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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Known as the “Brooklyn Transformer”, Peter Kokis has become a very recognizable figure in New York, thanks to an arsenal of impressive robot exoskeletons made out of all sorts of everyday items.

A former military pilot, Peter Kokis started making his now-famous exoskeletons after joking around with an ex-girlfriend. At one point, during a conversations, she told him “you’re too stiff, you need to loosen up and do something weird,” and he decided she was right. Using his experience in aviation, he started piecing together things he had around the house into an impressive exoskeleton that became known as Squid Boy. But that was only the beginning, as over the years he made wearable costumes inspired by the likes of The Transformers, The Terminator or the Xenomorphs of Alien.

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A giant puddle in Russia’s Far East city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is being described as “invincible”, after it somehow survived unfixed for over a quarter of a century. It now has its own Instagram page and over 16,000 followers.

As it often happens in Russia and other eastern European countries, what started out as a small pothole gradually grew to become a giant puddle. It attained that rank in 1994, and locals have been trying to get local authorities to fix it ever since. So far it has proven a futile endeavor, as scheduled repairs have been postponed repeatedly. In the meantime, a frustrated local known only as Nikolay decided that the 25-year-old pothole was old enough to have its own Instagram page, and created one for it in September. The witty sarcastic posts created in first-person quickly went viral and got the local government to act.

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A 65-year-old kung fu master is practicing an ancient technique known as “iron crotch”, which involves ramming a large wooden pole into his crotch to build-up the resistance of his private parts.

Wang Liutai is the curator of the Martial Arts Museum in Juntun Village, a small settlement on the outskirts of Luoyang, one of the four ancient capitals of China. He is also a kung fu master, but not the kind you’re used to seeing in old martial arts movies; Liutai specializes in a rare technique specific to Juntun known as “iron crotch”. It involves swinging a 2-meter-long, 40-kg-heavy wooden log with a steel plate cap straight into his crotch, while using qigong breathing techniques to steel himself.

A father-of-two, Wang has been practicing iron crotch for half a century and claims that if done correctly, the kung fu technique does not hurt and does not affect fertility. The technique is just one of many devised in Juntun to help practitioners resist pressure, pain or hits to various sensitive areas. Other similar techniques involve iron throat, iron head, iron chest, and iron back, but iron crotch is definitely the rarest, with just 5 practitioners still around in the village.

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Rory van Ulft, a 7-year-old Canadian gymnast, has been raising eyebrows with her weightlifting achievements, recently becoming the youngest under-11 and under-13s US Youth National Champion in history.

Rory took up weightlifting about two years ago, as a way of becoming stronger. She had started doing gymnastics but learned that she could get injured doing certain things, if she wasn’t strong enough. She started lifting weights in the the snatch and the clean and jerk styles, under the careful supervision of a trainer, and gradually developed her strength to the point that she now lifts weights that some adults would probably struggle with. She can snatch 32kg, clean and jerk 42kg, as well as squat 61kg, and deadlift 80kg using an Olympic women’s bar.

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German footwear brand Adidas teamed up with high-end porcelain manufacturer Meissen to create a unique pair of sneakers that’s expected to be sold for over $1 million at auction.

As part of its A-ZX program, Adidas Originals plans to team up with selected partners around the world in order to create unique sneakers that qualify more as works of art than footwear meant to be worn. This month, Adidas unveiled a very colorful pair of sneakers that it has been working on with German porcelain brand Meissen for more than a year. Based on the iconic Adidas ZX8000 sneaker, this one-of-a-kind pair features dozens of Meissens’ hand-painted colorful designs, as well as various porcelain elements. It is being auctioned this week, by Sotheby’s, and it’s expected to fetch over $1 million.

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The Germans are known for their machine engineering, but it turns out that they’re not to shabby when it comes to genetic engineering either, and the jagdterrier, a living breathing hunting machine, is a perfect example.

Literally German for “hunt terrier”, the jagdterrier is a hunting dog developed in Germany between the two world wars, in a time when German nationalism and feeling of superiority were at an all-time high. Hunting cynologists Walter Zangenberg, Carl Erick Grunewald, and Rudolph Friess decided that the popular Fox Terrier was being bred more as a show dog, and less as an efficient hunting machine, so they started working on a new breed of terrier, one that would be superior to British and American breeds.

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A Michigan-based businessman has created the world’s first mobile bowling alley by converting a 53-foot, semi-truck trailer into an exclusive entertainment center on wheels.

