Henneguya salminicola, a tadpole-like parasite that infects salmon, has a rather unique superpower – it can survive without oxygen.

When examining Henneguya salminicola, researchers noticed something really strange: the microscopic parasite appeared to have no mitochondrial genome. The mitochondria, commonly known as “the powerhouses of the cell”, are organelles that rely on oxygen in order to produce energy. At first, scientists at Tel Aviv University thought it was a mistake, so they ran the analysis again, and confirmed that the parasite had no mitochondrial genome at all, meaning it did not generate energy the way all other known animals do. Although other single-cell organisms, like amoebas and fungi, have also developed the ability to survive in anaerobic environments, no animals – Henneguya salminicola qualifies as one despite having less than 10 cells – had been known to do that until now.

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A 25-year-old man wound up in the emergency room with a collapsed lung after straining himself while singing karaoke at a friend’s birthday party.

Chinese media recently reported the bizarre case of a young man from Changsha, in China’s Hunan Province, who suffered a serious lung injury by trying to reach the high-pitch tones during a karaoke session. The man, known as Wang Zhe, reportedly attended a friend’s birthday party and decided to show off his voice by singing “New Drunken Concubine”, a song famous for the high-pitched tones it demands. When he reached the high-pitched part for the song, the 25-year-old man really gave it his all, only to feel a sharp pain in his chest which made him cut his act short. The pain was bearable, though, so he didn’t pay too much attention to it until the next day, when he found that he could barely breathe.

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Roberto Cazzaniga, a well-known Italian volleyball player, was scammed out of over $800,000 over 15 years by a scammer who posed as his online girlfriend and used photos of famous Brazilian supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio.

The current captain of the Gioia Del Colle volleyball club was introduced to his online girlfriend by a mutual friend, Manuela, who turned out to be the one behind this unbelievable scam. Using the fictional name ‘Maya’, the woman started sending Cazzaniga photos of Brazilian supermodel and Victoria’s Secret angel, Alessandra Ambrosio. The Italian athlete fell for her immediately and became involved in a very expensive 15-year-long online relationship with the scammer.

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Russian robotics company Promobot recently announced plans to buy the rights to use someone’s face and voice on its robots forever for the price of $200,000.

Known for producing hyper-realistic, humanlike robots, Promobot is currently developing “a humanoid robot-assistant which will work in hotels, shopping malls and other crowded places,” and is in the market for a “kind and friendly” face to use on it. To that end, the Russian startup has announced that it is ready to pay $200,000 to anyone willing to transfer the rights to their face to Promobot forever. The company clarified that it will accept applications from people of all races and genders, with the ‘age 25 and over’ being the only requirement mentioned.

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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 a unique gesture of appreciation and love, an Indian man built a scaled-down replica of the iconic Taj Mahal as a “monument of love” for his wife of 27 years.

The original Taj Mahal, the most famous building in all of India, was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died while giving birth to their 14th child. It’s one of the world’s most iconic symbols of love, so one businessman from Madhya Pradesh decided that it was the perfect inspiration for his own tribute to his spouse. He paid a reported 20 million rupees ($260,000) to have a construction team build a four-bedroom replica of the Taj Mahal, complete with intricate latticework, minarets, and a luxurious interior fit for a queen.

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Armed with an Xacto knife and mountains of patience, Japanese artist Gaku turns all kinds of fruits and vegetables into ephemeral works of art.

Inspired by the Japanese traditional food carving art mukimono, Gaku takes fruits or vegetables from the grocery store and carves them into a variety of intriguing patterns, from geometrical designs to traditional motifs and symbols, and even animal models. But apart from the skill and patience required to create these stunning food carvings, the most impressive thing about Gaku is his speed, as many times the artistic process is a race against time to make sure that oxidation doesn’t ruin his artwork. Weh working on apples or other produce that tends to oxidize quickly, he has to finish his designs in just a few minutes and still have time to photograph them.

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While the vast majority of bee species rely on the pollen and nectar of flowers for nutrients, a few so-called “vulture bees” have evolved to feast on carrion, just like vultures or hyenas.

It was only a few decades ago that entomologists made the rather staggering discovery that not all bees feed on pollen and nectar. Deep in the rainforests of Costa Rica they found three bee species that seemed to prefer dead flesh to flowers. In a recently-published study, scientists revealed that these “vulture bees” had gut bacteria that appeared to thrive in acidic environments, just like the bacteria found in the guts of other carrion-loving creatures, like vultures and hyenas. Another surprising discovery was that, despite their unusual diet, the vulture bees still produced sweet honey.

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Finland is Europe’s largest producer of fox fur, but undercover investigations have repeatedly shown that arctic fox farms engage in dubious practices, such as fattening the animals until they become deformed, just to increase their fur yield.

Despite a concentrated effort by PETA and many high-profile celebrities to deter the general public from buying natural animal fur, the fur trade has been booming. Around 100 million animals are killed for their fur every year, and the industry is worth tens of billions of dollars. While China is by far the world’s largest fur producer, thanks in great part to the lack of concrete animal welfare legislation, Finland is the largest fur producer in Europe, and the conditions in its animal farms are worse than you can probably imagine. Millions of arctic foxes are kept in tiny metal cages with no bedding, very little light, and are stuffed with food until they become deformed so that more fur can be harvested from them.

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Julie Rhodes is a UK-based artist who specializes in photo-like hyperrealistic paintings of wildlife, particularly big cats like lions and tigers.

You’d be forgiven for mistaking Julie Rhodes’ paintings for photographs, as the differences are very hard to spot for the untrained eye. From her subjects’ intricate fur patterns, to the perfect coloring of the cats’ thick coats and the reflections in their eyes, these paintings are almost perfect. A professional artist with over 20 years of experience, Rhodes specializes mainly in paintings of big cats (lions, tigers, and leopards) but doesn’t shy away from portraying other animals as well, like elephants and zebras.

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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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