Serama chickens are the smallest in the world, but you really couldn’t tell by their attitude. Seeing them pose with their head pulled back and chest sticking out, you’d think they were some sort of feathered bodybuilders.

The Serama chicken breed can be traced back all the way to the 1600s, to the Kelantan province of Malaysia, but the current strain can be attributed to Wee Yean Een, a breeder who popularized it during the 1970s and even gave the chicken the Serama name, after King Rama of Thailand. However, the breed was rendered almost extinct by the bird flu pandemic of the early 2000s. Luckily, they had already been exported to many countries around the world by that point, including the US and UK, and were able to make a comeback.

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Raynaud syndrome, also known as Raynaud’s phenomenon, is a rare medical condition that limits blood supply to fingers, and sometimes to the toes, causing them to temporarily turn white or blue.

Named after physician Auguste Gabriel Maurice Raynaud, who first described it in his doctoral thesis in 1862, this rare condition can be described as an overreaction to stimuli like cold or stress. In the case of the former, the body tries to conserve heat by slowing down the flow of blood to the farthest points, such as the fingers. To do that, the small arteries that carry blood to those points constrict, thus causing the extremities to temporarily turn white, and then blue, due to the prolonged lack of oxygen in the affected area.

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Aleksandr and Maria Dmitriev, a young couple from Penza, Russia, have been sharing their home with a mountain lion for the past three years.

Cats are in the top two most common pets worldwide, but the cat Aleksandr and Maria Dmitriev live with in their small one-bedroom apartment is a little different. Messi is a 3-year-old cougar, the second-largest feline in the Americas, after the Jaguar. In the wild, it is considered an apex predator, but Messi was born in a petting zoo and has spent most of his life as a house cat, so he basically behaves like an overgrown cat, for now. The Dmitriev’s are aware that Messi is a predator that will, at some point, test their strength to establish who is in charge of the house, but they have taken steps to keep his wild side in check.

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Taasheer is a traditional war dance performed by Saudi men and boys which involves spectacular, well-timed leaps that synchronize with the dramatic discharge of long muzzle-loading rifles.

Once performed before battle to motivate fighters and instill fear in the heart of the enemy, Taasheer is now performed at important social events, like weddings and festivals. Boys are trained to perform the traditional dance from a young age, first with an unloaded weapon, until they are ready to handle the gun powder. It is passed down from generation to generation, and the people of Taif hope to be able to preserve it forever.

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Budimir Buda Šobat, a 54-year-old man from Croatia, managed to set a new world record for the longest time breath held underwater, after spending 24 minutes and 33 seconds underwater without coming up for air.

The incredible feat was achieved in a swimming pool, in the town of Sisak, under the supervision of doctors, reporters and supporters, and saw the 54-year-old diver push his body to the limit. After spending a few minutes hyperventilating on pure oxygen, to increase body oxygenation, Šobat spent close to half an hour face down in the pool, without coming up for air. It sounds like an impossible achievement for a mere mortal, but for the Croatian daredevil it’s the crowning achievement of years of training and conditioning.

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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 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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In a first-of-its-kind case in the UK, a 41-year-old unemployed Oxford graduate has taken his parents to court in a bizarre attempt to make them support him financially for life.

Despite being a trained lawyer and having a degree from the prestigious Oxford University, 41-year-old Faiz Siddiqui claims that he is completely dependent on his Dubai-based mother and father. In court filings obtained by the press, Siddiqui describes himself as a “vulnerable” grown-up child due to health issues, and insists that being cut-off by his wealthy parents would be a violation of his human rights.

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Wilhelmstein Island, an artificial island on Lake Steinhude in the Hanover region of northwestern Germany, looks like the perfect place to isolate yourself during a pandemic.

