Souq Waqif is a state-of-the-art hospital in Doha Qatar, where 150 patients are treated every day. Only patients here all have feathers, as Souq Waqif is a hospital for falcons.

To say that Qatar’s Souq Waqif Falcon Hospital is a medical facility unlike any other would be fairly accurate. But then again, few countries around the world have a falconry tradition as old as the small Arab nations. Keeping the birds in the best possible physical shape is considered an essential duty by those who choose to keep and train falconids, and many of them spare no expense doing it. So it’s really no wonder that Souq Waqif is better equipped and staffed than many human hospitals in some of the world’s most developed countries.

Founded in 2008, the Souq Waqif Falcon Hospital is located in one corner of the main square in Doha’s old city. Everything, from the shiny glass doors at the entrance to the comfortable sofas of the waiting room, lets you know that falcons are the most revered animals in Qatar.

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K Praveen, a 21-year-old man from Thiruthangal in Virudhunagar, Tamil Nadu, has a 10.8-centimeter-long tongue, according to the India Book of Records.

According to the University of Edinburgh, the average human male tongue is around 8.5-cm-long, which makes K Praveen’s tongue over 2.5cm longer, and probably the longest in the world. The young robotics student has known that his tongue was longer than usual ever since he started showing friends and family what he could do with it… And by that we mean touching the tip of his nose and his elbow with it, and almost touching his eyes. Due to a lack of funds, he has not been able to get his tongue officially measured by Guinness Records, but he did get his name in India’s own Limca Book of Records, for having the longest tongue in the country.

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Named after the Argentinian family who developed the breed in the middle of the 19th Century, Falabella is widely regarded as the world’s smallest horse breed, with an average height of just 70cm.

The origins of the Falabella breed are shouted in the mists of legend. Some say that their bloodline can be traced back to the Andalusian and Iberian breeds that the Spanish conquistadores brought with them to South America. When the Spanish were driven off, the horses were left to fend for themselves in a harsh, resource-poor environment. As a result, by the mid-19th century, smaller, inbred animals were being observed in the herds of Mapuche, in southern Buenos Aires province. It was these specimens that were specifically bred to create even smaller animals, which eventually led to the creation of the modern Falabella breed we know today.

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Cliff Young is a legend among ultra-marathon runners, and for good reason – at age 61, the Australian potato farmer became the unlikely winner of the grueling Westfield Sydney-Melbourne Ultra Marathon.

Every year, thousands of seasoned runners from all over the world gather in Australia to take part in one of the most difficult ultra-marathons on the planet. As the name suggests, the Westfield Sydney-Melbourne Ultra Marathon has competitors running from Sydney to Melbourne, a distance of 543.7-miles (875 kilometers). The first man to win this endurance race remains its most famous participant to date – a 61-year-old potato farmer who ran the whole thing wearing overalls and work boots, and beat the runner up by 10 hours.

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A London bachelor is taking extreme measures to increase his chances of finding a wife – renting subway advertising banners in the English capital to get as much exposure as possible.

If you’ve passed through the Oxford Circus subway station in London during the last few days, you’ve probably seen a couple of unusual advertising banners plastered on the walls. They show a man in a pink suit who is apparently looking for a suitable wife. That man is 31-year-old Jeevan Bhachu and he wants everyone to know that he is not kidding. He really is looking to get hitched, and since the pandemic has made conventional dating problematic, he decided to go for a more straightforward approach.

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What do you get if you mix a bird, a squirrel and a lizard? Well, I think you’ll have a tough time finding a better answer than the Great Eared Nightjar.

Seeing a great eared nightjar for the first time, you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a squirrel or even a lizard. The fact is it kind of looks like a combination of animals, or even a real-live version of Toothless, the dragon from DreamWorks Studios’ hit animation “How to Train Your Dragon“. You could say it’s living proof that birds are more closely related to dinosaurs than reptiles.

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Carlos Henrique Raposo, aka Carlos Kaiser, is a Brazilian former football player known primarily for having a decade-long career without actually playing a single game.

As children, most people grow up dreaming of one day becoming sports champions, despite an obvious lack of athletic abilities. Most of us realize this to be nothing more than an impossible dream and move on, but a few still manage to find ways of making their goal a reality, by any means necessary. This is the story of Carlos Henrique Raposo, a Brazilian athlete who “wanted to be a footballer, but did not want to play football”. Believe it or not, he managed to be just, playing for top-ranked Brazilian and international clubs for over a decade. ‘Playing’ may not be the right word, though, as he never actually played an official game in his entire 12-year-long career.

Carlos Kaiser – nicknamed earned due to his alleged resemblance to German football legend Franz Beckenbauer – always knew that he had the physique of a professional football player, but not the necessary talent and skills to make the roster of top football clubs, so he relied on a variety of tricks to build himself up as this great player that every team was after.

