You’ve probably experienced foul smells before, but as bad as you remember them stinking, scientists say it’s nothing compared to the stench of thioacetone, the world’s smelliest chemical compound.

Trash left in the can too long on a summer day, sewage, or the smell of public toilets uncleaned for multiple days, we can all agree that they stink, but their stench is not classified as dangerous to human life. However the foul aroma of the rare chemical known as thioacetone, is. This simple molecule is somewhat tricky to produce, as at temperatures above -20°C it will clump together to form a solid called trithioacetone, but on the rare occasions that humanity did create it, thioacetone managed to make its presence felt, quite literally.

The most famous story about the stench of thioacetone dates back to1889, when workers at a factory in the German city of Freiberg attempted to produce the simple yet potent chemical, and accidentally created panic among the city’s residents. Their success led to “an offensive smell spreading rapidly over a great area of the town, causing fainting, vomiting and a panic evacuation”.

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A former beauty pageant winner from Guinea has taken a Swiss skin-care product company to court for allegedly ruined her once healthy complexion and ruining her modelling career.

25-year-old Mariama Diallo, who previously won Miss Guinea, Miss West Africa and participated in the Miss World pageant, had a successful modelling career until three years ago, when trying a new skincare product left her face full of blemishes and scars. She has been struggling to find work since 2018, as the healing process has been very slow and no company would hire her. Diallo has now taken the manufacturer of the product she claims ruined her career to court.

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Touching your girlfriend isn’t generally considered a punishable offence, but things change considerably when your date for the day is a rental.

A Taiwanese university student learned that the hard way, after getting a bit too close to a girlfriends he had rented by the hour, and getting sentenced to jail for it. In July of 2019, the boy, identified only as ‘Chen’, paid 7,200 Taiwanese dollars ($260) to rent a girlfriend for three hours, from a company called “Love Acting-Extra”. The service had very specific rules detailing what the client was allowed to to with his rented girlfriend, but also what was forbidden. Unfortunately for Chen, he got carried away, and paid a steep price for it…

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Respected Indian herpetologist Neelam Kumar Khaire has a very interesting record to his name. In his youth, this reptile lover spent 72 hours in an enclosure with 72 venomous snakes for company. He proved that the snakes only bite when provoked, and set a Guinness record in the process.

Khaire’s legendary feat dates back to 1980, when the then 28-year-old receptionist at a hotel in Pune decided to challenge the record set by South African Peter Snyemaris, a year before. Snyemaris had spent 50 hours with 18 venomous and six semi-poisonous snakes in Johannesburg, South Africa, but Neelam believed that an Indian deserved the world record more, seeing as India was known as a land of snakes. Despite opposition from local authorities like the police, which would neither take him seriously nor permit him to go ahead with his plan, on January 20, 1980, Neelam Kumar Khaire stepped in a glass enclosure with 72 venomous snakes.

Neelam Kumar Khaire fell in love with snakes in his early 20s, while working as the manager of a holiday home at Matheran, near Bombay. Snakes were frequent visitors of that place, and even though the other members of the staff simply killed them on sight, he could never do the same.

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Doctors recently reported the strange case of a 30-year-old man who injected magic mushrooms into his bloodstream, only to find that they had started growing in his veins.

The Journal of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry published a case report about a man who sought to self-medicate for opioid dependence and depression by injecting magic mushrooms directly into his blood. Referred to as “Mr. X”, for anonymity purposes, the man had reportedly been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had stopped taking his prescribed medication. Instead, he had started researching the therapeutic effects of psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic found in over 200 species of mushrooms, as a way to treat his condition and decrease his reliance on opioids. The compound had been shown to be effective in treating symptoms like depression and anxiety in numerous medical trials, but only when consumed orally. Mr. X had other plans…

The protagonist of this strange story reportedly managed to get his hands on psychedelic mushrooms, which he boiled to obtain a “tea”, which he then proceeded to filter through a cotton swab, and then inject directly into his bloodstream.

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A computer programmer who years ago wrote down the password to a cryptocurrency wallet on a piece of paper, has since lost the said paper, and with it access to around $220 million in Bitcoin.

Can you imagine having over $200 million and no way to ever access it? That’s exactly the story of San Francisco-based programmer Stefan Thomas, who has been trying to remember the password of his IronKey, a special hard-drive that contains the private keys to a digital wallet with 7,002 Bitcoin. He received the digital currency 10 years ago, while living in Switzerland, from an early Bitcoin adopter, as payment for an animated video he made, titled “What is Bitcoin?”. He lost the password to his IronKey that same year, but since a Bitcoin was only worth around $5 back then, it didn’t bother him that much. Things have changed a bit since then, though…

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An unnamed wannabe driver from the UK has reportedly managed to pass the driving knowledge test after failing to answer enough questions correctly a whopping 157 times.

The United Kingdom’s Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) recently reported a new record for the number of times someone failed the driving knowledge test before finally passing. A man, whose name was not disclosed for privacy reasons, reportedly managed to pass the theory test after previously failing it 157 times, and spending £3,000 ($4,100) in the process. The man was billed a candidate for the title of world’s worst driver by several media outlets, but others called him an example of perseverance.

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A popular plant-based meal subscription service is offering the ‘UK’s biggest meat-eater’ the chance to earn £50,000 ($68,000) by going vegan for three months.

