For at lest 300 years, hikers in California’s Santa Lucia Mountains have been reporting sightings of shadowy, mysterious silhouettes popularly known as “dark watchers”.

The first reports of giant figures ominously perched on mountaintops date back to the 1700s, when the Spanish first came to California. They were actually the first to dub these mysterious strangers “los Vigilantes Oscuros” (the dark watchers), but the first Anglo-American settlers that came after them reported similar sightings, and the figures eventually became part of the local folklore. The strange thing is that dark watchers still show themselves to hikers in the Santa Lucia Mountains, and some have even been captured on camera.

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Media outlets worldwide have been reporting the shocking case of a young Turkish woman who had allegedly been allegedly conning her poor mother into sending her money by claiming that she was studying medicine at the prestigious Oxford University, in the UK. In reality, she was living it up while working as a real estate agent in Istanbul.

25-year-old Merve Bozkurt has attracted a lot of criticism for her actions, after it was revealed that she had been lying to her penniless mother for years, as a way of getting extra money from her. The woman went to great lengths to make her parent believe that she had been admitted at the prestigious English university, where she was studying to become a doctor. She even sent her mother photos of herself wearing a white robe and face mask, to create the illusion that she was doing hands-on medical training. All the while, the poor mother was selling flowers in front of a cemetery in the city of Antakya, to support her daughter.

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In an age when AI-controlled digital news anchors exist, and digitally-rendered Instagram influencers have millions of adoring fans, it’s really no surprise that people are turning to so-called deepfake technology to enhance their looks and reach online stardom.

Asian social media has been buzzing about this young South Korean youtuber who goes by the moniker ‘RuiCovery’ ever since she outed herself as a “virtual human”. Apparently, that means that everything about her is real, except the face. Her hair, her body, her voice are all real, but the face is digitally rendered using deepfake technology. The revelation was shocking, especially to her fans, none of which had ever noticed anything out of the ordinary about the female YouTuber. The news once again brought deepfake into the spotlight and ignited a debate about the need to regulate it in order to prevent its use with malicious intent.

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The Malayan leaf frog, a.k.a long-nosed horned frog, is one of the most remarkable creatures on Earth, at least in terms of natural camouflage.

We’ve featured some truly impressive masters of camouflage in the past, from the dead leaf butterfly to a plant that evolved to mimic the rocky terrain it grows on, but the Malayan leaf frog is definitely up there with the best of them. As an ambush hunter that waits for unsuspecting prey to cross its path, this amphibian needs to remain unnoticed for as long as possible, and what better way to do that than blend into the leaf-covered forest floor it calls home? Its unique physical features make it almost impossible to visually detect in its natural habitat, and looking at the photos below, it’s easy to see why.

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A website that maps Japan’s noisiest and most annoying neighborhoods to help people avoid public nuisances when looking for a place to live has sparked controversy, with many accusing it of criticizing normal behavior, like children crying or speaking loudly.

While Japan is still sometimes portrayed as this serene, and calm land, in reality it is one of the nosiest countries on the planet. With over 90% of its 126 million-strong population living in urban areas, noise pollution is a part of daily life, and it’s no wonder that many are valuing peace and quiet more than ever. Japan has even coined a special term that describes the kind of person who talks loudly and generally acts as a public nuisance, completely disregarding the people around them. They are called “dorozoku” or “street tribe”, and they are the focus of a controversial online platform that maps Japanese neighborhoods likely to be plagued by them.

DQN Today is the brainchild of a 40-something freelance web developer from Yokohama, who has allegedly been working from home for the last 12 years. Back in 2016, after finding himself unable to work on some days due to the constant ruckus made by noisy children hanging around his home, the man, who preferred to remain anonymous, decided to create an online crowdsourcing website where people could map and share their experience with dorozoku.

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If you suffer from shy bladder syndrome, good luck using the bathroom at this Lithuanian restaurant, which makes you feel like you’re being watched by dozens of people.

The bathroom at Galeria Urbana, a restaurant in Kaunas, Lithuania, first made news headlines in 2018, when photos of its unique décor went viral online. The restaurant commissioned Gyva Grafika, a creative design and décor studio, to artistically redecorate the restroom, but made it very clear that they did not feel comfortable replacing the wall tiles. That didn’t stop the creative geniuses at Gyva Grafika from implementing their vision, even if it meant thinking outside the box.

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Ever seen a tortoise the size of a fly? How about a golden one that can actually fly? Well, today’s your lucky day, as you get to discover one of nature’s shiny treasures – the golden tortoise beetle.

Before you open a fresh tab to search if these adorable critters are real or just the result of digital editing, make sure you use the species scientific name, aspidimorpha sanctaecrucis, as “golden tortoise beetle” is a really common name shared by a number of beetles, like charidotella sexpunctata, among others. What makes this species of beetle special is that the gold pattern on their transparent protective carapace actually makes them look like tiny tortoises.

