The Desert of Maine, a 40-something-acre patch of sand and silt near the town of Freeport, is a geological oddity, natural wonder, and a warning of what irresponsible land use can create.

The “most famous natural phenomenon in Maine” is actually the result of poor land management over several generations. Although not technically a desert in its own right – the state of Maine gets way too much rain for it to qualify as such – the rolling dunes of sand covering the over 40 acres of land certainly look the part. The sand and silt have been there for at least tens of thousands of years, ever since the glaciers covering Maine, ground rocks into pebbles and pebbles into sand as they receded during the last ice age. But it was human activity that brought it back to the surface over 100 years ago.

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People vanish from their established lives all the time, but nowhere is this phenomenon as prevalent as in Japan, a country that has even devised a term for the phenomenon – “johatsu”.

The most common reasons that drive people to disappear without a trace are exactly the ones you’re probably thinking about – inescapable debts, loveless relationships and Japan’s notoriously harsh work culture. But there are certain cultural factors that make these reasons much more serious in Japan than anywhere else. The shame of burdening one’s family with debt, going through a divorce – which have always been very rare in the Asian country – or even quitting a job is considered unbearable by many Japanese people. This only leaves them with very few options – taking their own lives rather than living with the shame, working themselves to death, or becoming “johatsu”, which literally means evaporating from their lives.

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Out of the roughly 1,400 species of land snails that call Cuba home, the six species of the genus Polymita, fondly known as painted snails, are without a doubt the most eye-catching.

When it comes to snail per se, there’s probably no beating the spectacular red-and-black contrast of the Malaysian fire snail, but as far as shells go, Cuba’s painted snails are in a class of their own. Just a look at the stunning swirling colors on their shells, and it’s easy to understand why they are considered by many to be the world’s most beautiful snails. However, this flattering title comes with a downside. Because their dazzling shells are so sought after by collectors, all six species of the genus Polymita are now critically endangered.

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Imagine a place where you can enjoy your favorite cup of coffee in the company of dozens of koi fish as they swim through ankle-deep water that covers the entire floor. That’s Thailand’s koi fish café in a nutshell.

Remember Amix Coffee, the “flooded café” of Ho Chi Minh City, where hundreds of decorative fish of all shapes and sizes lived on the water-covered floor as patrons walked among them? It drew a lot of criticism from animal rights activists and closed down after just a couple of months, but if you liked the concept, you’ll be happy to know there’s another flooded café you can visit. Sweet Fishs Café is a unique venue in the Thai city of Khanom, where people can walk through ankle-deep water populated with dozens of koi fish.

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An Indian plastic surgeon is being praised as a hero without a cape after spending much of his life performing over 37,000 free procedures to correct children’s cleft palates and cleft lips.

According to the CDC, cleft lip and cleft palate are birth defects that occur when a baby’s lip or mouth do not form properly during pregnancy. These defects cause a variety of problems, which range from the inability to access milk as babies, to bullying and discrimination later on in life. Both birth defects can be corrected with the help of plastic surgery, but these procedures are, unfortunately, not available to the poor families who need them most. In India, one plastic surgeon has emerged as the benefactor of tens of thousands of babies and children, correcting their cleft lips or cleft palate for free, and thus giving them the chance at a much better life.

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A German Federal Court recently ruled that a man who broke his back by falling down the stairs from his bedroom on his way to his home office should be covered by his employer’s workplace accident insurance.

According to court documents published last Wednesday, Germany’s Federal Social Court ruled in favor of an unnamed area sales manager who broke his back in an accident that occurred in his home in 2018. The man was allegedly walking down the stairs from his bedroom on his way to his home office when he slipped on his spiral staircase and broke a thoracic vertebra. The plaintiff’s lawyer argued that his client, who typically starts his workday without eating breakfast, was headed for his home work station, which makes his accident work-related and should be covered by insurance.

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A 45-year-old woman who stole her estranged daughter’s identity managed to fool everyone that she was 22 for two years, enrolling in university and dating boyfriends who were convinced she was in her early 20s.

Laura A. Oglesby risks spending five years behind bars without parole, as part of a plead deal, after admitting to stealing her 22-year-old daughter’s identity and comitting Social Security fraud. The 45-year-old woman had lived with her daughter in Jonesboro, Arkansas, before moving in Missouri, after they lost contact. In 2016, after reportedly fraudulent Social Security card in her daughter’s name, she used that card to obtain a driver’s license. A year later, the woman also enrolled at Southwest Baptist University in Missouri, as her daughter, and even applied for student loans and grants in her name. The charade went on for two years, and no one once questioned Oglesby’s age, apparently convinced that she was 22.

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For the last 11 years, “Turkey’s first and only stress coach” has been making a living by letting people punch him, without ever punching back.

