SpoGomi, a combination of ‘sport’ and ‘gomi’ (Japanese for rubbish) is a popular competition in which teams of 3-5 people try to pick up the most trash of the highest quality in a set period of time.

Japan recently announced that it would host the first SpoGomi World Cup in November of 2023, with teams from all over the world scouring the streets of Tokyo in search of trash to pick up. Each team of three players will have 60 minutes to gather the most trash from a designated area while trying to sort it correctly into color-coded bags for each type (burnable waste, recyclable plastic, metal cans, etc.). When the time is up, the trash will be weighted and checked for proper sorting, and the team with the most trash wins. In case of a tie, the winner is determined by the quality of the trash, with points awarded by type (cigarette butts win the most points).

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Vibrant is a smart ingestible capsule that vibrates inside your intestines to mechanically stimulate the colon and increase the frequency of bowel movements without the use of drugs.

No one really likes talking about it, but chronic constipation is a serious health issue of our time. Either because of age-related issues, questionable lifestyle choices, diet, or just bad genes, constipation affects a large number of adults in the developed world. Things like exercise and fiber-rich foods can help, but for a significant number of people, they simply aren’t viable options. Chronic idiopathic constipation sufferers struggle to find relief even with strong laxative therapies and eventually have to undergo uncomfortable medical procedures to clear their colon. Luckily, they now have a drug-free alternative in the form of a vibrating capsule.

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A 17-year-old boy in India was so incredibly nervous about being the only male in an exam room full of hundreds of girls that he simply passed out.

Many young people experience some degree of anxiety when interacting with or even being close to members of the opposite sex, but in some people, this feeling is so overwhelming that they simply pass out. Case in point, Manish Shankar Prasad, a shy 17-year-old boy from Allama Iqbal College in Bihar Sharif, was supposed to take his mathematics test in Sundergarh at the end of last month. he never got the opportunity to do so, as he lost consciousness after finding himself surrounded by around 500 girls in an exam hall.

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A pastor in Mozambique, south-eastern Africa, recently passed away after suffering digestive organ failure attempting to emulate Jesus Christ’s 40-day fast.

It’s unclear why exactly 39-year-old Francisco Barajah, the founder of the Santa Trindade Evangelical Church, decided to imitate Christ’s 40-day fast in the desert as described in the Gospel of Matthew, but one thing is for sure – it was a fatal decision. 25 days into the grueling fast – no food or water – Barajah had become so weak that he couldn’t even stand, let alone move around or perform any menial tasks. Still, he insisted on going through with the Biblical fast, and by the time his family and followers finally decided to take him to a hospital, it was too late.

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A man in China had what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of his life turned into a nightmare when a number of ex-girlfriends showed up to sabotage his wedding ceremony.

On February 6th, attendees at a wedding in Hengdi Village, China’s Yunan province, were stunned by an unusual display. Around a dozen women showed up outside the wedding venue with a large red banner that read “We are Chen Song’s ex-girlfriends, and today we will destroy you”. At first, many believed the unusual scene to be part of a friendly prank, but it was later revealed that the women were indeed Chen’s scorned ex-girlfriends out to ruin his big day.

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A Japanese garment company recently made international news headlines for its newest creation –  a wearable beanbag that allows you to comfortably sit or lay down anytime, anywhere.

When thinking about ultimate comfort, a giant beanbag that you can wear is probably not the first thing that comes to mind, but according to Takikou, a garment company based in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture, that’s exactly what its new wearable beanbag is about. The seemingly wacky invention was reportedly inspired by the concept of a “cushion that ruins people”, a rather popular idea among Japanese designers that basically revolves around offering consumers extreme levels of comfort that they don’t ever want to move, thus ruining their lives.

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A Chinese man who concelaed a lottery win of 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) from his then-wife for two years has been ordered by a court of law to compensate the woman.

In 2021, the man, surnamed Zhou, won a lottery prize of 10 million yuan. After paying the mandatory tax, he was left with 8.43 million ($1.23 million). That was still lifechanging money for him and his family, only instead of sharing the wonderful news with his wife, he reportedly kept acting like nothing happened. On the day that the lottery prize was wired to his bank account, Zhou transferred 2 million to his sister and another 700,000 yuan to his ex-wife, to help her buy an apartment. He didn’t mention the lottery win to his wife for two years.

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A company in Chengdu, China has been praised for asking both job applicants and recruiters to wear masks in order to avoid discrimination based on looks.

