Most commuters in Munich, Germany, spend hours stuck in traffic or trying to squeeze into one of the overcrowded subway trains, every morning, but for 40-year-old Benjamin David, commuting is actually a relaxing experience. Every day, he jumps into the Isar River and swims two kilometers to his workplace in Kulturstrand.

Benjamin David used to be one of the thousands of Münchners trying to make their way to work on busy roads and cycling paths, but two years ago he decided that he needed to find a simpler alternative and the Isar River seemed like the obvious answer. It flows right past his apartment in Baldeplatz, and, even though no one has been using it for traveling purposes in decades, it used to be the best ways to get around. People traveled up and down the Isar using rafts, and, at one point, it was one of the most popular routes between Rome and Vienna. But instead of paddling on a raft, Benjamin decided to swim to work instead, and that’s been his main commute for the past two years.

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At age 10, Caden Benjamin, from Mpumalanga, South Africa already tips the scales at a whopping 90 kg. He suffers from a rare genetic disorder known as Prader-Willi syndrome, which makes him feel hungry all the time.

Caden was always a hungry child, but his mother, Zola, realized that there was something unusual about his appetite at age 3, when he already weighed 40 kilograms. He took the boy to several doctors, but no one could explain why he was so hungry all the time and gaining so much weight. Finally, a doctor at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria ran some tests and diagnosed Caden with Prader-Willi syndrome, an incurable condition that affects about 20 000 people worldwide.

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A 44-year-old man from Quzhou, China’s Zhejiang province, was recently hospitalized with severe kidney problems, after eating a whopping 54 ice creams in one sitting, and washing them down with ice water.

The man, surnamed Zheng, was at his home, on July 15, when he began to feel the effects of the heatwaves that have been sweeping China for the last few weeks. Tired and dehydrated after a hot day, Zheng went to his refrigerator and grabbed an ice cream to cool off. Problem was that that first ice-cream only made him crave another, and then another, so he kept eating them until he went through all the 54 frozen treats he had in his fridge. I’ve never head of anyone having that many ice-creams in their home, but apparently this guy did.

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Filmmakers usually strive to make their productions as entertaining and engaging as possible, but the people behind “Baa Baa Land”, an epic 8-hour movie scheduled for release this September, set out to do just the opposite. With no dialogue, no plot and no human actors, just lots and lots of sheep, the so-called “world’s dullest movie” was designed to put viewers to sleep.

Produced by Calm, a company that produces mindfulness meditation products, Baa Baa Land is being advertised as “the ultimate insomnia cure” and “better than a sleeping pill”. It was filmed in Essex, England, and consists of slow motion shots of sheep in a field. Basically, nothing happens for eight hours, but that was the whole the whole point. Producer Peter Freedman, said that he believed it could be the dullest film ever made, adding: “We hope that audiences will, too”.

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Asian media is abuzz with talk and photos of a 50-year-old Singaporean photographer who doesn’t look a day over 30. His name is Chuando Tan and to say that he has aged well would be a gross understatement.

I can think of quite a few celebrities in their 50s who look very well for their age, but looking at these photos of Chuando Tan just makes you scratch your head and scroll up to the title of the article to make sure you read his age correctly. I was skeptical about his age after finding some photos of him on an obscure Chinese website, but several online sources have already confirmed that the man is actually in his 50s, including The Straits Times, which did an interview with him 2001.

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Cancer therapy is known to cause patients’ hair to fall off, but a few new cancer drugs apparently have a completely different side effect – they restore pigment in older people’s gray hair.

Spanish researchers testing three new cancer drugs – Keytruda, Opdivo and Tecentriq – for negative side-effects in cancer patients made a very surprising discovery. After using the drugs, 14 of the 52 patients involved in the study saw their gray hair go brown or black again. The findings were recently reported in a paper published in the JAMA medical journal.

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Khim Hang, a 74-year-old woman from Cambodia’s Kratie province, recently made news headlines around the world, after it was reported that she shares her home with a 5-month-old calf, which she believes is a reincarnation of her dead husband.

Khim was devastated by the sudden death of her husband, Tol Khut, a year ago, but she is convinced that he has come back to her as a calf. Born in march, the young cow believed to be Tol reincarnated, allegedly has some of the man’s habits, and only licks the hands of his relatives. For this reason, he is allowed to spend time in the family home, and is even tucked into bed at night by Khim and her children.

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Surgeons at Guanji Hospital, in Hezhou, China, recently spent six hours removing over 200 stones from a woman’s gallbladder and liver, some of them the size of small eggs.

The patient, a 45-year-old woman known only as Ms. Chen, had apparently been experiencing abdominal pain for over a decade. When she first went to a hospital about it, an examination revealed several stones in her gallbladder and liver as the cause. Doctors advised her to undergo surgery and have them removed, but she was too scared to go under the knife. She only recently went to Guanji Hospital, when the pain became “unbearable”.

