Three popular influencers were recently sentenced to over three years in a Russian penal colony for pranking the driver of a ride-sharing company by pretending to steal his car.

In March of 2021, the three bloggers decided to pull another one of their popular pranks and then post the footage on social media. They called an Uber-type taxi, and two of them got in the car and asked the driver to help their friend load some baggage in the trunk. When the driver got out of the vehicle, one of them got behind the wheel and drove off. The whole thing was caught on camera by one of their accomplices, who was filming from a few meters away, only to the driver, this seemed like an actual car theft, so by the time the vloggers brought the car back and explained that it had all been a joke, the police had already been notified. And they didn’t find the prank funny at all.

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Photos and videos of eggs with black yolks that were reportedly laid by a grey goose have been doing the rounds on social media and leaving experts scratching their heads.

The intriguing photos and videos of the black eggs were posted on Sina Weibo last week by a man surnamed Zhu from Hangzhou City, in China’s Zhejiang Province. He claimed that the eggs came from a friend of his who kept many grey geese on his farm, and who had gifted him batches of normal goose eggs before. Only this time, what looked like ordinary eggs of standard size and white color turned out to be somewhat of an oddity. When cracked, the eggs revealed a clear egg-white, but a dark grey, almost black yolk, instead of the normal yellow or light orange.

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In what can be described as one of the weirdest accidents of the year, a Filipino man was seriously hurt by a crocodile after climbing down into a pool to take a selfie with it, thinking it was just a realistic plastic model.

68-year-old Nehemias Chipada was visiting the Amaya View amusement park in Cagayan de Oro City, the Philippines, on November 10 when he spotted what he thought was a life-like model of a crocodile. It looked eerily realistic, so the Filipino man, who was celebrating his birthday with his family at the amusement park, climbed down to take a selfie with the cold-blooded reptile and even tapped it on the head. The thought that the 12-meter “model” could actually be a real crocodile never crossed his mind, at least until he got dangerously close to it and the reptile sank its teeth into his left arm…

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Keshav and Anjali Kumar, two young siblings from Jharkhand, India suffer from two rare conditions known as Cutis Laxa and Progeria, which make them look incredibly old for their age.

The Indian brother and sister originally made news headlines as the “Benjamin Button siblings” in 2016. Anjali was 7 at the time, and her younger brother was only 18-months-old, but they both already looked like octogenarians. And not only was their skin unusually wrinkly and saggy, but they both suffered from joint pain associated with old age. This paradoxical situation earned them the nickname ‘Benjamin Button siblings,’ after the fictional character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story. Keshav and Anjali Kumar were diagnosed with progeria and cutis laxa, two exceptionally rare conditions that are, unfortunately, incurable.

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When it comes to telling when someone is lying, we currently have very few options, but a team of Israeli researchers claims to have come up with something better than anything we’ve seen before.

Using stickers printed on soft surfaces containing electrodes that monitor and measure the activity of muscles and nerves, a team of researchers led by Prof. Dino Levy from Tel Aviv University, discovered that some people involuntarily activate muscles in their cheeks and eyebrows when they lie. No sensors had been able to measure these subtle muscle contractions before, but the innovative ones invented by Prof. Yael Hanein and sold by Israeli company X-trodes proved sensitive enough. Tests revealed a 73% success rate of lie identification, better than any existing technology.

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Unable to find the medicine his two-year-old son desperately needs in China or even import it from abroad, a loving father set up his own laboratory and synthesized the drug himself.

Two-year-old Haoyang suffers from Menkes Syndrome, an ultra-rare genetic disorder that affects how copper is processed and absorbed in the body. The boy cannot move or speak and experts claim he only has months left to live but his father refuses to give up on him. As long as he draws breath, he is determined to do everything he can for his son, even if it means teaching himself chemistry and producing the medicine Chinese authorities have been unable to provide. Xu Wei, a desperate father from southwestern Kunming, has touched millions with his determination and unwavering devotion to his ailing son.

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A Michigan woman who turned to a bogus rent-a-hitman website to have an assassin kill her ex-husband was recently convicted for solicitation of murder.

The internet is amazing. You can find just about any kind of information or service if you put in the work and do some research, but when it comes to hiring someone to be your hitman, you may want to skip the obvious options. Wendy Wein, a 52-year-old woman from Michigan who wanted her ex-husband dead, failed to do just that. She found the website RentAHitman.com and assumed that it was a legitimate business where vengeful people like her could find professionals to do their dirty work for them. It won’t surprise anyone that this wasn’t the case and that she is now facing at least nine years behind bars.

RentAHitman.com promises confidentiality, boasts about complying with HIPPA, which apparently stands for the non-existent “Hitman Information Privacy & Protection Act of 1964,” features testimonies from satisfied customers, including women who caught their husbands cheating, and offers access to a network of over 17,000 “field operatives”. And that’s apparently more than enough for people to put in an order for a hitman…

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California-based startup SpinLaunch has been making news headlines for its innovative approach to space flight – using a vacuum-sealed centrifuge to hurl rockets into space.

