Man Claims to Be Oldest Person to Have Ever Lived, Sparks Controversy

An Indian man recently shocked airport staff in Abu Dhabi, because his passport showed he was born in 1896, which would make him 123, the oldest human to have ever lived.

Swami Sivananda’s passport shows him to be a year older than France’s Jeanne Louise Calment , who holds the Guinness Record for the oldest verified person in history -122 – but the problem is that the only proof he has comes from an old temple register.  Mr Sivananda also looks decades younger than his alleged age, but he credits his youthful appearance and good health to leading a simple and balanced life, yoga, and a frugal, spice-free diet. His celibacy may have something to do with his longevity as well, he figures. He’s been trying to have his name included in the Guinness Book of Records for three years, but he has been having trouble proving his age.

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Chechen Man Forced to Issue Public Apology for Crying at Sister’s Wedding

Chechen men are considered some of the most masculine in the world, and this is an image that authorities are keen to maintain, so anything that threatens to damage that hard-earned image of fearlessness is frowned upon. A young man recently learned that first-hand, after crying at his sister’s wedding.

According to historian Zelimkhan Musaev the public display of emotions at Chechen wedding parties is unbecoming, even among women, so when a video of a young man shedding tears at his sister’s wedding went viral on social media, it angered a lot of people. And seeing as the nation’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov – who boasts a very manly public image himself – had also criticized the violation of Chechen customs and traditions, the offender was identified and forced to apologize for showing excessive emotion.

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The Photo-Realistic Charcoal-Drawn Portraits of Dylan Eakin

Looking at the expertly-drawn charcoal and graphite portraits of Dylan Eakin, you’d think he has a lifetime of experience and many years of art school under his belt, but the truth is he’s a self-taught artist and he’s only been at it for three years.

Staring at most of Eakin’s black-and-white portraits, I often found myself looking for any clues that I was looking at a drawing and not a high-definition photograph. That’s what hyperrealism is all about, I know, but the talented artist really takes it to the extreme, nailing even the finest of details, like loose strands of hair on his subjects’ faces, droplets of sweat or the smallest wrinkles. To the untrained eye, his works seem perfect, but he is the first to point out that there are some things he simply can’t replicate.

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Man Uses Cheese Grater to Remove Tattoo a Week After Getting It Done

An Argentinian man desperate to have his tattoo removed just a week after having it done, used a cheese grater to scratch it off, even if it meant letting go of some of his skin in the process.

The 21-year-old man, who preferred to remain anonymous, opted for the unusual and most likely painful tattoo removal method two years ago, but a video and pictures of his arm, before and after, only just went viral, after one of his friends decided to post them online. A resident of the Argentinian city of Mendoza, the protagonist of the viral footage was located by local media reporters and was happy to share his motivation for using a cheese grater to remove a fresh tattoo he had had done on his wrist.

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Spanish Company Launches “Wellness Shirt” That Can Allegedly Reduce Stress

Developed by Spanish fashion brand Sepiia, the Ultimate Smart Shirt 3.0 is a special men’s garment that can allegedly reduce the wearer’s stress, improve blood flow and increase energy levels.

Sepiia has been developing smart clothing for years now. Its first generation garments incorporated staining-resistant fabric around the cuffs and neck, thus requiring less frequent washing, while the second generation introduced a more breathable fabric that prevented excessive perspiration and sweat patches, while also being odor resistant. For its latest generation of smart clothing, Sepiia introduced the concept of wellness, by developing a fabric that has all the characteristics of previous generations, as well as new bioceramic nanoparticles that improve the wearer’s well-being.

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Exhausted Cat Needs Glucose Drip to Recover After Mating with at Least 5 Females in One Night

A male Russian Blue cat who was left to roam freely in a pet hotel in Sichuan, China, ended up needing a glucose drip to recover after mating with at least five female cats in just a few hours.

News of the cat’s exploits was shared on Chinese social media by his owner, a certain Mr. Zhao, after receiving complaints from the pet hotel staff. Apparently, workers there neglected to feed his pet Russian Blue, named Xiaopi, and simply let him out of his cage to roam freely with all the other felines at the hotel, despite being explicitly told that he had not been neutered. Zhao wrote that the staff simply opened the cats cages and went home, leaving them to their own devices for the whole night.

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7-Year-Old Girl Allegedly Reaches Puberty by Sleeping with the Lights On for Years

Chinese media recently reported the unusual case of a girl who reached puberty at age seven, presumably because of sleeping with the lights on every night for the last three years.

At age 7, Dandan (pseudonym) is already 1.20m-tall, towering over most girls her age. When she first started growing, her mother was delighted, and didn’t even stop to wonder why the girl had grown by about 10 cm in a single year. It wasn’t until one day, when she was giving Dandan a bath, and she noticed that she had developed breasts, that the woman realized something was wrong. She took the 7-year-old to the hospital and was shocked to learn that her daughter had reached puberty at least three years earlier than usual.

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Oregon’s Real-Life Hobbit Has Been Living Under a Hill for Over Two Decades

Dan Price, a former photojournalist from Kentucky, gave up his successful career to live in a dugout on the side of a hill in rural Oregon. He’s been living there for over 20 years and has no interest in going back to his old life.

Once a successful but stressed out photojournalist and family man, Dan Price got tired of the never-ending rat-race in 1990, after reading a 1974 book called Payne Hallow, about the rejection of modernity in favor of a primitive, more simple lifestyle. Up to that point he had considered waking up and going to work just to pay the bills a normal life, but after reading Harlan Hubbard’s book, he realized he wanted more, or rather, less. So he just quit his job, left his family behind and returned to his home state of Oregon to live by himself, in a meadow.

