Tourists Won’t Stop Visiting Australia’s “Asbestos Town”

It’s considered the most contaminated site in the southern hemisphere and one of the most toxic in the world, but for some reason tourists just can’t stay away from the abandoned mining town of Wittenoom, deep in Western Australia’s remote Pilbara region.

In its heyday, between 1930 and 1966, Wittenoom was home to around 20,000 people, most of whom worked in the now abandoned nearby mines, extracting deadly asbestos every day. Today, it’s a ghost town surrounded by large ‘Danger’ signs designed to keep people as far away as possible. Even though asbestos mining ceased decades ago, Wittenoom is still surrounded by around three million tonnes of asbestos residue, enough to make the air there potentially deadly. The place is so dangerous that last year the Australian government decided to compulsorily acquire the properties of the last three people living in the area, just to get them to safety. And yet, there are thousands of tourists visiting Wittenoom every year and proudly posting photos of it on social media.

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Indian Man Hasn’t Cut or Washed His Hair in 40 Years

A 63-year-old man in India who hasn’t cut or washed his hair in over 40 years has to keep his tangled 6-foot-long locks wrapped in a head cloth just to walk around without stepping on them.

Sakal Dev Tuddu, a resident of Mandada village, in Eastern India’s Bihar state, claims he has been growing his hair long since he was 22. For some reason, he didn’t cut his hair for a whole year, and when he woke up one day he noticed his locks had become tangled into a ‘jatta’ (dreadlock). He considered it a blessing from the Hindu god Shiva, so from that day on he never cut or washed his hair again. Today, his impressive jatta measures around 6 feet and reaches all the way to the ground and trails behind him. To keep his hair from becoming even dirtier, Sakal keeps it wrapped in a white cloth on top of his head whenever he goes out.

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The Predator of Mukdahan – Thailand’s Real-Life, Chopper-Riding Predator

A longtime Predator fan in Thailand has been getting a lot of attention for dressing up as a real-life human-hunting alien and riding his custom-made, Predator-themed choppers on the roads of his home province.

A video of a someone wearing a realistic Predator costume and riding an alien-looking chopper on a road in Thailand’s Mukdahan province has been doing the rounds on social media since last month. Unfortunately, the viral video doesn’t offer any context whatsoever, relying solely on the impressive visuals to attract attention, but it turns out that this isn’t just a random cosplayer, but a dedicated Predator fan known by the local communities as the Predator of Mukdahan.

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Christian Family Refuses to Pay Income Taxes Because It “Goes Against God’s Will”

A pair of Christian missionaries in Australia were recently ordered to pay over AUD$2 million to the Australian Taxation Office after failing to pay income tax because Australian taxation law was contrary to the law of Almighty God.

Fanny Alida Beerepoot and her brother Rembertus Cornelis Beerepoot were brought in front of a judge at the Supreme Court of Tasmania on Wednesday after they both failed to pay $930,000 in 2017. Prosecutors showed that they pair had been served notices on two separate occasions, but they still failed to lodge their tax returns. In their defense, the two siblings argued that the law of Almighty God was supreme in Australia and they didn’t owe anything to the Commonwealth because they belong to Him.

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Ireland’s Most Prolific Petty Criminal Racks Up Conviction Number 648

Jennifer Armstrong, a 44-year-old woman from Ireland, is considered by many the country’s most prolific petty criminal, with a record of 648 convictions.

Armstrong recently made headlines in her home country, after showing up in front of a judge for trying to steal a bottle of wine while intoxicated just two days after being released from a 16-month prison sentence. Among her many past offences, the 44-year-old was convicted for crimes like stealing from and harassing people around Dublin city center, assault and public intoxication. During her latest visit in court, the serial thief asked the judge for “one last chance”, and managed to leave with a suspended six-month sentence.

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Chinese Startup Creates App That Finds Lost Dogs Using Photos of Their Nose

Chinese facial-recognition startup Megvii has been making news headlines for an app that allows people to track down their lost dogs using photos of their unique noses.

The idea of using AI-powered facial recognition technology to identify pets isn’t new, but what makes Megvii’s solution special is that instead of analyzing several facial features, like the eyes or snout, it focuses solely on dogs’ noses. Apparently, the patterns on a dog’s nose are just as unique as the ones on out fingertips, allowing the company’s app to track down pooches by matching their noses against a database with 95 percent accuracy. Megvii claims that its method is both cheaper and less invasive than inserting identification chips under the animals’ skin.

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Pizza Chain Let’s Customers Orders Just the Crust of Their Delicious Neapolitan Pizza

Whether you’re the kind of person who gobbles up pizza slices just to get to the doughy crust as fast as possible, or you just can’t afford a full slice of pizza, you’re probably going this pizza chain’s ingenious new offering – Just the Crust.

Inspired by the frequent inquiries of its customers regarding the crust of its popular Neapolitan pizza and what makes it so delicious, Villa Italian Kitchen decided to give the people what they really want – just the crust. Starting tomorrow, the American pizza chain will start selling pizza crust pieces neatly packaged in triangular full slice boxes for only $2.75.

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Restaurant in Japan Bans Japanese Customers, Only Serves Foreigners

A restaurant owner on Ishigakijima Island, Japan, has had enough of his countrymen’s bad banners, so he banned all Japanese customers, serving only overseas tourists instead.