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Klee Kai – literally “little dog” in an Alaskan indigenous dialect – is a fairly new dog breed designed as a smaller version of the popular Alaskan Husky.

The husky is one of the world’s most beloved dog breeds, but it’s no secret that their medium-to-large frame requires a lot of space, making them less-than-ideal apartment pets. Luckily, if you can’t settle for any other dog breed, you’ll be happy to know that there is such a thing as a miniature husky. Developed in the 1970s by an Alaskan breeder, the Klee Kai is a considerably smaller version of the Alaskan Husky that features the same iconic appearance and developed intellect that huskies are famous for.

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When it comes to dairy alternatives, we already have a lot of “milks” to choose from, but the latest alternative could prove to be a game-changer due to how available and cheap its main ingredient is.

Potato milk doesn’t sound like the most delicious thing in the world, but then again, neither does oat milk or soy milk and look how popular they turned out to be. Not to mention that this new dairy alternative is apparently “deliciously creamy” and works great for homemade lattes and cappuccinos. Plus, the humble potato uses a lot less land and resources than other plants that are currently used for milk, which makes both the vegetable and the milk more affordable.

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A 56-year-old man from Turkey has spent the last fourteen months of his life in isolation, testing positive for Covid-19 no less than 78 times ever since becoming infected in November of 2020.

Muzaffer Kayasan from Turkey has been confined to hospitals and his own home for over a year, and is desperately looking for a way to get back to his old life. After becoming infected with a strain of the coronavirus back in November of 2020, Kaysan was hospitalized and treated until his illness became less severe. He got over the worse symptoms of Covid-19, but the virus remained in his system, and every test he has undergone since has turned out positive, forcing him to remain in isolation, either in the hospital or at home.

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Indian police recently arrested a disgruntled charity worker accused of setting fire to a bank branch in Karnataka after being denied a loan.

33-year-old Wasim Hazaratsab Mulla, a charity worker from Haveri, approached state-run Canara Bank for a loan of 1.6 million rupees ($21,600) in December of last year. His application was eventually denied, because of discrepancies in the submitted paperwork which broke the bank’s credit policy. Wasim allegedly didn’t take the news too kindly, riding his motorcycle to the bank branch on Sunday, January 9th, breaking open a window to spray a flammable liquid inside and setting the building on fire.

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The Tamaskan is a relatively new and rare breed of dog created with the specific purpose of mimicking the looks of a grey wolf without any genetic relation to the wild predator.

In the 1980s, a group of British dog breeders set out on a mission to develop a new dog breed with a wolf-like appearance. To that end, they combined German Shepherds, Siberian Huskies, Alaskan Malamutes, and Samoyeds, and the Tamaskan was one of the breeds they came up with. However, some experts believe that crossing this new breed with the Czechoslovakian Wolfdog made the Tamaskan what it is today. But while the Tamaskan may look like an actual wolf, or at least a close cousin, genetically speaking, there is no relation between the two species. The Tamaskan is all dog.

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Karne Garibaldi, a popular restaurant in Guadalajara, holds the Guinness record for the world’s fastest food service: 13.5 seconds from order time until the food hits the table.

Usually, when visiting a popular award-winning restaurant, you expect waiting times to be on the long side, but that’s definitely not the case at Karne Garibaldi, a restaurant best known for its carne en su jugo dish and for having the world’s fastest order time. After patrons finish giving their orders to the waiters, it takes just over a dozen seconds before the plates hit their tables, which, as those who have eaten there at least once will tell you, is downright impressive. Karne Garibaldi has held the world record for the world’s fastest food service (13.5 seconds) since 1996.

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Researchers in China claim to have developed an advanced AI that is reportedly capable of identifying crimes and filing charges against those suspected of committing them.

There is no denying that advancements in artificial intelligence are being made at breakneck speeds and that many of us will one day lose our jobs to a tireless machine, but I doubt anyone imagined prosecutors would find their jobs threatened by machines anytime soon. And yet, if Chinese researchers are to be believed, there is already an AI system that can replace human prosecutors “to a certain extent” and file a charge with over 97 percent accuracy, based on a description of a suspected criminal case.

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Harold Lloyd is known as both one of Hollywood’s legendary stars of early 1900s silent comedy, and as the owner of a year-long Christmas tree adorned with over 5,000 colorful decorations.

If you think yourself the kind of person that goes over the top when decorating the family Christmas tree, don’t beat yourself up too hard, as you’ll probably never be as obsessed with Christmas decorations as Harold Lloyd. The Hollywood legend, who starred in such films as Safety Last! (1923) and High and Dizzy (1920), is said to have had a collection of over 8,000 decorations collected from all over the world. But what he is most famous for is using most of these eye-catching baubles to decorate an impressive Christmas tree that is now regarded by many as the most adorned Christmas tree that ever was.

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