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In an attempt to gather data on the effects of long-term isolation without any notion of time on the human brain, 15 volunteers will spend 40 days in a cave in Ariège, in the south of France.

In what is being described as a “world first”, eight men and seven women will be spending 40 days isolated in a large cave, without phones, watches or any type of device that could help them tell time. The project is called Deep Time and it’s the brain child of Franco-Swiss explorer Christian Clot, who himself is one of the participants. He along with the 40 other volunteers will started their “timeless life” experiment today, and will be spending the next 40 days isolated in a large cave in the Pyrénées mountains. They are all equipped with sensors allowing a dozen scientists to follow them from the surface.

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The Polar Bear Hotel, part of the Harbin Polarland theme park in Heilongjiang, China, opened its gates this week to full bookings and criticism from animal lovers, after it was reported that all the rooms offer guests round the clock viewing of a polar bear enclosure.

Marketed as the world’s first “polar bear hotel”, the newest attraction at Harbin Polarland was jointly designed by famous Russian designer Kozylenko Natalia Yefremovna and Japanese theme park designer Shuji Miyajima. It’s built around a small polar bear enclosure, allowing guests to look at two captive polar bears both from the ground floor and from any of the 21 rooms available. The concept has attracted a lot of attention, both from people willing to pay a premium to book a room, and from animal activists who accused the establishment of profiting from the animal’s misery.

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Blackbird is a unique stone violin carved by Swedish sculptor Lars Widenfalk, based on drawings by Stradivarius, but with modifications that allow it to be played.

Lars Widenfalk came up with the idea of creating a violin out of stone in the late 1980s, while chiseling away at a piece of diabase and being impressed by the pleasant sound it made when hit with hammer and chisel. It wasn’t until 1990 that he finally got his hands on a piece of diabase large enough to be sculpted into a life-size violin, but as soon as he did, he got to work. In the end, he needed a second piece for the back of the violin, but after two years of hard work, Blackbird, the stone violin named after the homonymous bird, was finally completed.

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Deep Cave in Edwards County, Texas has more than one entrance, but daredevils prefer to use one so tight that it can make claustrophobes extremely uncomfortable just looking at it.

Videos of spelunkers literally squeezing themselves into Deep Cave through this incredibly tight hole in the ground have been doing the rounds online for years now, but frankly, they never get old. It’s terrifying, it’s electrifying, it’s something you don’t really want to see, but can’t really stop either. Even if you don’t really have a problem with tight spaces, seeing people going down this little hole is guaranteed to make your palms a little sweaty.

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Airparks, or fly-in communities, are residential neighborhoods designed specifically for people who own their own light airplanes and want to keep them parked in their driveways.

Apparently, there are around 650 airparks around the world, not exactly a small number, so why do so few people know they exist? Well, it may have something to do that most of us can’t afford out own personal airplane, let alone a house design to accommodate it. Living in one of these fly-in communities isn’t cheap. For example, the only available home in California’s Cameron Airpark Estates, one of the world’s nicest airparks, is currently listed on Zillow for $1.5 million. But that’s the price you pay for living in a place where light airplanes are as common, if not more so, than cars.

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It’s been 10 years since Yasuo Takamatsu lost his wife Yuko when a devastating tsunami hit the town of Onagawa, in Miyagi prefecture, but he continues to search for her every week.

On the day that Yuko disappeared, in 2011, Yasuo Takamatsu received one last text message from her. It read “Are you ok? I want to go home.” He has been looking for her ever since, and doesn’t plant to stop until he finds her or he stops drawing breath. In the beginning, the grieving husband searched for Yuko on land, starting at the bank where she was last seen, then along the beaches of Onagawa, in nearby forests and mountains. Two years after her disappearance, Yasuo contacted the local dive shop asking for diving lessons, so he could start searching for her in the sea. He has been going on weekly dives for the past seven and a half years, racking up almost 500 underwater searches.

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Japanese researchers recently the incredible ability of a sea slug to basically sever its own head and simply grow a new body, complete with fresh vital organs.

Autotomy, the behavior whereby an animal sheds or discards one or more of its own appendages, usually as self-defense mechanism, only to grow them back later, is well documented in the animal world. However, autotomy usually involves limbs or tails, appendages that don’t feature vital organs, whish is why a sea slug that can apparently sever its own head and then grow a new body complete with these vital organs has stunned scientists.

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Love Lake, a heart-shaped, man-made lake located in the desert near Dubai, is probably one of the most impressive attractions for romantic couples visiting the Middle-East.

From its iconic palm-shaped island, to skyscrapers like the Burj Khalifa, Dubai has no shortage of world-renowned attractions, but there is a lot more to discover in the desert around the most populated city in the UAE. One such hidden gems is the man-made Love Lake, technically two intertwined heart-shaped lakes situated near the Al Qudra Oasis. Measuring a whopping 550,000 square meters, this stunning tourist attraction is even visible from space.

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