The story of Wilhelmstein Island began in 1761, when Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe, ruler of the County of Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg and an important military commander in the Seven Years’ War, ordered the construction of a military fortress in the middle of Steinhude Meer, the largest lake in northern Germany. The military defensive complex originally consisted of 16 islands built on large foundations of stone transported to the middle of the lake by local fishermen in their boats. A star shaped fortress was built in the middle of the main island, and later a military college designed to train the leaders of the next generation.

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A 32-year-old man nicknamed “Mr. McDonald’s” has been eating at the world’s most popular fast food chain every other day for the past two decades, and has invested a small fortune in McDonald’s-related clothes and memorabilia.

David Geyer, a gardener from Bergheim, Germany, first ate at a McDonald’s fast food restaurant in 1997, and the moment he took a bite of that very first burger, he knew that the iconic fast food brand would become a part of his life forever. He came back for more every chance he got, but he realized just how passionate he was about McDonald’s when he got his first job and started spending more time at the local McD’s than he did at his mother’s dining table. His love for the fast food chain has since transcended food, as he has since gotten permanent McDonald’s tattoos and invested in burger-themed clothing and memorabilia as well.

Bruna Barbie, a Brazilian influencer whose love for everything pink has drawn comparisons to the world’s most popular doll, makes a living by showcasing her unique lifestyle on social media.

Born Bruna Carolina Peres, the Brazilian Barbie hails from the southern state if Paraná and claims that she has been fascinated with pink for as long as she can remember. In fact, it all started with pink, she didn’t become a Barbie fan until later on in life. In her teenage years she decided to showcase her love for pink by dressing only in that color, and was offered compare to Reese Whitherspoon’s character from the movie ‘Legally Blonde”, by her colleagues. Then, at one point, people started calling her Barbie, and she just rolled with it, adopting the persona of a real-life Barbie.

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Telecubes, mobile offices the size of phone booths, have been popping up all over Japan, as demand for public working spaces continues to soar.

Japanese media originally reported on the rise of Telecubes back in 2019, when Mitsubishi Estate announced plans to start rolling out the tiny but cozy offices at airports and train stations all over the country, to help out remote workers. The idea was that having micro-offices available everywhere would make it easier for people to work near home or while on business trips, while enjoying privacy and quiet, which venues like coffee shops or shared offices can’t always offer. Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and the demand for Telecubes grew to unprecedented levels.

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The archerfish is famous for its ability to accurately shoot prey from several meters away with a powerful jet of water generated from its mouth.

Toxotes jaculatrix, commonly known as the archerfish, lives in the in mangroves of southern and southeast Asia, where they spend much of their time stalking prey from beneath the surface of the water, ready to hit it with a powerful jet of water, knock it out of the sky or whatever surface it’s sitting on, and then swallow it whole. The incredible accuracy of the arrow fish has long fascinated scientists, especially as studies have shown that it can adjust for various factors, like gravity, or the distance its target is at, to maximize its chances of success.

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From rendering parts of her body invisible, to transforming into a variety of fictional characters, there’s no optical illusion Mirjana ‘Kika’ Milosevic can’t pull off with her makeup skills.

Serbian “skin illusionist” and makeup-artist extraordinaire, Kika Milosevic has never been interested in expressing her talent on conventional canvases. As a child, she would crawl under tables and draw on the backside of them, as well as on the doors and walls of her home. As an adult, Kika chose her own body as a canvas, using makeup and body paint to create the most stunning optical illusions.

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Sick of the skinny bodies and perfect faces of K-pop boybands like BTS? Looking for something more ordinary? Check out Produce Pandas, China’s first chubby boyband.

As their band name suggest, the five members of Produce Pandas all resemble cute pandas – “huggable, chubby shape, relaxed and happy attitude. At least that’s lead dancer Mr 17 claims. Although their mission is very similar to that of the hundreds of cookie cutter boybands in China – to promote positivity and act as good role models – they have adopted a very different look. Instead of the anime-inspired looks and eyeliner usually associated with Asian boybands, Panda Produce members just look like average joes, and that’s apparently by design.

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