Vibrant Vegan recently announced that it is on the lookout for a Vegan Curious Coordinator, a die-hard meat-eater willing to experience an exclusively vegan lifestyle for at least three months. The selected person will have to sign a contract, pledging to not consume any animal-based foods during the three-month trial, while at the same time encouraging others to give veganism a go on social media. If they abide by the agreement, they stand to earn the the equivalent of a £50,000 salary.

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Coquitos, also known as pigmy coconuts or dwarf coconuts, are the tiny equivalent of the coconuts we all know (and some of us love).

It’s hard to believe that I spent over three decades on this Earth and only learned that there is such a thing as a tiny, marble-sized coconut, today. Well, it may be common knowledge to a lot of people – especially if you’re from, or have travelled to South America – but it’s definitely news to me, so I thought I’d share it with similarly clueless people like myself. Known as coquitos, these miniature coconuts are the fruit of  Jubaea chilensis, a feather-leaved palm native to Chile, and, just like regular coconuts, they have a brown exterior, a white interior with a hollow center, and very similar taste.

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Chinese social media has been in uproar over reports of a technology company that allegedly used smart cushions to secretly monitor the activity of its office staff.

An employee of Hebo Technology, a high-tech company based in Zhejiang Province, recently took to social media to expose a practice that he considered illegal and immoral. The woman man, known only as Wang, said that she and at least nine other employees in her office had been monitored via seat cushions for the last several months. The smart cushions were a gift from company management and were supposed to help them them stay healthy, by monitoring their vitals and offering healthy advice, but it turns out they had a more sinister purpose.

Wang said that she and her colleagues initially welcomed the company’s gift, as the smart cushions offered a wealth of data, including breathing rate, heart rate, and sitting posture, and even reminded them to stretch or get up, if they sat down for two long. The 10 employees genuinely believed that the company cared about their health and wellbeing.

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LumiLor is the world first and only patented electroluminescent paint, which can light up virtually any solid surface when an electrical current passes through it.

Luminescent paint has been around for decades, but it has never looked as cool as the ingenious invention that is LumiLor. Fluorescent and phosphorescent paints only maintain their glow for a short duration after being exposed to long-wave ultraviolet (UV) radiation while radioluminescent paint contains a small amount of a radioactive isotope mixed with a radioluminescent phosphor chemical. Lumilor, the world’s first electroluminscents coating, only requires an electrical current to achieve its glowing effect, and can be used to create awe-inspiring light-shows at the flip of a switch.

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A Chinese company has come under fire for fining “lazy” employees who take more than one toilet break per day.

Anpu Electric Science and Technology, a Chinese corporation based in Dongguan, Guangdong province, admitted to enforcing a bizarre once-a-day toilet break policy and fining employees who break it with 20 yuan ($3). According to notices issued by the company and leaked on social media by disgruntled employees, at least seven staff members were penalized on December 20 and 21. The rule has sparked outrage online, but company officials explained management’s decision to create the bizarre rule by saying that many employees were lazy and used toilet breaks to smoke and avoid their duties.

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Kay Pike is a talented designer and model from Calgary, Canada, who spends hours on end skillfully covering herself with body paint to transform into popular superheroes and villains.

Cosplaying used to be a big part of Kay Pike’s life, but after being diagnosed with congenital arthritis in her hips, which caused her excruciating pain, she just couldn’t sit and sew for hours, like she used to. Luckily, in 2015, during the Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo, she discovered “cospaint”, an intriguing art form that allowed her to transform into virtually any comic, cartoon or video game character by using body paint.

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A popular Chinese reality show sparked controversy last month after pixelating all elements relating to Christmas on an episode shot in a luxurious hotel decorated for the Christian celebration.

Mango TV, a subsidiary of state-controlled Hunan Television, aired the first episode of the sixth season of Who’s the Murderer, a popular online reality show, on December 24. As it was Christmas Eve, the television saw it fitting to shoot the show in a hotel decorated for the Christian celebration. However, they also decided it would be a good idea to censor all elements related to Christmas, as a way to avoid being criticized by the Government for showing Western festivals and worshiping foreign things. The result was a pixelated mess, with protagonists walking by blurred Christmas trees, tinsel-decorated plants, and even wearing blurred Christmas hats.

Who’s the Murderer is features a cast of celebrities who play different roles in order to find evidence at a “crime scene” and figure out who the murderer is. It’s not the kind of plot that would ever be associated with Christmas, but production thought that the special episode’s setting could be interpreted as a promotion of Western festivals, so a decision was made to blur out all Christmas trees, wreaths, bells, and other decorations during broadcast. Even the protagonists’ Christmas hats were censored with post-production cartoon hats.

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Measuring up to 99-centimeters-long, and weighing up to 14 kilograms, Aplysia vaccaria, also known as the black sea hare or California black sea hare, is the world’s largest sea slug.

I knew slugs could get pretty large, but i never imagined one as big and heavy as a medium-sized dog. Then again, Aplysia vaccaria, is a very rare sight, even if you live near its very limited habitat – off the coast of California and in the Gulf of California – as it only ventures into shallow water to lay eggs. Like most other sea slugs, these giant mollusks are herbivores, with brown algae and kelp making up most of their diet. The color of the plants the slug east determines its own color, which is why it is black or dark brown, while other member of the Aplysia family are reddish or green.

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