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60-year-old Atifa Ljajic and her husband, Serif Nokic (68), from Serbia, had been trying to have a baby for over 20 years. When no one thought it was even possible anymore, the miracle happened. Atifa recently gave birth to a healthy girl, but on the same day, her husband left them, claiming that raising a baby at his age would be damaging to his health.

Atifa Jjajic is the second oldest mother in the history of Serbia. She had been trying to get pregnant for over two decades, but all the treatments she underwent proved unsuccessful. Over the last few years, she attempted to become pregnant through in-vitro fertilization five times, and on the last attempt, she managed to take her pregnancy to term and give birth to a beautiful baby girl. It was the happiest day of Atifa’s life, but only for a few hours, because on that very same day, her husband announced that he was leaving them, because raising a baby at age 68 would be detrimental to his health.

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The sight of a single bee buzzing around is enough to drive some people into a frenzy, but one family in China has somehow been living with an entire beehive in their living room for 12 years. They even collect the honey from it and sell it for a small profit.

Remember the BEEcosystem, that observational beehive that lets you keep bees inside your home as pets? Well, it turns out you don’t need it. You can just let bees build their own beehive on your furniture and let them fly around freely. It sounds crazy, but one family in China is proof that it can be done, and not just for a few days or weeks, but over a decade.

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Liam Derbyshire was born with a very rare congenital disease that causes him to stop breathing every time he falls asleep. Doctors told his parents that he wouldn’t live past six weeks, but the boy has defied the odds and will soon turn 18-years-old.

Liam suffers from a condition known as central hypoventilation, or “Ondine’s Curse”, after a nymph from French folk stories. Ondine fell in love with a man called Palemon, and at their wedding, he vowed to love her with his every breath. So when the nymph later discovered his infidelity, she cursed him: “You pledged faithfulness to me with your every waking breath and I accepted that pledge. So be it. For as long as you are awake, you shall breathe. But should you ever fall into sleep, that breath will desert you.” Totally normal stuff for a folk tale, but a similar curse actually exists in real life.

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An unnamed man from Guilin, China, has melted the hearts of millions after it was reported that he has been dressing as a woman ever since his sister passed away, 20 years ago, in order to console his grieving mother.

A Pear video showing a man wearing a traditional cheongsam dress while looking after his mother, recently went viral, having been watched over 4 million times. He isn’t just any cross-dresser, in fact, he doesn’t even prefer women’s clothes, but he has been wearing them exclusively for two decades, in order to make his old mother happy. The woman had begun showing signs of mental illness following the death of her daughter, so one day he put on a woman’s dress, just to make her happy. She liked it so much that he kept doing it for 20 years.

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Egypt’s Al Nour Wal Amal orchestra is one of the world’s most remarkable musical ensembles. It consists of around 48 blind women from Cairo who have to rely solely on their memory when performing complicated compositions by classic composers like Mozart, Brahms, Strauss or Tchaikovsky.

Learning to play instruments like violin, chello or flute is a difficult process, but can you imagine mastering any of them without ever being able to see them? That’s what would-be members of the Al Nour Wal Amal orchestra have to do in order to become a part of the ensemble. And, once they’ve finally mastered their chosen instrument, they have to train their memory in order to be able to store up to 45 composition pieces in their heads, to be able to perform a concert, all while keeping in sync with the other members during a performance. It seems impossible, but these incredible women are living proof that it can be done.

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In January 2017, a series of fires in central Chile’s La Maue region burned down over 457,000 hectares of forest, leaving behind nothing but charred ground. Now, three border collies are helping replant it all by doing what they love most, running.

Das, Olivia, and Summer, three female border collies have been working hard to bring the fire-devastated forest back to life, since March. Not that they know how hard or how important their work is, since they are essentially running and playing. The dogs’ owner, 32-year-old Francisca Torres, takes them to various areas of charred forest in her truck, equips them with special vests that come with special satchels which she fills with seeds of endemic plants. Then the dogs are sent out to run around and spread as many seeds as they can. When they return, she rewards them with snacks, fills up their satchels and sends them out on another run.

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Ginza Ladis 1, a private investigation services company in Japan, seems to think that having someone talk your cheating partner’s lover into ending the relationship is the best way to get your love life back on track.

Welcome to Japan, the country where you can rent a person for virtually anything, from posing as your boyfriend and cuddling, to hanging out and even wiping your tears at work. Whatever your needs, you can probably find someone willing to cater to them, for a fee. Now you can add relationship fixer to that list, thanks to the unique services offered by a private investigation company in Tokyo. Ginza Ladis 1 is renting out actors to befriend your cheating spouse’s partner and convince them to break up with them, so you don’t have to.

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