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iPhone User Sues Apple for Turning Him Gay

A Russian iPhone user recently filed a one million ruble lawsuit against Apple, accusing the American corporation of indirectly turning him gay.

In a court filing that went viral on Russia’s internet, the plaintiff alleges that he became “mired in a same-sex relationship” after receiving the wrong kind of cryptocurrency on a virtual wallet app that he installed on his iPhone in 2017. The man, identified as one D. Razumilov claims that he received 69 GayCoins – a cryptocurrency designed for member of the LGBT community – from an anonymous sender. The mysterious transfer was accompanied the message “don’t knock it till you’re tried it”, which kind of made sense to Razumilov and eventually pushed him to become involved in a gay relationship.

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Get Your Own Batmobile for Just $850,000

If you’re a Dark Knight fan with money to burn, you may be interested in this cool-looking Batmobile on sale in Russia for just 55,000,000 rubles, or about $850,000.

Batmobile replicas are not that uncommon nowadays, but the one currently being sold on Russian online marketplace Auto.ru, stands out in terms of looks, performance and price. First of all this is  very modern take on the iconic Batmobile, I’d say even more so than the Tumbler featured in the dark Knight trilogy. It has a very aggressive look, complemented by a menacing machine gun that actually comes with realistic sound effects, and measures 4 meters wide, which means you won’t be able to drive it everywhere. Powered by a 5-liter engine, this rear-wheel drive Batmobile has a top speed of 100km/h, and features a bunch of cool accessories – such as bulletproof windows, thermal imaging with 255x zoom, and a night vision camera – designed to make you feel like a real-life Batman.

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Zoo Keeper Who Lost Her Leg to a Bear Begs That the Animal Be Pardoned

Wild animals usually get put down after attacking humans, but a Russian zoo keeper who lost one of her legs to a caged bear has been pleading with authorities to spare the animal, claiming that it wasn’t to blame for the tragic accident.

On September 25, experienced zoo keeper and animal activist Vera Blishch was instructing a new colleague at the Municipal Zoo in Ussuriysk when a bout of vertigo made her lean towards a bear cage for just a split second. Unfortunately, that was just enough time for Manyunya, a 20-year-old female bear, to reach through the bars and grab the zookeeper’s leg. She suffered severe injuries, including multiple fractures, and eventually needed to have her leg amputated below the knee at a Ussuriysk hospital. Knowing that animals that attack people are put down to eliminate the risk of them attacking other humans, Blishch’s first concern upon waking from her surgery anesthesia was for Manyunya’s well-being, insisting that the bear was not to blame.

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South Korean Mayor Dumps Tonne of Trash on Pristine Beach for International Clean-Up Day

On September 21, volunteers across the globe, from Thailand to Hawaii, gathered on their local beaches to clean up trash and make a powerful statement about the poor state of our environment? But what about volunteers with no dirty beaches to clean? Well, some of them got a bit of help from local authorities.

Late last month, a South Korean mayor came under fire after revealing that he dumped a tonne of trash on a pristine beach just so hundreds of volunteers could clean it up the next day, in celebration of the International Coastal Cleanup Day. His office later apologized, saying that there wasn’t any trash for people to pick up, and that they only did it to “raise awareness about the seriousness of coastal waste”.

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Woman Wears Wedding Dress Everywhere a Year After Her Wedding

Determined to get her money’s worth out of the wedding dressed she spent over $1,000, an Australian woman has been wearing her wedding dress everywhere, a year after her wedding.

43-year-old Tammy Hall adopted an anti-consumerism lifestyle in 2016, after a trip to India opened her eyes to how much we as a society consume. She vowed not to buy any new clothes or footwear for a whole year after she returned home to Adelaide, in Southern Australia, which turned out to be very easy, but last year, as her wedding day approached, she faced a puzzling dilemma. She wanted to look good on the most important day of her life, but how could she justify spending a small fortune on garment she would only wear on that day? In the end, she just decided to get her money’s worth.

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Doll’s Head Trail – Probably the World’s Creepiest Hiking Trail

Just outside the city of Atlanta, in Georgia, lies one of the strangest, most disturbing hiking trails in the world – Doll’s Head Trail. Faithful to its name, this 1.5-mile course is lined with creepy doll heads that seem to be following you with their gaze as you walk by.

Long before it became home to the world’s creepiest hiking trail, Georgia’s Constitution Park was a huge 19th century brick laying site. But that shut down half a century ago, giving nature the chance to reclaim it, along with the deep clay pits which have since been flooded with rain water and created the network of ponds known as Constitution Lakes. And despite being located just a few miles from downtown Atlanta, this natural haven is home to several species of wild birds and even big game like deer. But the thing Constitution park is most famous for is its unique hiking trail, Doll’s Head Trail.

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Ruby Roman – The World’s Most Expensive Grape Variety

There are hundreds of grape varieties cultivated in japan, but only one so coveted that it can sell for several hundreds of dollars per grape (that’s individual grape, not bunch). The Ruby Roman was developed in Japan’s Ishikawa Prefecture and is considered one of the world’s most expensive fruits.

The story of  Ruby Roman began in 1995, when Ishikawa grape farmers appealed to the Prefectural Agricultural Research Center to create a large red grape variety. 400 experimental vines were planted into a test field, and two years later, they started bearing fruit. However, out of the 400 vines, only 4 turned out to be red grapes, and only one of them was deemed large enough to meet the farmers’ expectations. Over the next 14 years, researchers selectively bred this grape variety, constantly enhancing its size, taste, color and ease of cultivation, and today Ruby Roman is considered a “treasure of Ishikawa”.

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