Inspired by popular companies like such as Amazon, Uber and Grub Hub, which relied heavily on convenience to achieve business success, a Detroit entrepreneur decided to bring bowling to the masses, instead of the other way around. To this end, Terence Jackson Jr. has been working on converting a 53-foot semi-trailer truck into a mobile bowling alley for years, but due to several obstacles he had to overcome, the two-lane facility was only unveiled last month.

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Two Indian conmen from India’s Uttar Pradesh state were arrested this week for allegedly conning a local physician into paying them a whopping $335,000 for a magical lamp capable of granting him any wish.

Dr Laeek Khan, a physician from the Khairnagar area, in Meerut city, first met the conmen in 2018, when visiting a patient’s home to dress her wounds following a surgery. One day, while at Sameena’s home, the doctor met a self-described ‘tantrik’ who boasted about his magical powers, and later promised to make Khan a billionaire. The tantrik, named Islamuddin, soon introduced the doctor to his partner, Anees, and the two offered to sell him a real-life wish-granting Aladdin Ka Chirag (Aladdin’s Lamp) for only 2.5 crore ($335,000). The London-trained doctor agreed…

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Looking back at the most significant battles and military operations in history, deception has always been an important strategy, and in modern-day Russia balloons are one of the most important tools of deception.

Bouncy castles aren’t known as the most effective tools of war, but in Russia, they are just as important as actual weapons worth millions of dollars. That’s because bouncy castles designed to mimic actual weapons cost a hundred times cheaper than the real thing, and can be deployed and moved a lot faster. And if your goal is to deceive the enemy, to appear stronger than you really are, drawing their fire, or simply buying time by forcing them to verify targets, this inflatable army is an important piece of your arsenal.

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Galina Chuvina, a retired woman from the small Russian town of Sasovo, took up knife throwing as a hobby and ended up becoming an eight time national champion, European champion and even world champion.

Chuvina was 56 years old when she discovered knife throwing, back in 2007. The pensioner had landed a simple job in the coat check section of the local pool, taking people’s clothes and handing out numbers. One day, two young people came by to discuss the possibility of opening a knife throwing club on the premises, and Galina became one of the first people to enroll for knife throwing training. Just a month and a half into her training, the pensioner learned that her home town would soon host a knife throwing competition with around 50 participants, including special forces soldiers, professional knife throwers, as well as amateurs like her. She signed up, and shocked the audience by wining first place.

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Anna Turaeva, a champion powerlifter from Russia, recently shared a shocking story of how she was stopped by airport security and asked private questions to prove that she really was a woman.

42-year-old Turaeva, a six-time world powerlifting champion and eight-time European powerlifting champion, described the experience of being prevented from boarding a plane from St Petersburg to her home city of Krasnodar as humiliating. The Russian athlete said that security staff believed she was actually a man posing as a woman and asked her all sorts of private and intimate question in order to establish her gender. Anna Turaeva’s appearance has indeed become very masculine after years of bodybuilding and powerlifting training, but she considers herself 100% female and tried explaining to the airline representative that they were wrong to ask her to prove her gender, especially since it was clearly stated on her passport.

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Mikishi, a 25-year-old girl from Japan, has been getting a lot of attention on Asian social media lately, because of her drastic plastic surgery transformation.

Ever since taking to Twitter to confess that her appearance is the result of several bouts of plastic surgery, back in March of this year, 25-year-old Mikishi has become somewhat of a poster-girl for early plastic surgery. She had her first cosmetic procedure, a facial reshaping, on the first day after graduating high-school, and she has since turned to plastic surgery several more times, spending about 4 million yen ($40,000) in the process. But she considers it money well spent, as plastic surgery changed her life, giving her back her self-esteem and helping her lead a happy life, instead of sinking into a depression. Today, Mikishi actually advocates for plastic surgery for people who really feel like they need it, and she has even founded a company that provides consultancy  services to such individuals.

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A South-African female engineer has become an inspiration for other women looking to succeed in fields dominated by men, after photos of her constructing an extension to her house went viral on social media.

Last month, South Africa celebrated Women’s Month and a 26-year-old woman from Pietermaritzburg became the unlikely poster girl for this year’s celebration, after photos of her single-handedly working on an extension to her house went viral on Facebook and other social networks. The pics showed the woman preparing the cement, making all the measurements and stacking the building blocks all by herself, which not only won her a lot of praise, but also empowered other women to follow their dreams even if the odds are stacked against them.

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