This month, Kyle Messier, a 31-year-old bike mechanic, won the Big Red Gravel Run, a 100 kilometer bike race that takes place in Harrington, Quebec. While this is an impressive achievement on its own, what makes Kyle’s win truly exceptional is that he had already pedaled more than 650 kilometers to the race site, and a few hours after winning he got back on his bike and pedealed back home to Waterloo.

Messier’s journey from Waterloo to Harrington took him 3.5 days to complete. After winning first place in the rural cycling race,he celebrated with some pizza, slept for a few hours in his tent, and then got started on the 3.5-day journey back home. And it gets even more remarkable still; Kyle was not only completely new to bicycle racing, but he also managed to win the 100-kilometer Big Red Gravel Run while suffering from an abscessed tooth.

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Gulspor, a small football club from one of Turkey’s lowest divisions, recently sold 18 of its players in order to buy 10 goats and generate extra income from milk and meat sales.

The club’s president, Kenan Büyükleblebi, told Turkish media that the unusual decision was dictated by lack of funds, as there are virtually no sponsorships or government investments for teams performing in lower leagues. Gulspor sold 18 of its youth players for around 15,000 Turkish lira ($2,600), which was enough to buy 10 goats. It may not seem like a great business decision, but Büyükleblebi claims the club is estimated to generate a yearly profit of 4,000-5,000 lira from the sale of milk and meat. In fact, it plans to build a herd of 140 goats in the next few years.

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A young Indian businessman who wanted to get back on his girlfriend’s good side after an argument put up 300 billboards and signs all over their local suburb, to let her know he wanted her forgiveness.

It’s not clear what 25-year-old Nilesh Khedekar had done to upset his girlfriend, but he clearly thought it serious enough to be worth the effort of an impressive operation to earn her forgiveness. Last week, after hearing that the girl, named Shivde, was returning from Mumbai to her home in Pimple Saudagar, a suburb of Pune, the young man decided he had to come up with a creative way of showing her just how sorry he was about their argument. He got in touch with a printer and commissioned hundreds of different-sized posters with the message “Shivde, I am Sorry!”. Then, on the night before the girl’s scheduled returned, he paid a group of boys to hang the signs and billboards all over her neighborhood.

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25-year-old Tomasz Nadolski, from Wroclaw, Poland,  suffers from a rare and cruel disease that has not only made his life a living hell, but also left him stuck in the underdeveloped body of a 12-year-old boy.

Tomasz’s health problems began when he was only 7-years-old. He would throw up after every meal and experience excruciating pain in his stomach, hands and feet. Because he couldn’t keep any food down, he lost a lot of weight and kids at school started teasing him about looking like a walking skeleton. For years, doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him, and some of them even claimed that his problems were mental rather than physical. It took 16 years for Tomasz’s condition to finally be diagnosed, but, unfortunately, knowing what he was suffering from didn’t make the young man’s life any better.

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Zhong Congrong, a successful businessman from Chongqing, China, has become known as the “the millionaire trash collector,” for his longtime habit of scouring the streets of his city armed with a trash-picking claw and picking up any garbage he finds.

The 52-year-old entrepreneur began cleaning up the streets of Chingqing three years ago, after a family trip to southern China’s Hainan province, for the Chinese New Year. There, he met a retired university professor who had reportedly been picking up trash from one of the local beaches every day, for the last four years. He was so impressed with the woman’s dedication and commitment to trash collecting that he decided to replicate her daily habit in his home city, as soon as he got back from his vacation.

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A 42-year old woman who thought her contact lens had fallen off when she was hit in the eye with a shuttlecock 28 years ago recently discovered that it had actually been lodged in her eyelid all this time.

Those of us who no longer have perfect vision understand just how amazing and convenient contact lenses can be, especially when it comes to an active lifestyle. But in some cases, instead of making our lives easier, they can cause annoyances. In very rare cases, those annoyances go beyond dry eyes or eye infections—they can actually become embedded in your eyelid, all without you knowing it.

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In urban areas like New York, Denver, and Los Angeles, it’s become a trend for the elite to shy away from traditional pets such as dogs and cats, and to raise chickens instead. Although raising chickens used to be predominantly for rural farmers, it’s now not only chic to own these birds , but a status symbol as well. And Julie Baker, an enterprising woman from New Hampshire, is cashing in on the trend by making fashionable chicken diapers. That’s right, chicken diapers. In fact, she’s drawing in $50,000 a year from this business, which isn’t exactly small change.

10 years ago, on her small Claremont farm, Julie was raising a whole flock of chickens with her daughter. They they happened upon a YouTube video of a chicken wearing a diaper so it wouldn’t leave droppings everywhere. Julie recalls thinking something like ‘Oh my goodness, I so need to do that,’ especially since her daughter often brought her favorite chicken Abigail into the home.

