Two cousins from the Dutch town of Nieuw-Lekkerland recently received an award for turning an old water tower into a modern and stylish home for their respective families.

Sven and Lennart de Jong grew up in a house right next to the old water tower of Nieuw-Lekkerland, and used to paly in it as kids, so in 2011, when they heard it was being put up for auction, they decided to place a bid. The approximately 200,000 euros they bid proved to be enough and the two became the owners of an abandoned building from 1915. Sven and Lennart knew that they had their work cut out, but they dreamt of making the water tower their home in a decade’s time, and managed to pull it off. For their achievement, the two received the 2020 Water Tower Award, a distinction for the best conversion of a historic water tower.

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Photos and videos showing scores of dead birds on the streets of Rome following the recent New Year’s Eve celebration have been doing the rounds online, fueling all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Hundreds of dead birds were found lying around the Termini train station, in Rome, Italy, on New Year’s Eve, and although the exact cause of this tragedy remains a mystery, animal groups have blamed the traditional fireworks show. The Italian capital had announced a fireworks ban ahead of New Year’s Eve, but it was largely ignored. The Italian branch of OIPA (International Animal Protection Organization) has called for a nationwide ban on selling fireworks and firecrackers for personal use, following this sad incident.

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Conspiracy theory proponents in Italy have been sharing an electronic schematic of a ‘5G chip’ allegedly implanted in Covid-9 vaccines, but evidence has shown that it’s actually the schematic of a guitar pedal.

A wise person once said “don’t believe everything you read on the internet”, and that’s never been more true than it is today. With the advent of social media, wild conspiracy theories, half-truths and fake news have been getting more attention than ever before. Take this ‘5G chip in Covid-19 vaccines’ phobia that has taken on a life of its own online, despite any sort of scientific evidence backing it up. Well, at least no real evidence, because there is plenty of fake proof going around, including a rather complex schematic of a so-called 5G chip allegedly implanted in Covid-19 vaccines. Only that schematic is actually of a badass guitar pedal…

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A Chinese man and his parents have agreed to move out of a Beijing hospital after living there continuously for six years, because of a financial dispute with the medical institution.

No one really likes spending more time than they have to in hospitals, which is why most people can’t wait to get discharged. But that’s not always the case. In 2014, a man surnamed Tian was admitted to a top Beijing hospital with symptoms that included nausea, vomiting and unsteady gait. He was supposed to spend a few days there after a medical procedure, but following a dispute regarding his medical bill, he ended up living there for six years, along with his parents. This weird saga finally came to an end last week, when the hospital squatters finally agreed to move out.

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The island of Kauai, in the Hawaiian archipelago, is home to thousands of feral chicken that have developed a complex relationship with the island’s human inhabitants.

From the pristine beaches of Lumbahai, to airports, gas stations, even urban parking lots, feral chickens are everywhere on Kauai Island. They roam freely, and have adapted to lead a a variety of lifestyles in this Hawaiian paradise, from eating garbage and cat food, to depending on tourists for food, or foraging on native arthropods. It’s because of this lifestyle variety that the chickens relationship with humans is so complex. On one hand, everyone agrees that they have brought down the populations of pesky Hawaiian centipedes, but then again, they also crow 24 hours a day and they tear up foliage and grass, even destroying whole gardens.

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When it comes to unusual and unappetizing-looking Christmas dishes, there are few meals out there that can compete with the Stargazy Pie, a pie with fish heads protruding through the crust, appearing to be gazing skyward.

England is home to a variety of pies, from classics like apple pie and pork pie, to less known treats like steak and ale pie, or pot pie. But none of these pastry treats hold a candle to the famous Stargazy Pie, when it comes to wow factor. No matter how elaborate your pie design is, you just can’t beat half a dozen cooked sardine heads (and sometimes tails) sticking out from the hearty dough crust, looking towards the sky. It looks almost as “delicious” as Japan’s alien dumplings, doesn’t it?

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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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A married man had a lot of explaining to do when he was caught at his married mistress’ house, by her husband, next to a hole in the ground that turned out to be a tunnel leading back to his house.

