They say money does not smell, but a lucrative venture thought up by a German circus is proof that money can actually stink. The Krone Circus in Munich is in the business of selling lion poop.

Circus are forbidden from performing during the pandemic, so many of them have been struggling to stay afloat in the last few months. Animal circuses have it even worse, as they have dozens of creatures to feed every day, so many of them have been forced to think outside the box in order to stay solvent. The Krone Circus, in Munich, Germany, has come up with a stinky yet profitable business idea – selling jars of poop from their 26 lions and tigers for 5 euros ($6) a pop.

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An 83-year-old man was ordered to pay a 166 euro fine after he failed to prevent his pet rooster from crowing at 4:30 in the morning, which some of his neighbors had complained about.

Angelo Boletti, a pensioner from the Italian town of Castiraga Vidardo, in Lombardy, was found to have violated local rules, which state that pets must be kept at a minimum distance of 10 metres from neighboring homes. But the real problem was that the pet in question, a rooster named Carlino, crowed loudly as early as 4:30 in the morning and waking up the neighbors. After receiving several complaints about the bird’s morning routine, police started monitoring Carlino, and after confirming his early crowing decided to fine the retired bricklayer.

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Kek Lapis Sarawak is a traditional Malaysian cake famous both for its intricate kaleidoscopic appearance and the grueling process required to make it.

Inspired by the spit cakes that Dutch colonists used to enjoy, Kek Lapis Sarawak was born in Malaysia’s Sarawak state, sometime in the 1970’s. It’s basically a much more complex version of the layered Kek Lapis Betawi, which Sarawakians pretty much elevated to an art form. While its beige or brown outer layers do a good job or concealing the complicated inner cake, slicing one of these treas reveals a kaleidoscope of colors and geometrical shapes that require both logical thinking and a rich imagination to create.

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An Indian man melted the hearts of millions in his home country after unveiling a life-size and almost lifelike sculpture of his late wife during a house-warming party.

Srinivas Gupta, a businessman from Karnataka, India who lost his wife in a tragic car accident three years ago, wanted his life partner to be physically present at a recent house-warming event that he had a life-size silicone statue of her made by a local artist. Madhavi, Gupta’s late wife, had always wanted to own her own bungalow, so after her death the businessman decided to honor her memory by building one in her honor. A year ago, he commissioned a local sculptor to make an ultra-realistic statue of Madhavi, so she could be with him and their two daughters when the new home was ready.

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In a country that eschews confrontation and frowns upon public display of passion, bold entrepreneurs eager to take up the burden of ending a romantic relationship on a client’s behalf can make a fortune.

The Wakaresaseya, literally “breaker-uppers”, are professional agents that specialize in destroying relationships, be they marriages or affairs, for a fee. After taking on a contract these unlicensed operatives stop at nothing to achieve their goal, which includes extreme measures like entrapment, financial burdening and lying. Wakaresaseya are viewed by some in Japanese society as immoral, but they have been around for decades and their services are more popular than ever.

Wakaresaseya services, many of which are tied to private detective agencies, are often advertised online and cater to both married people seeking a reason to leave their spouse, and married individuals who know about their partner’s infidelity and want to end it without getting involved. Prices reportedly vary from a couple of hundred dollars for simple cases, to upwards of $150,000 for high-profile cases where discretion if of the upmost importance.

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On the fourth Saturday of each January, the dead grass of Mount Wakakusa is set ablaze as part of a unique and impressive festival called Wakakusa Yamayaki (‘Wakakusa Burning Mountain’).

No one known exactly how the tradition of burning an entire 342-metre-high hill in Japan’s Nara Prefecture actually started, but one thing is for certain – it has been around for hundreds of years. Some say it began as a boundary dispute between the two greatest temples of Nara, Tōdai-ji and Kōfuku-ji, sometime during the 18th century. When mediation failed, the entire hill was burned to the ground, although no one quite remembers how that solved anything. Another theory claims that the annual fire originated as a way to eliminate pests and drive away wild boars. Today, it’s just an impressive sight to behold that attracts tourists from all over the world.

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When it comes to artistic pumpkin carving, Bulgarian food artist Angel Boraliev is a cut above the rest. From fine details like feathers to intricate motifs, there is nothing he can’t carve out of a pumpkin.

Boraliev, who works in the hotel and restaurant industry showcases his amazing sculptures at various events, but he has also been featured by several online outlets, and has a decent following on social media. He started pumpkin carving almost 7 years ago, and has apparently honed his skills to the point where he can carve realistic birds, feathers and everything, out of one or several pumpkins. Boraliev also carves watermelons and bars of soap, but it’s his pumpkin sculptures that really take people’s breath away.

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Of the roughly 1,300 known species of bat, very few can be described as cute and cuddly, but the tiny Honduran White Bat is definitely one of these rare exceptions.

