Sports equipment giant Wilson recently unveiled a 3D-printed basketball prototype that does not need to be inflated and features a see-through lattice design.

Basketball technology has come a long way since the early days of the sport when real stitched leather was used as the main material, but Wilson is trying to change the game completely with an intriguing concept that completely does away with pneumatic pressure. Instead, the Wilson Airless Prototype relies on the elasticity of its “research-grade” polymer material to produce the same bounce as traditional basketballs. This eliminates the need to inflate the ball to a certain pressure, as well as known problems like puncture risks, and air escaping through the inflation valve over long periods of time.

Read More »

Most people would go out of their way to avoid ending up behind bars, but one Utah man actually robbed a bank for only $1 just so he could get arrested and thrown into federal prison.

65-year-old Donald Santacroce just pulled off one of the most bizarre bank robberies in history. He reportedly walked into a Wells Fargo Bank near 300 South Main Street in Salt Lake City on Monday morning and handed over a note to one of the tellers. The piece of paper read “Please pardon me for doing this but this is a robbery. Please give me $1.00 Thank you.” The teller must have thought it was a joke, because they complied with Santacroce’s demand, but also asked him to leave with his $1. Only he told them that he had just robbed the bank and that they should probably call the police. He then sat down in the bank lobby and waited to be arrested…

Read More »

A father who caught his young son playing video games on his phone at 1 am on a school night punished him by making him play on his phone until he could play no more.

Too much of a good thing becomes harmful or bothersome over a large period of time, and one Chinese boy from Shenzen found this out the hard way a couple of days ago, when his father caught him playing video games on his phone after midnight, despite knowing he had to get up for school the next morning. The parent told the Metropolis Times that he was furious when he found his son playing on his phone when he should have been sound asleep, but he didn’t know how to react at first. He wanted to teach the boy a lesson he wouldn’t easily forget, so instead of scolding the boy he just told him that he could play on his phone instead of sleeping, adding that he could even take a day off from school so he could play some more.

Read More »

An Argentinian teacher must have had the shock of her life when coming to school for the opening day to find a large banner accusing her of sleeping with the married father of one of her students.

The first day of school is usually one full of joy and excitement for both students, teachers and parents, but that was not the case at one Buenos Aires school where the general feeling was one of shock. Parents taking their kids to school and faculty coming to greet them were treated to a rather bizarre sight – large handwritten banner hanging outside the school gates accusing a certain member of the faculty of ‘ruining a family’ by sleeping with one of her student’s father despite knowing that he was married.

Read More »

The Japanese town of Tsuruta is famous for hosting a unique annual competition – a popular game of tug of war in which bald men attach suction cups to their heads and pull in opposite directions.

The Covid-19 pandemic threw a wrench in all aspects of Japanese society, but it’s fair to say that social gatherings and events were among the most impacted. Tsuruta, a town in Japan’s Aomori Prefecture, recently held its annual “Suction Cup Tug-of-War” tournament for the first time in three years, and it was just as fun as people remembered. Thought up by the Tsuruta Hagemasu Association as a way of shedding a positive light on baldness, suction cup tug-of-war is a fun game in which two people sitting opposite from each other attach suction cups connected through a string to their heads and pull. The person whose suction cup detaches first loses.

Read More »

Amanita phalloides, commonly known as the ‘death cap’ mushroom, has always fascinated scientists both because of its deadly amatoxins and the way it manages to conquer new lands in record time.

The death cap originated in Europe where it grows by burrowing into the roots of European Oak trees and forming a symbiotic relationship with them, but it has somehow managed to colonize every single continent except Antarctica. This impressive feat has been puzzling scientists for years, because of how fast the process seemed to be. Most likely introduced in California sometime in the 19th century, by hitching a ride with soil-potted seedlings from Europe, the poisonous mushroom quickly spread across the US state, from the Bay Area further up the coast, eventually becoming more abundant than in its native Europe. After decades of research, scientists now know how the rapid conquest happened.

Read More »

Remote Kiss, a bizarre phone accessory that recently hit the Chinese market, allegedly allows users to experience the intimacy of kissing even when they are thousands of miles apart.

Advertised as a way to allow long-distance couples to experience physical intimacy, Remote Kiss relies on pressure sensors, actuators, and soft silicone to recreate the user’s kisses anywhere in the world, as long as the recipient also has a Remote Kiss and an internet connection. According to some sources, the weird gadget can even detect and replicate the temperature of a user’s lips, as well as the sounds of someone’s kiss. Remote Kiss has been available on Chinese online marketplace Taobao for some time now, but it only recently went viral after people started sharing photos of the product on social media.

Read More »

Danish startup Autofuel has developed a robotic arm capable of refueling a variety of vehicles at gas stations without any kind of human assistance.

A Neste fuel station in Finland is currently the only place in the world where you can have your car refueled by a robot. It’s the pilot site chosen by Autofuel to test its futuristic refueling system – a robotic arm that can locate a car’s fuel tank door, select the right type of fuel, and operate the pump without any kind of human assistance. The third-generation Autofuel robotic arm has been in testing for over a year, and the Danish company is planning to start public testing later this year. Although it may be a while before refueling robots become mainstream, Autofuel believes they will become invaluable when truly autonomous vehicles finally hit the roads.

  Read More »

Swedish company Mo’cycle recently announced the world’s first airbag jeans which offer impact protection for motorcyclists’ lower body in case of accidents.

Inflatable accessories that protect motorcyclists in case of accidents are nothing new. We’ve seen helmets with inflatable add-ons that act as a cushion, and backpack-like strap-ons designed to protect the wearer’s back from impact, but Swedish startup Mo’cycle claims to have created the world’s first airbag jeans. Made out of Armalith, a special fabric that looks and feels like actual denim, but is actually water-repellent and abrasion-resistant, the inflatable jeans come with built-in airbags that get triggered during motorcycle accidents to protect the rider’s lower body.

Read More »

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).

Read More »

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.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

Lajamanu, a remote community in the Australian outback, near the Tanami Desert, recently experienced its fourth rain of fish in the last 50 years.

They say lightning never strikes in the same place twice, but apparently the same cannot be said about raining fish. The arid town of Lajamanu, in the Northern Territory outback, sees very little normal rain, but somehow it has experienced no less than four ‘fish rains’ in the last half-century – once in 1974, another in 2004, again in 2010, and last Sunday. Although the nearest fish-containing body of water is many miles away, locals swear that live fish started falling from the sky during a powerful storm, and they even have photos to back up those claims.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

Sandry Riffard is a talented tattoo artist from France who specializes in macabre hyperrealism with a three-dimensional layer.

We’ve featured some amazing tattoo art over the last 15 years, from titans of the trade like Arlo DiCristina and Karol Rybakowski, to talented newcomers carving out their own niches, like Eduardo “Duda” Lozano or Mexican artist Yatzil Elizalde, but when it comes to hyperrealistic macabre tattoos, it’s tough finding someone better. The French artist has always had a thing for horror-inspired art, but he has come so far in the last few years, setting himself apart from other practitioners of the style with some incredible projects.

Read More »