Hasan Riza Gunay started working as a human punching bag in 2010, after finding inspiration in Turkish director Kemal Sunal’s classic movie “Sark Bulbulu” (Eastern Nightingale), in which the protagonist voluntarily allows himself to be beaten. He realized that while some people relieve stress by exercising, meditating or sleeping, other need to let off some steam by screaming, or better yet, hitting someone. So he turned his realization into an unusual business, allowing himself to be punched by strangers, for money. He has been working as a “stress coach” for a decade now and hopes to train others to pick up his role before he becomes too old to take a punch.

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In an attempt to keep artificially-enhanced camels out of official beauty pageants, Saudi authorities recently disqualified 43 camels over the use of Botox and other cosmetic procedures.

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz Camel Festival is one of the several annual events that features a camel beauty pageant. As funny as that might seem to us westerners, it’s no laughing matter in the Middle East. In fact, these sort of competitions is such a big deal that some breeders reportedly resort to Botox injections and other cosmetic touchups to make their animals prettier. The Saudi Press Agency recently reported that over 40 camels were disqualified from this year’s King Abdulaziz Camel Festival pageant because of Botox injections and other cosmetic procedures.

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If you’ve ever wanted to see a dolphin up-close in its natural habitat, and, if you’re lucky, even hand feed it a tasty treat, there’s no place to do it at than Monkey Mia, the only beach in Australia that dolphins visit every day.

The wild dolphins of Monkey Mia, on the coast of Western Australia, started getting used to people in the early 1960s, when local fishermen started throwing them fish. It didn’t take long for rumors of friendly bottlenose dolphins hanging around Monkey Mia to spread, and before long the popularity of the resort reached new all-time highs. However, by the 1980s, marine researchers noticed a disturbing trend – as adult dolphins became more dependent on humans for food, their calves’ mortality rate grew. Things got so bad that, according to some experts, 90 percent of the calves failed to reach adulthood. Luckily, conservation authorities started regulating dolphin feeding.

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The “Balcony of the Dolls” is an eerie landmark in central Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. It consists of a large balcony lined with old doll heads that seem to follow people with their eyes as they pass by.

Located in the middle of Avenida Este 12, between Fuerzas Armadas and Sur 5, in a place known as “El Muerto” corner, is a two-storey building that has captured the imagination of both locals and visitors of the Venezuelan capital. It’s the sort of thing that’s easy to miss if you simply walk by in a hurry without looking up, but if you’re the kind of person who likes to take in the sights, there’s no way to miss the hundreds of creepy doll heads looking back at you from above.

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Nowadays, most people would rather die than go anywhere near anything containing asbestos, but there was once a time when people literally sprinkled themselves with fake snow containing the proven carcinogenic.

Up to the late 1920s, cotton was the main ingredient used for fake snow on Hollywood film sets and in people’s households, but in 1928 a firefighter raised questions about the safety of cotton fake snow, noting that it was a fire hazard, and proposing the used of asbestos as a safer alternative. Obviously, this was long before we realized that asbestos was a known risk factor for an aggressive form of cancer known as mesothelioma, but still, the fact that people used asbestos-containing holiday decorations for decades is shocking.

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A brave Indian woman reportedly chased after a leopard for over a mile, fighting it with her bare hands in order to rescue her young son from its claws.

The woman, identified as Kiran Baiga, from Badi Jhiriya tribal village, in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, was reportedly sitting outside her hut with her three children, including an infant in her lap, on November 28, when a leopard suddenly pounced on her six-year-old by, Rahul. Before she could even react, the strong feline grabbed the boy in its jaws and took off running toward the nearby Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Kiran quickly handed her infant to her other child, told them to stay in their hut, and started running after the leopard, in a desperate attempt to save her child.

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A Chinese art student recently conducted an intriguing experiment in which she spent three weeks living the good life in Beijing without spending a dime, by pretending to be a well-off socialite.

Zou Yaqi, a 23-year-old art student at the University of Beijing has been getting a lot of attention for her unique graduation project which saw her disguising herself as a socialite in order to enjoy special treatment and help her survive for three weeks without spending any money. For most of May of this year, the young student slept on plush sofas in the lobbies of five-star hotels in the Chinese capital, sipping wine at various events and stuffing her face at free buffets. And she did it all just by pretending to be a rich socialite.

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Carved into a vertical rockface in the Monte Cristallo massif, in Italy’s Dolomites Mountains, this incredible shelter sits at 2,700 meters (8,858 feet) above sea level.

Mountain climbers brave enough to take on the Via Ferrata Ivano Dibona in the Italian Dolomites are treated to many memorable sights, including that of a unique structure embedded in the side of a vertical rockface. The iconic location, known as Buffa di Perrero, is believed to be a shelter built by Italian soldiers during World War I. It features brick walls, a slanted roof, two doorways, and four windows framed in wood. It’s hard to believe, but someone had to carry all those building materials up the side of the mountain, as there is no backdoor to an easier access route.

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