British beekeeper and musician Bioni (pronounced BEE-own-ee) Samp has found an incredible way to combine his two greatest passions. He records the frequencies of his bees and uses them to create original electronic musical compositions.

Bioni – a pseudonym, as his real name is a closely guarded secret – produces abstract music that is rhythmic and dancey, but the 50-something Londoner has a higher goal than making people get jiggy with it on the dance floor. He uses his unusual music to raise awareness about colony collapse disorder (CDC), a plague that has wiped out millions of honeybee hives globally since 2006. Billions of bees are killed by CDC every year, and that’s not counting the ones that dies as result of climate change and pesticide poisoning. he feels that by using bees as a musical instrument he can get through to people easier than by preaching to them about the plight of bees and the dangers their extinction poses to humanity.

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“Flat-earthers”, people who believe that the Earth is flat, have been catching a lot of flack for their ridiculous claims, but their’s is not the craziest theory regarding our planet’s shape and structure. Some people actually believe the Earth is hollow and that a race of superior humans live inside it.

The hollow Earth theory was first proposed in the 17th century by some of the leading scientists of the time. Unlike their predecessors, however, the modern hollow Earth theorists also believe that a race of superior humans, Vikings, and Nazis live in paradise at the center. These residents of the core frequently send UFOs, via holes in the North and South poles, to spy on us surface dwellers in an attempt to prevent a nuclear war.

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Greek eco-terrorists claim to have started injecting hydrochloric acid, a highly corrosive substance, into supermarket foods and drinks. The anarchist group even posted photos of themselves injecting soda, milk, and meat with acid, on social media.

Several Greek supermarkets were forced to withdraw specific products from their shelves after the threats of contamination. Authorities urged citizens in Athens and Thessaloniki not to buy or consume Coca-Cola, a local milk brand, and packaged meat for fear of them being contaminated with the dangerous substance. The two cities have a combined total of about 1 million residents affected by these precautionary measures.

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MIT researchers have made an important breakthrough in their quest to make plants that glow in the dark a reality. In what they call Plant Nanobionics, the engineers embedded nanoparticles into the leaves of a watercress plant that caused the plants to give off a dim glow for three and a half hours.

Their next goal is to create plants bright enough to illuminate a workspace, but, if successful, the technology could also be used to transform trees into self-powered streetlights, the scientists claim. The team’s ultimate goal is to engineer plants to replace many of the functions currently performed by electrical devices and appliances.

“The vision is to make a plant that will function as a desk lamp — a lamp that you don’t have to plug in. The light is ultimately powered by the energy metabolism of the plant itself,” said Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and the senior author of a recently released study on plant nanobionics.

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One of India’s largest coal reserves, the Jharia coalfield, situated in the Dhanbad district of Jharkhand, is the site of one of the longest-burning fires in the world. The area has been burning continuously for over 100 years.

Mining in the Jharia coalfields, which cover over 100 square miles, began in the late 1800s, under British rule. The first detected fire broke out in 1916, but by the 1980s over 70 blazes had sprouted up, and none of them could be contained, let alone extinguished. As they were often deep underground, they were left to smolder in the hope that they would eventually burn out on their own. Unfortunately, a new mining operation in 1973 smothered that hope.

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An interesting vacancy has just opened up in the Philippines: the country no longer has a “Cobra King” after the person holding that title has died. The irony is that Elies ‘Peter’ Lenturio, also known as the Philippine snake whisperer, met his end through an act of revenge on his pet cobra: he was bitten by the snake and retaliated by cutting its head off and drinking its blood.

It seems that Elies’s mistake was ingesting the blood. Cobras are extremely poisonous snakes and people in general would be terror-struck if bitten, not to mention dead without immediate treatment. However, the Cobra King had gotten numerous snake bites over the years and knew how to treat himself. He would not go to the hospital that day, choosing to have a few drinks instead and then head home to sleep it off. It turned out to be his last night on earth: he started foaming at the mouth and going rigid, much to the surprise of his family. Elies was rushed to hospital, but he was pronounced dead on arrival.

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A Vietnamese court recently sentenced 22-year-old blogger and journalist Nguyen Van Hoa to seven years in prison for reporting on the 2016 Formosa spill that devastated the Vietnamese coast. Arrested in April, Hoa had produced video footage, photos, and articles about Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Group’s April 2016 toxic chemical spill from its steel plant located at the port in Ha Tinh. According to state-run media, he stands accused of “propagating against, distorting and defaming the government.”

The People’s Court of Ha Tinh province found Hoa guilty of violating Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal Code and also ruled that he be placed under house arrest for three years after his jail term is complete. No attorney was present to represent Hao in the closed trial.

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A parasitic fungus, of the genus Ophiocordyceps, uses carpenter ants to complete its life cycle by turning them into zombies. The ant encounters the fungal spores while foraging and the fungus quickly infects and spreads throughout its body, hijacking the insect’s nervous system. It then forces the ant to climb vegetation, where it will clamp onto the underside of a leaf or twig, and then slowly die. The parasite then produces a spore-releasing stalk that sprouts from the cadaver’s head to discharge spores to the ground below, where more hapless ants can get infected.

