Devised by a Tokyo hair salon during the Covid-19 pandemic to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the ‘Silent Cut’ service is becoming increasingly popular in Japan.

As a way of curbing the spread of the coronavirus during the Covid-19 pandemic, authorities in Japan started promoting “no conversation” or “less conversation” policies in schools, shops and supermarkets. Less talking meant fewer risks of spreading the virus via saliva droplets, so everyone understood and complied, but the two policies seemed incompatible with businesses like hair salons and barber shops, where conversation is basically part of the service. However, one Tokyo salon decided to implement the ‘silent cut’ service and it proved so popular that others quickly followed suit and kept it even after pandemic-related restrictions were lifted.

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Cleveland-based company Save My Ink Forever offers people the opportunity to have their tattoos preserved as artworks after they pass away.

Third-generation mortician Michael Sherwood and his son Kyle came up with the idea for Save My Ink Forever a few years back, while having a few drinks with some friends. One of them said that he would like his ink preserved somehow and asked the Sherwoods how he should go about doing that. They laughed at the question at first, but their buddy pushed the issue and it got the two morticians thinking. Tattoos mean a lot to the people who have them inked on their bodies, as well as to their families, so it made sense that some of them would like them preserved. After devising a technique for removing and preserving tattoos, the Sherwoods founded Save My Ink Forever and started taking orders.

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Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome (LPS) is a seasonal disease that occurs every year between October and June, causing lorikeets to drop out of the sky and become unable to move.

Ornithologists and veterinarians have known about Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome for many years now, but despite their best efforts, the cause of the disease has remained a mystery. That is particularly alarming because the disease affects thousands of birds every year, and proves fatal to many of them, rendering them unable to feed or escape predators. Cases of LPS have been reported in Australia since 1970, and although scientists have been able to eliminate some probable causes, they still don’t know what causes it.

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A new online “profession” is making news headlines in Brazil. Attractive women will attempt to seduce clients’ husbands and then provide proof of their faithfulness.

Brazilian loyalty inspectors have become very popular on social networks like TikTok and Instagram. They are usually young, attractive women who charge between 20 reals ($4) and 150 reals ($30) to test men’s loyalty to their wives or girlfriends online, and then provide proof to their clients. Testing usually involves sliding into their targets’ DMs, approaching them on WhatsApp or simply pretending to have obtained their contacts from a mutual acquaintance. They take screenshots of conversations with their marks, any photos that they send, and then hand them all to their partners as proof of their loyalty, or lack-there-of.

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An 18-year-old lioness has baffled staff at a zoo in Kansas after growing an “awkward teenage mane” after the pride’s last male lion passed away.

Looking at Zuri, you’d think she was a young lion growing his mane for the first time, but she is actually an 18-year-old female. That makes the mane around her neck pretty unusual, with only a handful of similar cases reported in the past. The lioness reportedly started growing a mane soon after the last male lion at Topeka Zoo in Kansas passed away in October of 2020. Although zookeepers don’t believe there is any connection between the lack of a male lion and Zuri’s mane, they do admit that the lioness has gotten feistier since growing the new fur, growling, snarling, and roaring more often than before.

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An archery master recently set a new Guinness Record by shooting seven consecutive arrows through a tiny keyhole using a traditional Ottoman bow.

Lars Andersen is often hailed as the world’s ultimate archer, performing feats that most us mere mortals can only dream about. He is the only person capable of shooting 10 arrows in just 4.9 seconds, he can shoot arrows that turn in mid-flight, and shoot while holding multiple arrows in his draw hand. Recently, Andersen added another feather to his already impressive cap by shooting seven consecutive arrows through a keyhole less than 10mm in size, thus setting a new Guinness record.

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Certain species of wild oats have a special seed dispersal system that looks as if the seeds are walking on the ground looking for suitable soil to take root in.

Modern-day oats (Avena sativa) have been drastically altered through domestication and are entirely dependent on humans for their survival. Not only do they need to be drilled into the soil, but the seeds remain attached to the panicle to make them easier to harvest and minimize seed losses. Wild oats, on the other hand, are a completely different story. They have evolved highly specialized anatomical features that actually assist the spikelets housing the seeds to move on the ground in search of suitable rooting soil. This amazing ability has won the plants several nicknames, including “Animated Oats” and “Animal Oats”.

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In 1994, a man was involved in a serious car accident that should have left him with at least a few broken bones. But he suffered no fractures at all, because he had the densest, strongest bones anyone had ever seen.