Mexico is famous for its network of secret underground tunnels used by drug cartels to transport their precious but illegal cargos, but it seems the technique is sometimes also used for keeping romantic affairs secret. Antonio, a bricklayer from Villas del Prado 1, was having an affair with a married woman from the town’s Tijuana neighborhood. In order to make sure no one saw him visiting his secret lover, Pamela, the man started working on an underground tunnel that stretched all the way from his home to the woman’s.

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Why get a carpet when you can have one a permanent etched into the floor? Unfortunately, we don’t all have the skill of Spanish artist Selva Aparicio.

Originally unveiled in 2017, Childhood Memories is a visually-striking installation by Selva Aparicio, a talented artist whose thought-provoking works tackle a variety of topics, from politics to the environment. Aparicio spent days hand-carving an intricate carpet pattern into a discarded wooden floor, and the result was so realistic that people only realized it wasn’t a real carpet only when they got close.

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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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When people speak of potentially-deadly books, they usually refer to the radical or controversial ideas they contain, but in the case of one very scary book, the potential for lethalness is quite literal.

Shadows from the Walls of Death: Facts and Inferences Prefacing a Book of Specimens of Arsenical Wall Papers is a book published in 1874 by Dr. Robert M. Kedzie, a Union surgeon during the American Civil War who later became a professor of chemistry. Of its 100 or so pages, 86 are just samples of arsenic-pigmented wallpaper that people used to decorate their homes during those times. Even though arsenic was a known toxin capable of killing a person if ingested, no one imagined it could kill even when used as an active ingredient to make wallpaper colors more vibrant. Kedzie did, though, so he printed this book as a warning.

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A 37-year-old Japanese man has built a successful career by renting himself out to do nothing. For some reason, he is inundated with requests from people who just want him by their side.

In just two years, Shoji Morimoto has gone from being just another unemployed middle-aged man in Tokyo, to a minor Japanese celebrity, with over 270,000 Twitter followers, appearances on national television, interviews in magazines, and even his own books and manga on Amazon. That’s quite surprising, considering Shoji has built his success on a service that requires him to basically do nothing but meet random people, listen to their stories or just physically be there for them. He basically rents himself out to strangers, letting them know beforehand that he can do nothing but eat, drink and hang around.

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In a world where fingerprints are the most collected and used biometric data, having no fingerprints is both a blessing and a curse, as the men in the Sarker family can attest.

For several generations, Sarker men have been born with completely smooth fingertips, and while that may not have been a huge deal a generation or two ago, nowadays, when the swirling patterns on the tip of our fingers are used as the main way to identify individuals, it’s an issue. For example, some of the men in the Bangladeshi family have been unable to obtain a driving license because of their lack of fingerprints, while others have been reluctant to travel for fear of getting in trouble at airports, for the same reason.

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The world is full of unappetizing dishes, from fermented fish dishes to the dreaded Kiviaq, but few actually look scary to get near to, let alone put in your mouth. These Japanese dumplings definitely fall in the latter category.

Last year, we published a story on one of the world’s most bizarre looking fish, the eel-like Warusobo, also known as the “Alien of the Ariake Sea“. One look at this slimy creature, and that nickname makes all the sense in the world. I don’t know if it’s those pointy teeth, or the lack of eyes, but there’s just something otherworldly about these things. That’s hasn’t stopped the people of Saga Prefecture, which borders the Ariake Sea, from turning the alien creature into a staple of local cuisine, including the delicious dumplings below.

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A German baker who has reportedly been selling sawdust cookies for around two decades has recently been ordered to stop, as the finely milled wood has been deemed unfit for human consumption.

An administrative court in the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe has upheld a decision to ban the sale of cookies made with sawdust, despite the producer’s claim that they were a traditional vegetable product. The unnamed baker had been operating a mail order business, selling his sawdust cookies all over Germany. He openly listed sawdust as an ingredient on the packaging of his biscuits, and had already written to the city of Karlsruhe about his practice back in 2004, but received no answer. Then, in 2017, a routine examination of a biscuit sample led to a sales ban which he then contested in court.

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