Until recently scientists were uncertain as to the exact mechanisms or reasons behind this gruesome phenomenon. New research from Penn State University, however, has shed some light on the mystery. The researchers have suggested that the fungus invades muscles fibers throughout the insect’s body, which allows it to control the host’s behavior, but stays away from its brain.

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A tiny off-grid community in Snowflake, Arizona has become a refuge for people suffering from multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS). Often referred to as Environmental Illness, (EI), the condition is a chronic disorder in which exposure to everyday chemicals and technology causes symptoms of varying intensity.

Some of the symptoms of MCS are merely annoying and range from muscle pain to general fatigue. Others are reportedly crippling, such as intense nausea, migraines, sudden panic, and even vertigo. Sufferers claim that their symptoms coincide with exposure to chemicals and technologies around them, such as fragrances, synthetic fabrics, pesticides, and Wi-Fi. Most doctors hesitate to legitimise the condition, citing lack of scientific evidence, calling it a psycho-social condition with acute physical symptoms. For this reason, sufferers, who typically are self-diagnosed, often have difficulty finding medical help for the disease and have to resort to alternative treatments.

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A 28-year-old Egyptian newlywed woman, is seeking a divorce after only two weeks of marriage because her husband does all of the household chores. Her husband, 31, also runs a successful clothing store, where he employs several staff members and is therefore able to spend most of his time at home. Samar claims that he spends all of that time cleaning and rearranging furniture and that she can no longer handle living with him.

The woman, known only as Samar M., claims that her husband, Mohammad S., is acting like a housewife, and she has grown bored of him. Not only does he do all of the chores, but he refuses to allow her to help at all. She eventually confronted her husband but said that he responded by saying that if she wanted to live in his house, she had to follow his rules.

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An Israeli start-up has introduced an intriguing potential solution to world hunger – fruit fly larvae. The company, Flying SpArk, co-founded by Eran Gronich and Yoram Yerushalmi in 2014, uses fruit fly larvae to make a protein powder (in regular and low-fat varieties) and oil, both of which are odorless and flavorless. These products can then be used to make everything from substitute meat patties to pasta, cereal, and even bread.

Fruit flies have a lifespan of only six days but multiply up to 15 times in that time, making them easy and cheap to farm and harvest. There is virtually no waste created in the process, as all parts of the larvae are used. This gives them an edge over conventional protein sources like poultry or cattle, but also over insects like grasshoppers or crickets, because they have no legs, wings, antennas or eyes. And while, Flying SpArk doesn’t believe its fruit fly powder can completely replace meat, the company hopes that by becoming a part of human diet, it can at least reduce our negative impact on the environment.

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In Hanoi Vietnam, a young entrepreneur called Dinh Thang has found a creative solution to the post break-up blues. Instead of wallowing among the leftover relics of failed relationships, such as love letters and clothing, Thang has boxed them up and put a price tag on them. In February 2017 he founded the Old Flames Market where the broken hearted can gather together and sell the remnants of their affairs to curious customers.

“This fair is only one of those many cool ideas my friends and I came up with after a chit chat about ex-girlfriends, boyfriends, and things,” Thang told Vietnam News*. “After the break-ups, we found there were many objects left in our homes by old lovers, and we do not want to see them again since they remind us of unhappy memories. However, these things were still in good shape. It would harm the environment if we tossed them away. Then, we thought we should make an exchange with other people, so the objects would find new owners. They can buy new, good objects and we protect the environment. It’s a win-win.”

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“Praise the Lord and pass the libation” is the motto of an unorthodox church located near Johannesburg, South Africa. Gabola Church of International Ministries takes its name from the Tswana word for “drinking”, and it both allows and encourages members of the congregation to drink during service.

The African continent is home to lots of unconventional churches and colorful preachers who employ all kinds of outlandish rituals to attract parishioners. In the past we’ve written about ministers spraying congregates with “holy” bug spray, making them drink motor oil or talking to God on the phone. However, Johannesburg’s Gabola Church is apparently the first to choose alcohol as its main theme.

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Arctic Apple is the world’s first genetically engineered apple that doesn’t turn brown after being cut or bruised. It was developed by Canadian company Okanagan Specialty Fruits and is already being sold in select grocery stores.

When the cells of conventional apples are damaged, such as when they are cut, bitten into or bruised, an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase (PPO) initiates a chemical reaction that turns the flesh of the fruit brown. Some apple varieties brown faster than others, while others have a lower degree of browning, due to varying levels of PPO, but the Arctic Apple is the world’s first non-browning apple. Its flesh will retain its fresh, appealing color even days after being sliced, which Okanagan Specialty Fruits claims will increase apple consumption and decrease food waste.

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Alarmed by how many cigarette butts littered the parks of Amsterdam, two Dutch designers came up with an unusual plan to train crows to pick up the butts and trade them for tasty rewards.

Industrial designers Ruben van der Vleuten and Bob Spikman originally considered using robots to clean the streets of cigarette butts, but they presented a series of difficulties, particularly the complicated programming required to have them vacuuming the buts out of every nook and cranny while trying to avoid bicycles and passers-by. So they turned their attention to one of the most abundant resources of urban areas – birds. Pigeons were the first ones they considered, because they can be found in virtually every city in the world, but a quick search revealed that they aren’t really known for their intelligence, so training them would have been very hard. But the two designers soon found a bird that was both very common around human settlements and much, much smarter – the crow.

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