Chengdu Ant Logistics recently made news headlines after a video showing its recruitment process went viral on Chinese social media. Shot by one of the interviewees, the short clip shows several masked people waiting to be interviewed by a recruiter, who was reportedly also masked. The company has since put out a statement on the matter, claiming that the video was shot at its recent biannual recruitment fair and that the masked were introduced to eliminate bias based on looks.

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Kyawthuite is a transparent reddish-orange mineral of which only a single, tiny sample exists – an 0.3-gram gem – making it the rarest mineral in the world, by far.

There are around 6,000 minerals recognized by the International Mineralogical Association, and while many of them are classified as ‘rare’, none of them rival kyawthuite in terms of rarity. Named after Dr. Kyaw Thu, a Burmese mineralogist-petrologist-gemologist, this incredibly rare mineral was discovered in the bed of a stream in Myanmar’s Mogok region by sapphire hunters and recognized by the International Mineralogical Society in 2015. The only sample ever discovered weighs just 1.61 carats (0.3 grams) and is in the custody of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.

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A Russian man was recently arrested after allegedly being tricked into throwing a Molotov Cocktail in a Moscow bank by scammers who also relieved him of his life savings.

A few days ago, Moscow police arrested a 48-year-old man from Ruza, a town in the Moscow region of Russia, for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail in a Sberbank branch in the Russian capital. Bank employees were able to put out the flames before the firefighters arrived on the scene and police quickly identified and detained the perpetrator. But this was far from an open-shut case; the more the suspect tried to explain, the crazier his story got, and by the end, investigators didn’t know whether to throw the book at the guy or just feel sorry for him…

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MSCHF, an art collective specializing in unique and controversial products, has announced a new perfume inspired by the world’s most popular lubricant spray – WD40.

The versatility of WD40 is the stuff of legend. You can use it as a water displacer, to loosen nuts and bolts, fix squeaky hinges, prevent rust and keep mechanisms lubricated. The manufacturer of this legendary product lists over 2,000 applications for it, but body perfume is sadly not among them. In fact, the company specifically warns against applying their WD40 lubricant on the skin, but if you like the way it smells that much, you no longer need to risk your health, because the WD perfume is finally here!

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A Venezuelan artist and social media influencer recently generated controversy online by letting himself be permanently tattooed by a small monkey.

Funky Matas is no stranger to tattoos. In fact, he holds a Guinness Record for the most signatures tattooed on his back, over 220 of them, but his latest stunt can be described as unusual, even for him. News outlets across South America have been reporting that the Venezuelan-born influencer trained a small monkey to handle a tattoo gun and then let himself be tattooed by the animal in what is considered a first-of-its-kind experiment.

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A California pest control company recently reported one of the most unusual cases it has ever worked on – a woodpecker filling the walls of a house with over 700 lbs (317 kg) of acorns.

Nick Castro of Nick’s Extreme Pest Control, a pest control company in California, thought he had seen it all in his 20+ years in the business, but even he was shocked by one of his most recent finds. Last month, Castro was commissioned by a California family to fix the “work” of a persistent woodpecker that kept pecking holes in the outer walls of their house and filling them with acorns. The woodpecker didn’t account for the empty space between the wall layers, so the acorns he kept bringing in didn’t stay put; instead, they fell to the bottom of the walls and eventually started coming out of various orifices inside. Nick knew he would find a few acorns if he searched well enough, but nowhere near the massive pile he ended up with…

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A 22-year-old assistant basketball coach lost her job with a Virginia high school after she reportedly impersonated a 13-year-old girl during an official game.

Arlisha Boykins, an assistant for the Churchland H.S. Truckers in Virginia, recently made international news headlines after it was reported that she impersonated a 13-year-old player who was out of time for another tournament in a league game. Footage that went viral last week shows 22-year-old Boykins driving the lane for a layup, blocking the other team’s players, and shooting free throws against Nansemond River in a Virginia High School League (VHSL) game. Both Boykins and the head coach, who allegedly “encouraged such behavior” have been fired.

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A Chinese man was shocked to find two human teeth embedded in his face days after accidentally colliding with another person during a basketball game.

The unnamed man was reportedly back in his home city of Dongguan, China’s Guangdong Province, for the Lunar New Year, when he was invited to a basketball game by some childhood friends. At one point while trying to recover a rebound, the man collided with another player; at first, he thought the man’s chin had hit the left side of his head, right above the eye, but then he saw the other guy bleeding from his mouth and saying that he had lost two of his teeth. While he went to wash the blood pouring from his wound, everyone else was busy looking for the other player’s teeth, but they were nowhere to be found…

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