At an age when most women are either busy playing with their grandchildren or are long past thinking about having children, a 70-year-old Indian woman just gave birth to her first child.

Jivuben Valabhai Rabari and her husband had been trying to conceive ever since they got married, 45 years ago, but their every attempt had been unsuccessful. A couple of years ago, Ms. Rabari, a milk farmer from rural Gujarat, contacted a gynecologist about the possibility of trying an IVF treatment to finally fulfill her dream of having a baby. The doctor, Naresh Bhanushali, had helped several members of the woman’s family conceive, and she was convinced he could do the same for her. Despite receiving negative counseling and being told that her relatives were between 45 and 50 years old, not nearing 70 like her, she would not take ‘no’ for an answer.

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Authorities in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, are worried about the growing popularity of bombé, a new artisanal drug that allegedly turns energetic youths into mindless zombies.

While the rest of the world is battling the Covid-19 pandemic, police in Kinsasha are struggling to contain an epidemic of their own – the rapid spread of a new and dangerous drug that threatens the lives of millions of youths. Known as ‘bombé’, which means powerful in the local Lingala language, this dubious concoction is based on a brown powder obtained from crushing the ceramic core of catalytic converters, a car part designed to cut the emission of toxic gases in vehicle exhaust pipes. Mixed with a variety of pills, this powder reportedly puts users into an almost catatonic state, where they will stand motionless for hours, sometimes days, or just move aimlessly like zombies, which has earned them the ominous nickname “zombies of Kinshasa”.

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Scientists have discovered that Temnothorax ants infected by a certain tapeworm parasite can live at least three times longer than their uninfected peers while maintaining a youthful appearance and getting special treatment.

A multi-year scientific study published in May of this year has revealed a phenomenon worthy of a science-fiction or fantasy blockbuster – a parasitic tapeworm that grants its host eternal youth while making them irresistible to their uninfected peers, who work harder just to bring them food and fulfill their every wish. It sounds unreal, but scientists at the  Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Austria have studied colonies of Temnothorax ants and found that when they are infected with the tapeworm Anomotaenia brevis, they become virtually immortal.

Temnothorax-nylanderi is a relatively common species of small ants that live in forests throughout Central Europe. They form small colonies on the forest floor, inside acorns or wooden branches, and most importantly, they serve as an intermediate host for the tapeworm Anomotaenia brevis. Up to 70 parasitic larvae can survive in the hemolymph, the body fluid of insects, but instead of competing for resources with their hosts and slowly killing them, the parasites appear to extend their lives considerably, possibly even indefinitely.

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Shanghai-based artist Yang Yexin has been getting a lot of criticism for throwing away 1,000 grains of rice made of pure gold as part of a performance artwork to highlight current food waste.

If you’re planning on visiting Shanghai soon, you may want to keep your eyes peeled as you walk through the city streets, as you may stumble on small precious nuggets worth a pretty penny. Local artist Yang Yexin recently released a video of himself throwing 1,000 gold grains in trashcans, in drains, in the grass, and in the Huangpu River, as a way of drawing attention to food waste in modern society. The rice grains  showed in the video were made from 500 grams of gold worth over 200,000 yuan ($31,000), by a jewelry store that made them “in accordance with the actual size of each real rice grain.”

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This week, the people of Plounéventer, a town in France’s Brittany region, woke up to a very bizarre sight – a white van perched on top of a bus station.

Imagine waking up early in the morning to take the bus to work and finding a car on top of the bus station? It’s still night out, there’s hardly anyone around, and there’s a car in the last place you’d expect to see one. No, it’s not a lost episode of the Twilight Zone, but something that commuters in the French town of Plounéventer experienced on Monday morning. Some clicked a few photos of the white van perched on top of the Place de l’Eglise bus station and posted them on social media, where they quickly went viral.

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If you’re looking for an unusual and extremely expensive way of dealing with small pests, like cockroaches, may we recommend the world’s smallest working revolver?

