Wildlife experts in India are trying to make sens of the mysterious deaths of thousands of birds near the country’s largest inland lake. While the reported death toll is currently around 2,000, locals claimed that it could reach 5,000, as carcasses allegedly cover an area stretching from 12 to 15 km around the lake.

Sambhar Lake, 80km south-west of the city of Jaipur, is India’s largest inland lake and a popular gathering place for migratory birds like flamingos, storks, sandpipers, redshanks, black-winged stilts, among dozens of species. Last Sunday, however, locals alerted authorities that the lake shoreline had become an eerie graveyard for thousands of birds, with only a few dozen still left alive as far as the eye could see. There were reportedly so many bodies that when people first saw them, they mistook them for piles of cow dung, but it didn’t take them long to realize that they were really bird carcasses from more than 10 species.

Read More »

From actual snake oil to music therapy, over the years humanity has come up with all sort of bizarre treatments for chronic pain. One of the strangest ones you might have never heard of before is gold thread acupuncture, where tiny gold threads are implanted in the human body.

Gold thread acupuncture has long been used in Asian countries to treat various types of pain. The procedure is usually performed by a person with no medical training and involves the permanent implantation of tiny threads of gold in painful areas of the body, using acupuncture needles. Apparently, the insertion of these sterile pieces of gold is believed to result in continuous stimulation inside the body, and pain relief. There is no evidence that this alternative pain relief treatment actually works, but doctors have reported several complications related to the procedure.

Read More »

A newly-inaugurated synthetic soccer pitch in Bogota, Colombia, has been attracting a lot of attention on social media due to a couple of permanent “players” – two trees growing in front of each goal.

Back in 2017 the District Institute of Recreation and Sports (IDRD) commissioned engineering and architecture studies for the adaptation and improvement of Parque Japon, a park in northern Bogota, the capital of Bogota. Everything was going according to plan until locals in the area surrounding the park learned that authorities planned to remove or relocate some of the trees in the park to make room for a synthetic soccer and volleyball field. The people took the IDRD to court and in January of this year they won, which technically meant that the trees could not be touched by authorities. However, that didn’t stop contractors from moving forward with the soccer field…

Read More »

Radboud University, in the Dutch city of Nijmegen, has been raising some eyebrows with its “purification grave”, a hole dug in the ground that students can lie down in for up to three hours to reflect on what is important to them.

The “purification grave” at Radboud University is at the same time a modern form of memento mori and an invitation to think about what is really important in life. Initially dug in 2009 the grave was part of a two year project that ended in 2011. However, it seems to have made a comeback this year, probably by popular demand. Students at the the univeristy, and well as those at the neighboring HAN University of Applied Science can sign up to lay in the several feet-deep hole in the ground for 30 minutes up to three hours. They are not allowed to take their phones or any books with them in the grave, allowing them to focus on their surroundings and their inevitable demise.

Read More »

A 24-year-old Chinese man who visited a hospital to complain about sharp pain in his right ear was shocked to learn that he had an entire family of cockroaches living in his ear canal.

Identified only as “Mr. Lv”, the young man arrived at Sanhe Hospital, in Guangdong Province, southeast China, last month, complaining of sharp pain in his right ear, and a sensation like something was crawling and scratching in his ear. Dr. Zhong Yijin, an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist at the hospital examined the man’s ear canal and was shocked to see a full-grown German cockroach and over 10 of its offspring running around.

Read More »

If you’re keen on trying the blackest coffee around, you may want to give the Matte Black Latte at Round K cafe in New Your City a Try. As the owner of the place puts it, “it’s black like my soul”.

When people say they want their coffee black, they usually mean they want it with no cream or sugar, but Round K owner, Ockhyeon Byeon, wanted to give it a more literal meaning. To him, black coffee was just a dark brown, so he started thinking of ways to make the popular drink actually black. At first, he used different types of activated charcoal, which we’ve seen used in many other goth treats, like pitch black fish and chips, or jet black cheddar cheese, but then he settled on coconut ash, which not only gave the product its dark color, but a nutty flavor as well.

Read More »

66-year-old Benjamin Schreiber is very much alive, but hasn’t stopped him from using his death as a way of explaining that he actually served his life sentence for murder.

When Shreiber collapsed in his prison cell in 2015, doctors had to resuscitate him five times, which technically means that he died for a brief period of time before being brought to life. Three years later, the convicted murderer filed for post-conviction relief, claiming that he was being held in prison illegally. He figured that because he had briefly died in 2015, he had technically served his life sentence and should be a free man. His sentence was supposed to end when he died, right? the fact that he had been resurrected didn’t matter.

Read More »

Government office workers in the Indian city of Banda, Uttar Pradesh state, recently drew a lot of attention online for wearing motorcycle helmets indoors to prevent head injuries in case the roof collapsed on them.