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Vending machines are very popular in Asia, with businesses using them to sell just about anything, even live crabs. However, one Honk Kong entrepreneur has found a way to take vending machines to a whole new level, by designing one that sells dates to singles looking for a low-tech alternative to online dating services like Tinder.

The “Fate Capsule” vending machine outside BT Reptile, a small pet store in Kowloon’s Shek Kip Mei neighborhood, received worldwide attention earlier this year, when word of the original concept went viral online. It’s basically a multi-tiered vending machine with separate compartments for men and women which dispenses colored plastic capsules containing the contact details of singles looking for love. All you have to do is insert HK$20 ($2.5) in coins, and it will spit out a fate capsule with the description and contact information of a prospective date.

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What was once an ordinary 3-bedroom home in the suburbs of western Sydney has now gained a reputation as a “miracle house”. Ash and oil leak from its walls in such a way that is reportedly “beyond science”. The homeowners, George and Lina Tannous, believe that the allegedly unexplainable phenomena are a sign from God and that they have also granted the house miraculous healing properties.

According to the pair, their house has the amazing ability to help other couples become pregnant, even in cases where they have received medical confirmation that pregnancy would be impossible. There is even one instance of the house reportedly curing a woman’s cancer.

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Doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India, recently documented the strange case of a 4-year-old boy with a mysterious “squeaky cough”.

Writing in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, Doctor Suresh C. Sharma reported that the boy’s parents had brought him to the otorhinolaryngology outpatient clinic after noticing something strange about his cough. For the past couple of days, their 4-year-old son made a squeaky, whistling-like sound whenever he coughed. He had had no history or symptoms of viral infection of the upper respiratory tract, and was in good health, but during the physical examination, doctors did notice an expiratory wheeze in the middle and lower left lung.

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A Utah man recently flew a small Cessna airplane into his own house, with his wife and her son still inside, after being arrested on charges of domestic violence.

The bizarre incident took place on Monday, but police sources said that the cause was most likely a domestic dispute between Duane Youd, a professional airplane pilot, and his wife, near American Fork Canyon, about 35 miles south of Salt Lake City. On Sunday evening, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office received calls from several witnesses about a man hitting a woman, and a police patrol took Youd into custody. He and his wife had apparently been drinking and an argument broke out and he started hitting her.

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If you’re a vegetarian who is curious about or misses the taste of smoked ham, you’ll be pleased to learn that there’s an interesting substitute you can try.

Will Horowitz, owner of Ducks Eatery in East Village, NYC, has caused an Internet sensation with his new “smoked ham” which actually consists not of meat, but a whole watermelon. At first glance, Will’s creation looks entirely like meat, complete with scoring and charring. And even when you cut into it, the middle has red “flesh”, reminiscent of a rare steak. But the taste is something different; while the initial taste is a salty, meaty one, it quickly transforms into sweetness, especially as you get closer into the center of the faux ham.

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A video of a deformed-looking male goat has been doing the round online for over a month, with many referring to the animal as a ‘goat monster’. It turns out he’s actually just a Damascus Goat.

It’s true that the male in this viral video has some exaggerated facial features – disproportionately giant head, freakishly long neck, vaulted skull and weird underbite – but to be fair, the whole of the Damascus breed of goat looks like it should only exist in sci-fi or horror films. Not saying we should judge an animal by its looks alone – in fact Damascus goats are in many ways superior to most of the common-looking breeds – but there’s no arguing the fact that these guys look like they ran face first into a wall at full speed.

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A Thai woman who went to a backstreet salon for “super model” eyelash extensions ended up with no eyelash at all after the beautician allegedly used super glue to attach the extensions, leaving the woman unable to close her eyes.

35-year-old Benyapa Supap visited the Hair Infinity salon, in Phuket, on Friday and paid 1,500 baht ($45) for ‘super model’ eyelashes. However, when the time came to have the lush eyelashes attached, the beautician allegedly used a fast-drying glue instead of the professional cosmetic glue. Within minutes, Benyapa’s eyelids started to swell and when she blinked, the eyelashes got stuck together, making it impossible for her to open her eyes.

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11 years ago, UK resident Amethyst Realm gave up on relationships with men in order to “have sex with ghosts”. Now she claims to have started a “pretty serious” relationship with an incorporeal being; she even hopes that there is a way for the pair to start a family together.

Amethyst is a 30-year-old spiritual guidance counselor who claims that over the last decade, she has had 20 different sexual encounters with ghostly apparitions.  During a recent trip to Australia, she claims to have met her new long-term lover. Amethyst claims that the spirit returned with her to the UK. 6 months after their first meeting, the relationship is still going strong. While she is not able to see her ghostly lover, she says she is able to communicate with it and also engage in intercourse. While she is not able to say for certain if the ghost is male or female, she believes that the connection between the two is genuine.

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