When doctors looked at the X-rays of the man involved in the car accident – his name was never disclosed to the public – not only did they notice no fracture, but also that his bones seem to be unusually dense, eight times denser than normal, to be precise. This was unlike anything they had ever seen or even heard of before, so they referred the man to Karl Insogna, the director of the Yale Bone Center. Insogna performed additional tests, but after failing to discover a cause for this unusual bone density or any negative effects associated with it, he sent the man on his way. As fate would have it, a few years later, the researcher would come across a few people with similarly dense bones, which turned out to be distantly related to that remarkable man he’d examined…

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A US woman recently went viral for dedicating herself to a very unusual hobby – cooking recipes etched into people’s gravestones as a unique way of remembering and celebrating their lives.

About a year ago, Rosie Grant was studying library science at the University of Maryland and interning in the archives of the Congressional Cemetery. At one point, she started a TikTok account and started sharing facts about her studies with the internet, and it was this foray into the world of cemeteries that led her to her first gravestone cooking recipe. It was for spritz cookies, featured only seven ingredients and included no instructions, but Rosie managed to use it to make something edible, and the experience just left her hungry for more gravestone recipes.

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A 33-year-old gorilla who has spent most of her life alone inside a metal cage on the seventh floor of a shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, has been dubbed the world’s loneliest gorilla.

Bua Noi was only one when she was put into the cage that would become her permanent home for more than three decades. She was one of the main attractions of a bizarre zoo – if one could even call it that – inside Bangkok’s oldest shopping mall, Pata Pinklao Department Store, and owners refused to relocate her to a more suitable location, despite numerous requests from animal rights activists and the Thai Government. Even today, Bua Noi’s owners refuse to let her live out the rest of her days in a sanctuary, with other members of her species.

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An Australian man has become known as the COPD Athlete because of his incredible ability to run entire marathons despite having only 30 percent lung capacity as a result of an incurable and progressive condition.

Russell Winwood was diagnosed with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) in 2011. By that time, the Brisbane native had already turned his life around, having survived a stroke at age 36. He had given up smoking, cut down on drinking alcohol, started eating better, and, most importantly, he had taken up sports. For years, he competed in varying distances of triathlons, from sprint to Half Ironman and even a few ultra-marathons. Everything was going great, but at one point Winwood noticed that his usual training felt harder and he found it difficult to breathe. That’s when he received his COPD diagnosis, along with the warning that his lungs were operating at less than 30 percent capacity.

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Marlene Engelhorn is not your average millionaire. At age 29, she has more money than she knows what to do with, so she has decided to give away 90 to 95 percent of her inheritance of tens of millions of dollars.

Marlene Engelhorn is the granddaughter of 94-year-old Traudl Engelhorn-Vechiatto, a member of the famed German industrial family whose patriarch, Friedrich Engelhorn, founded the chemical giant BASF in 1865. Traudl’s brother-in-law, Curt, ran the family business until 1997, when it was sold to Roche for about $11 billion. At the time of the sale, Marlene’s grandmother received approximately $2.45 billion, a veritable fortune that ballooned to $4.2 billion, at the time of her death, earlier this year. Marlene Engelhorn now stands to inherit tens of millions of dollars, but she doesn’t want it.

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French champagne brand G.H. Mumm has poured a lot of time and resources into developing a futuristic champagne bottle that can be used in space.

The Mumm Cordon Rouge Stellar is the first champagne designed specifically for space travel. It comes in a half-glass bottle and features a specially-designed stainless steel opening-closing device that curves over the classic cork. The unique bottle apparently features a finger-controlled valve which, when engaged, releases a globule of champagne spheres. Astronauts or space tourists can then scoop the drink out of the air using special glasses that resemble tiny egg cups.

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Researchers have discovered that green tree frogs in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone have turned dark in order to better mitigate the effects of radiation.

In April of 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded, releasing approximately 100 times the energy released by the nuclear bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and drastically altering the lives of both humans and wildlife in the surrounding area. But while authorities were able to evacuate most civilians from the area closest to the nuclear disaster, the animals were left to their own devices. In the decades since, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has become a wildlife refuge that offers a unique view into the evolution triggered by the nuclear meltdown.

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Located on a hill in the heart of Rome and featuring the only ceiling mural ever painted by the Italian Baroque old master Caravaggio, Villa Aurora is widely regarded as the world’s most expensive house.

The 30,000-square-foot, 16th-century villa is located a short walk from the famous Via Veneto, home to some of Rome’s best hotels, and close to the iconic Piazza di Spagna and the ancient Porta Pinciana. Originally a hunting lodge, the villa is all that remains of a 30-hectare complex owned by Italy’s Ludovisi noble family, who gave the country numerous diplomats, patrons of the arts, and even a Pope. Today, Villa Aurora finds itself at the heart of a legal battle and an Italian court has ruled that it should be sold at auction. Only the price set for the property is so high that no one seems interested in paying it.

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