Also called the Caribbean White Tent-Making Bat, this adorable flying mammal can be found in the tropical forests of Central-American countries like Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and western parts of Panama. It has a distinctive white fur, which is characteristic of only five other known bat species, and is very small for its genus, with the largest recorded individual being under 5 centimetres in length. Because of its white color and generally cute look, as well as the fact that it doesn’t live in caves and doesn’t suck blood, the Honduran White Bat is considered a living, breathing contradiction of bat stereotypes.

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With tourism at an all-time low, a struggling Japanese railway operator is trying to avoid going under by selling canned stones from its railway tracks.

Founded in 1923, the Choshi Electric Railway company, in Japan’s Chiba Prefecture, had to overcome adversity several times during its 97-year history, but the situation has never been more dire than it is now. The railway operator relies on tourism to support its operations, but with the novel Coronavirus wreaking havoc all over the world, business has never been worse, so management had to come up with alternative ways of generating income. Among these, starting a YouTube channel and selling canned stones have been proving unusually successful.

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A family from Phoenix, Arizona came up with an original way of punishing their 14-year-old son after he was caught by police speeding in the family car: they made him give away all his possessions.

14-year-old Angel Martinez’s parents were celebrating their anniversary in Las Vegas earlier this month when they received a call from police about their teenage son. He had taken the family’s Range Rover out for a spin and had disrupted the neighbors. The couple were forced to cut their anniversary celebration short and go home, but they made sure to let Angel know just how “happy” they were about it. They pretty much emptied the boy’s room, put all his stuff in the driveway and made him give it all away personally as punishment.

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An amateur confectioner from Vietnam has been getting a lot of attention for her stunningly-realistic tangerine-shaped steamed buns.

Le Thuy, a secondary school teacher from Ho Chi Minh city, is well known among the confectioner community of the Vietnamese capital, especially for her jelly and bean cakes. However, she recently managed to surprise her peers as well as thousands of social media users with her unique buns designed to resemble real tangerines down to the tiniest details. Her amazing creations look like fruits on the outside, but tear them apart and a soft, spongy interior is revealed.

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Scientists recently discovered that a species of tiny water beetles can live through being eaten by a frog by somehow surviving a journey through its gut and simply exiting through the butt hole.

Until this week, Regimbartia attenuata was just another species of water beetle, but ever since a study on its astonishing survival skills came out on Monday, it’s been making headlines in mainstream media outlets around the world. And for good reason, as there aren’t many creatures on this Earth that can survive being swallowed alive, journey through their predator’s digestive system, simply crawl out the “back door” and go on with their lives as if they didn’t just pull off a Houdini-like magic trick.

Regimbartia attenuata were the subject of an unusual study carried out by Shinji Sugiura, an associate professor in the department of agrobioscience at Kobe University in Japan. He put the tiny beetles in the same laboratory bin with specimens from five different frog species, and the little bugs managed to crawl out the frogs’ “vents” in the vast majority of experiments.

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A 42-year-old Florida man managed to dupe dealership staff into letting him drive off in a $140,000 Porsche 911 in exchange for a fake check he had printed on his home computer.

Casey William Kelley walked into a Porsche dealership in Destin, Okaloosa County on July 27 and managed to drive off with a brand new, white Porsche 911 sports car. The really impressive thing about that is he only traded a useless piece of paper for it. Kelley had reportedly printed the check for $139,203.05 on his home printer, but staff let him take the car without waiting to see if the check cleared. They must have fallen for the conman’s confident attitude, as he was so proud of himself that he even asked staff to take a picture of him with the car before driving away.

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A 51-year-old Ukrainian woman was recently arrested after it was discovered that she had been digging an underground tunnel near the walls of a prison, with the intention of helping her convicted son to escape.

The unnamed woman reportedly hails from the Ukrainian city of Nikolaev and had rented a house near the prison where her son was serving a life sentence for murder. Every night, she drove a silent electric scooter to an empty field near the Zaporizhia maximum security prison and used rudimentary tools to dig a 10-foot-deep tunnel toward the penal colony. She worked only during the night, using an improvised trolley to take the dirt out of the narrow tunnel. She had been working for at least three weeks and had almost reached the prison walls when she was discovered and arrested.

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A Vietnamese man obsessed with traditional porcelain dishes and antiques has spent the last 25 years of his life decorating his house with almost 10,000 porcelain bowls, plates and urns.

Nguien Van Truong first fell in love with porcelain antiques in 1986, a year after being discharged from the army and returning to his home village of Kieu Son, in Vietnam’s Vinh Phuc province. He was making a living as a carpenter at a time and got the chance to paint the table and chairs of a local antique collector who first introduced him to the beauty of traditional porcelain dishes. Truong was so impressed that he decided to become a collector himself, and scoured all of Vietnam’s northern provinces in search of traditional porcelain objects, and spent all of his money trying to acquire as much of it as possible.

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