly suffered brain damage when a cement slab of cement fell from the ceiling.

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Japan’s Mitsubishi Uni-ball ONE series black gel pen has been recognized as the world’s blackest gel pen by Guinness World Records.

When it comes to the world’s blackest paint, there is no competing with Vanta Black, but pen gel is a whole other matter. Mitsubishi Pencil Co.Ltd. now holds the record for the blackest gel pen, thanks to an innovative type of pigment-containing particles that seal the paint inside. When writing on paper, it can reduce the penetration of the gel into paper fibers, making the color look more saturated than other gel pens.

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A 71-year-old man from Brazil’s Tocantins region was pronounced dead in 1995, based on the testimony of his ex-wife and two witnesses. He spent the next 28 years of his life legally dead…

On August 16, Manoel Marciano da Silva finally had his death certificate annulled after a two-year-long court battle. To the Brazilian authorities, he had been dead and buried in the public cemetery of Augustinópolis, in Tocantins, for 28 years, but this only became a problem for the man himself about two years ago, when he couldn’t collect his pension and couldn’t get access to free healthcare, based on his insurance. That’s when he started investigating his ‘death’ and learned that it had been his ex-wife and two witnesses who had declared him dead to authorities.

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London-based GABA Labs is working on a type of synthetic alcohol called ‘Alcarelle’ which reportedly provides the relaxing effects of alcohol without hangovers, balance deficiencies or any of its other negative side effects.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid, aka GABA, is a neurotransmitter that blocks certain signals in the brain, thus producing a calming effect. When alcohol reaches the brain, it binds to GABA receptors and produces the same effects, relaxing and calming people down. The problem with alcohol is that it also has other negative side effects, like hangover, movement difficulties, speaking and thinking problems, etc.  GABA Labs is currently working on a type of synthetic alcohol called Alcarelle that is supposed to provide all the positive effects of alcohol consumption, but none of the bad ones.

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A Florida man was arrested after a hidden camera caught him injecting a clear liquid under his neighbor’s front door, because he was annoyed by the noise they made.

Xuming Li, a former Ph.D. chemistry student at the University of South Florida reportedly used the laboratory at his former school to mix a cocktail of dangerous chemicals, load it up into syringes, and then inject it into the home of his upstairs neighbor through a crack in their front door. A subsequent test showed that the 36-year-old man used a combination of methadone and hydrocodone, two well-known opioid medications. It’s unclear what Li hoped to achieve by repeatedly injecting the substances into his neighbor’s home, but it’s easy to assume that he did not have good intentions. He was arrested after his neighbors, who had become exasperated by the bizarre smell in their home, installed a hidden camera outside their front door.

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A Swiss man ended up in the hospital after reportedly putting his head into the Jet D’Eau, a giant water fountain on Lake Geneva, and being thrown several meters into the air.

According to eyewitness reports, the 20-something man, whose name has not been revealed, somehow breached the security perimeter around Geneva’s famous Jet d’Eau water fountain and put his head into the nozzle of what is essentially an extremely powerful water cannon. The Jet D’Eau pumps out 500 liters of water per second, at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour, to a height of 140 meters (460 feet) into the air. When the water sprouted out of the fountain, the young daredevil was catapulted backward by the force, which was actually a lucky outcome considering the alternatives. However, this was only his first attempt…

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Niche fashion brand Liminal Work Shop has created a unique-looking puffer jacket featuring 54 individually placed 3D padded keyboard keys.

Made of water-resistant nylon, the Liminal puffer jacket features key zipper pockets, a hash key zipper pull, and an adjustable waist. However, it’s the unique aesthetic that makes it worth the £495 ($623). Whether you like it or not, it’s hard to argue that the keyboard-inspired design is something completely new in the fashion space and can be considered a work of art. Plus, all those padded keys may actually come in handy on a cold winter day.

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A Japanese scientist studying the languages of birds wore a giant bird mask on his head for an entire year in order to trick a nest of great tits to allow him to approach them.

Toshitaka Suzuki, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, recently shared a bizarre photo of a man wearing a giant bird head on Twitter. It turns out that the photo taken somewhere in the forests of Nagano Prefecture shows a fellow scientist who decided to wear the ‘disguise’ for an entire year in order to get close to a nest of great tits without triggering their distress calls. Ornithologists and bird behavior experts had noticed that certain bird species were capable of remembering human faces and that they would stop their usual chirping to put out warning calls whenever they saw these individuals approaching. Having wound up on the tits’ blacklist, the Japanese scientist decided to disguise himself as a giant bird in order to approach the birds and study their chirping.

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