Yaeyama Style, a small ramen restaurant in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture should be packed this time of year, but owner Akio Arima says he only serves a couple of bowls of ramen on some days. But it’s not that people don’t want eat there, but rather that Arima doesn’t want to serve them, even if it means losing money. Starting this month, he posted a recent notice on the front door of his restaurant letting would-be Japanese patrons know that they are no longer welcome at Yaeyama Style due to their bad manners.

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Tourists Play with Tiny But Deadly Octopus With Enough Venom to Kill 26 People

Two British backpackers fishing in Australia can consider themselves lucky to be alive after stupidly playing with a tiny blue-ringed octopus, whose painless bite can kill up to 26 adults in minutes.

A viral video posted on a Facebook group for backpackers shows daredevils Ross Saunders and Johnpaul Lennon dangling a blue-ringed octopus and letting it touch their skin, completely oblivious to the fact that a single bite could result in a painful death. The two adventurers had been fishing in Australia when they caught the yellow and blue spotted octopus, only instead of keeping it as far away as possible, they decided to play chicken with it, dangling the creature against their bare arms while laughing.

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Company Creates Beanless Coffee with the Full Flavor of the Real Thing, Minus the Bitterness

Most coffee drinkers use cream, milk or sugar to mask the bitterns of the popular morning booster, but one Seattle-based company claims it has engineered a type of “beanless, molecular coffee” that retains  the full flavor of the real thing, but none of its characteristic bitterness.

Atomo is the brainchild of experienced food scientist Jarret Stopforth and entrepreneur Andy Kleitsch. They started out with the idea of optimizing coffee and spent four months in a garage-turned-brewing-lab running green beans, roasted beans and brewed coffee through gas and liquid chromatography in order to identify over 1,000 components in coffee, all the way to molecular level. After analyzing all the essential compounds that gave coffee its natural aroma and flavor, they were able to design their own version, which didn’t include the stuff that gives natural coffee its bitterness.

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Handsome Goat Goes Viral Online for Looking Like a K-Pop Star

We’ve seen animals achieve online fame for their looks, in fact Instagram is full of animal influencers, but this handsome Saanen goat in Malaysia is the first to reach online celebrity status for looking like a Korean pop star.

Ramos, an 11-month-old billy goat at Muhammad Livestock Farm in Perak, Malaysia, went viral last week after his owner posted photos of him on the farm’s Facebook page. People instantly fell in love with his blonde hairdo and goatee, and some social media users even compared his beauty to that of a K-pop star. Ramos’ owner, 21-year-old Ahmad M Fadzir, told local reporters that the handsome goat loves getting photographed and turns to pose for the camera whenever he sees one. That’s what stars do, I suppose…

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“Greek Hachiko” Has Been Waiting by His Owner’s Car Crash Site for 18 Months

A loyal dog in Greece recently melted the hearts of millions around the world after it was reported that it has spent the last 18 months at a roadside shrine where his owner tragically lost his life in a traffic accident.

Nicknamed the “Greek Hachiko” after the legendary Akita Inu who spent years waiting at a train station in Japan for his owner who had passed away, the unnamed white dog has reportedly been living at a roadside shrine near the Greek town of Nafpaktos for the last year and a half. Despite several the efforts of several locals to adopt the dog, he keeps escaping and always returns to the place where his owner lost his life in a car crash.

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Man Spends Almost Five Days Sitting on a Toilet Bowl, Sets World Record

48-year-old Jimmy De Frenne, from Belgium, recently set a new world record for the longest time spent sitting on a toilet, after spending five days on a toilet bowl in a bar.

After breaking the world record for the longest time spent ironing non-stop (82 hours) in 2016, Jimmy De Frenne recently set his sights on another bizarre world record attempt – the longest time spent sitting on a toilet bowl. There was no official record to break as Guinness World Records had no such category, but De Frenne had heard of a man who had allegedly spent 100 hours sitting on a “throne” and thought he could do better. He set himself a goal of 168 hours and spent almost five days last week sitting on a toilet bowl at Filip’s Place bar in Ostend, but had to quit after only 116 hours as his body just couldn’t handle it anymore.

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Monte Neme – Spain’s Very Own Toxic Maldives

During the same time that a turquoise but toxic lake near the Russian city of Novosibirsk is making international headlines as the “Siberian Maldives“, a similarly dangerous attraction is gaining notoriety in Spain.

During the first and second World Wars, Monte Neme was a prized tungsten mine that supplied the material necessary for making light bulbs and hardening steel. Today, the mine is no longer accessible, but it remains popular, albeit for a totally different reason. Galician influencers have discovered that the turquoise lake that now covers the flooded mine is the ideal location for spectacular selfies. Despite knowing that the alluring water contains a high concentration of chemicals that give it its unusual color, they flock to Monte Neme to take photos, and some even bathe in the toxic water.

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Former Boxing Champion Turned Pastry Chef Creates the Most Amazing Wedding Cakes

Once a Russian boxing champion, Renat Agzamov is now known as a celebrity cake maker specializing in elaborate, edible masterpieces that sell for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A self-described workaholic, Renat Agzamov baked his first cake when he was only seven-years old and claims to have since created over 2,700 cakes, constantly trying to improve his skills and surpass clients’ expectations. Despite dedicating much of his youth to sports and becoming a boxing champion in his native Russia, the talented food artist says that cooking in general and cake making in particular have always been his greatest passions. Today, he is one of the world’s most sought-after cake artisans, creating incredibly complex wedding cakes for high-profile clients all around the world.

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