Photos of electricity department employees working at their office in Banda while wearing these large motorcycle helmets on their heads have been doing the round on social media ever since Indian news agency ANI shared them online. According to several sources, the government employees aren’t huge motorcycle fans, they’re just wearing the protective head gear in case the roof of the dilapidated building they work in starts to fall apart. They told reporters that they first reported the dangerous state of the office building several years ago, but no one did anything about it, so they decided to start wearing helmets.

Read More »

Onion hardly seems like the best vegetable to base a soft drink on, but Onionade doesn’t contain the kind of onion you’re used to, but a new type that not only doesn’t make you cry when you chop it, but it unusually sweet as well.

Back in 2016 we reported on one of the most interesting inventions to come out of Japan in the past few years – a tear-free onion named “Smile Ball”. Developed over a period of 14 years by scientists at House Foods Group, Smile Ball onions release almost no tear-inducing compounds when chopped or eaten raw, and have a much sweeter taste than regular onions. Available in Japanese grocery stores for the past two years, Smile Balls have been marketed mainly as tear-free alternatives to the common onion, but now its producers want to promote the vegetable’s sweetness and pleasant flavor as well. And what better way to do that than by producing an onion-based drink called Onionade?

Read More »

Wuxia (martial arts and chivalry) novels and films are very popular in China, but while most people are content just reading or watching the exploits of fictional heroes, some go to extremes in order to experience these adventures themselves.

Jin Yong is considered one of the greatest and most popular wuxia writers in history, and his novels have enjoyed massive success among both Chinese communities around the world and have been translated in several foreign languages. His works have inspired dozens of martial arts movies and TV series, and if news reports in Chinese media are to be believed, they’ve even pushed some die-hard fans to live their lives behind, venture into the mountains, and train like Yong’s fictional characters.

Read More »

A team of researchers from the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Nanjing University recently unveiled an innovative display that is thin and flexible enough to be worn on skin, like a type of temporary tattoo.

Having to check a stopwatch to see your time while running, or looking at your smartphone screen to see who is calling may soon be things of the past thanks to a new and revolutionary human-machine interface that allows information to be displayed directly on human skin. Called alternating-current electroluminescent (ACEL) display, this new invention consists of an electroluminescent layer made of light-emitting microparticles sandwiched between two flexible silver nanowire electrodes. The ceramic nanoparticles embedded in stretchable polymer make this ACEL display brighter than any other, allowing it be clearly visible even in a well-lit room.

Read More »

A North Carolina woman who got a power washer for her birthday is using it to turn her concrete driveway into a canvas for ephemeral art, and draw a lot of attention online in the process.

Dianna Wood, a retired office worker from Burlington, North Carolina, had been wanting her own power washer ever since she used one to help one of her friend’s mother to get her hose ready for sale. She loved it so much that when her birthday came around, her husband knew exactly what to get her as a present. For over a month, she used it clan the patio, the dirty shutters, the fence around her home, and even the garbage cans. It was great, but by the time she got started on her concrete driveway, Dianna was already looking for way to spice things up. So instead of just cleaning the concrete, she decided to use the power washer to exercise her artistic talents.

Read More »

A 36-year-old mother got so worked up because her son couldn’t understand how to solve a math problem while doing homework that she suffered a heart attack.

Parenting in general can get pretty tough, and I can attest that trying to explain math to a child can be frustrating, but according to a recent news report from China is can be literally life-threatening. A 36-year-old mother, surnamed Wang, had to be rushed to the hospital on November 1st after suffering a heart-attack while doing homework with her 9-year-old son. She was apparently explaining a math problem to him and got so frustrated that he didn’t get it that her heart gave out.

Read More »

A popular seafood restaurant in Singapore has been criticized online for its “cruel” claw machine which gave patrons the chance to catch a live crab for $5 a token.

The chief executive of House of Seafood has had to issue a public apology after a viral video showing people using a pink claw machine to catch live crabs drew a lot of criticism both from the general public and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). In a statement posted on Facebook, Francis Ng claimed that the live claw machine was actually meant to educate children about marine life, while critics of the controversial attraction said that it caused unnecessary harm to the crustaceans and encouraged people to see the live creatures as thing to be won in a game. As a result of the backlash the claw machine attracted, House of Seafood decided to temporarily close the machines at all of its locations.

Read More »

A 36-year-old woman from Amugagara, in Uganda, made national news headlines for marrying three men at once after her monogamous relationship failed.

The daughter of a Christian pastor in Uganda’s Teso community, Ann Grace Aguti had been at odds with her clansmen ever since she decided to get multiple husbands. However, she always defended her choice by saying that she had been married to only one man, like it is customary in her community, but her husband had turned out to be a big disappointment. She had wanted a “tender, loving husband, who can provide all my needs as a housewife,” but he turned out to be utterly useless, so she left him and decided to try her luck again, this time with multiple men at once.

Read More »