SpinLaunch has been working on a launch system that uses kinetic energy as its primary method. It relies on a complex mechanism that includes a vacuum-sealed centrifuge to spin the space rocket at several times the speed of sound before launching it upwards through a chute. If successful, SpinLaunch’s system could prove to be the most cost-effective and most reliable way of getting objects into outer space. The company has already had a successful launch in October, using its SpacePort suborbital accelerator in New Mexico to get a prototype vehicle tens of thousands of feet into the atmosphere.

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A Chinese man was banned from an all-you-can-eat buffet in Changsha for eating kilograms of pork and prawns on every visit, causing the business to lose too much money.

A food streamer known only as Kang told local reporters that he was banned from the Handadi Seafood BBQ Buffet in Changsha city simply because he can eat more than the average patron. He admitted that he ate around 1.5kg of pork trotters during his first visit to the restaurant and 3.5kg to 4kg of prawns on his second visit before getting banned, but considers that he is being discriminated against because of his healthy appetite. The owner of the restaurant obviously disagrees.

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Sumomomomomomomomo, a Japanese racehorse that recently claimed its maiden win, was dubbed “the horse that makes commentators cry” because of its tongue-twister name.

The three-year-old mare claimed victory at Tokyo’s Oi racecourse a couple of weeks ago and has since become somewhat of a celebrity on Japanese social media. Its name, which is based on a Japanese tongue-twister that means “plums and peaches are both peaches,” captured people’s imagination, and now everyone is rooting for her to win, just so they can hear race commentators struggling to say ‘Sumomomomomomomomo’. Just listen to NHK announcer Izumi Tanaka commentate the horse’s recent victory, and you’ll understand why people want to hear more of it.

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When gold, platinum and precious stones aren’t enough to sell custom iPhones, it’s time to bring out the good stuff, and there are few things more intriguing than real dinosaur teeth.

Caviar has been producing custom luxury variants of popular iPhone models for many years now, but this year they’re doing something completely different. After producing various types of gold-plated and diamond-encrusted iPhones, the Russian company is now introducing real dinosaur teeth as part of its arsenal. The recently-unveiled Tyrannophone is an iPhone 13 Pro made from a lightweight composite material featuring 24 K gold-plated alloy inserts. But the truly special thing about the Tyrannophone is the embossed tyrannosaurus head on the back, more precisely one of the dinosaur’s teeth, which is actually an 80 million-year-old T-Rex tooth.

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Dr Manoj Mittal, a child specialist from Haryana, in India, sparked controversy online after appearing on camera to praise the benefits of eating cow dung, while feasting on it himself.

Traditional Indian medicine has long been promoting cow dung as a cure-all that can even stave off conditions like cancer and Covid, but this didn’t include trained doctors who generally believe in things like science and clinical trials. Well, as in virtually any field, there are exceptions, and Manoj Mittal, an MD from the Karnal district of Haryana, is definitely one such exception. In a recently-posted video that has since gone viral, Mottal can be seen taking bites from a piece of cow dung and praising its benefits on the human body, mind, and soul.

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As part of this year’s Movember, Australian menswear brand Politix teamed up with visual artist Pamela Kleeman-Passi to create a unique suit using men’s mustache hair.

Movember is an annual event that encourages men all around the world to grow their mustaches in the month of November to raise awareness of serious men’s health problems, such as prostate cancer and testicular cancer. This year, Politix decided to do something special for Movember, and ultimately decided on a wearable men’s suit made using real mustache hair. It turned out to be one of the most hideous, disgusting-looking suits we’ve ever seen, but at least it’s for a good cause, and it’s a hell of a conversation starter.

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Following a penalty shootout to their Iranian rivals in a women’s football match, Jordanian officials have called on the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to launch an investigation to determine the sex of the Iranian team’s goalkeeper.

On September 25, following a goalless draw, the Iranian and Jordanian women’s football teams went to a penalty shootout to determine who would qualify to the 2022 Women’s Asian Cup. The Jordanians were heavy favorites to win the game, but the opposing goalkeeper had other plans. Zohreh Koudae saved two penalties, securing her team’s 4-2 shootout victory, and the national team’s first-ever appearance at the Women’s Asian Cup. Only the story doesn’t end here. Jordanian officials have since called on the Asian Football Confederation to investigate whether the Iranian goalkeeper is actually a woman.

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Chinese real-estate agencies are paying so-called “haunted house testers” to spend at least 24 hours in ‘stigmatized’ properties in order to convince potential buyers that they are completely safe.

Real-estate properties where “unnatural deaths” have occurred are really tough to sell, especially in markets where superstition and the belief in supernatural phenomena are strong. Japan, for example, has an agency that specializes in marketing and selling such stigmatized properties, because they don’t really appeal to the mainstream market. China does things a little differently. Apparently, real-estate agencies pay haunted house testers to spend at least one night in problematic homes to prove that they are not haunted.

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