The Swiss Mini Gun holds the Guinness World Record for the smallest functioning revolver in the world. It measures 5.5 cm long, 3.5 cm tall and 1 cm wide, weighing only 19.8g. It’s so easy to conceal that countries like the United States and the United Kingdom have made the Swiss Mini Gun illegal to import. But while its reduced size may be unusual, this tiny firearm has all the same features as a normal-sized double-action revolver. Its manufacturing was only possible by employing techniques used in the Swiss watchmaking and jewelry industries.

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An Indian man was found guilty of murdering his wife by renting a cobra to bite her and make it look like an accident, so he could take her jewelry and marry another woman.

In what has been described as a modern murder mystery, a young man from the Kollam District of the Indian state of Kerala was convicted of arranging and carrying out his wife’s murder with the help of a venomous snake. The heinous crime took place in May of 2020, but investigators needed over a year to collect the necessary evidence to charge the husband. In fact, the 32-year-old man might have gotten away with murder if not for the wife’s parents, who suspected foul play and filed a complaint against him.

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Rocket Road is a unique clothing brand aimed not at humans, but at robots of all shapes and sizes. It aims to offer customization options and seamlessly bridge the gap between humans and machines.

Last month, Japanese company Rocket Road announced the launch of its first lineup of functional protective cover wear for robotic arms. These decorative and functional covers are available in over 40 different colors, can be made out of dustproof, anti-bacterial, water repellent or heat-resistant material, and are meant to brighten up the otherwise bland working environment and provide the robotic arms with a bit of personality. But this is only the company’s latest project. Rocket Road has been creating robot clothing for a long time now and has quite an impressive portfolio.

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Viral photos of a leopard and a cow cuddling somewhere in rural India tell the unique love story between two very unlikely friends.

Cows and leopards are usually not the best of friends, with the latter sometimes preying on bovines to survive. However, you wouldn’t even be tempted to think that looking at a set of viral photos that have been doing the rounds on social media for nearly two decades now. They show an adult leopard cuddling and playing with a cow, which, if the accompanying caption is to be believed, adopted and breastfed the feline as a cub. The story behind the photos has been exaggerated over the years to attract even more attention, but the photos are real and the relationship between the two animals is a testament to the fact that miracles can happen.

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The caterpillar of the Uraba lugens moth is deserving of the nickname “Mad Hatterpillar”, as it stacks the heads of its molted exoskeletons into an intriguing headpiece.

The Uraba lugens caterpillar molds up to 13 times while in its caterpillar phase, but it doesn’t shed all of its previous body parts. It uses some of the empty shells that once housed its head to create a rather impressive tower-shaped headpiece. As the caterpillar grows, so does its head, so each of the empty shells on top of its head is bigger than the next. Every time it molds, the head portion of its exoskeleton stays attached to its body, giving the critter a unique look as well as a handy decoy in the case of an attack.

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Oversized sunglasses have been around for a while, but Japanese company ZGHYBD has taken this fashion trend to the extreme with a pair of shades that cover the wearer’s entire face.

To be honest, it’s hard to tell whether the eyewear designed by ZGHYBD is a visor or a pair of sunglasses; on one hand, it covers the whole face, like a face shield, but then it features one giant polarized lens and features a frame that slides behind the ears, like traditional eyeglasses. Plus, it’s obviously designed as more of a fashion accessory than for practical use. Still, as far as eyeglasses go, this is one of the weirdest ones we’ve seen yet, concealing not just the eyes, but most of the wearer’s face, including the nose and mouth.

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Mr. Methane is a world-renowned entertainer who, as the name suggests, has a very special talent when it comes to passing wind.

Of all superpowers one could have, farting at will probably sits near the bottom of everyone’s list, and yet one of the few people known to be able to control their flatulence has managed to build a career around this ability. Paul Oldfield, aka ‘Mr. Methane’, discovered his unusual talent for farting in his teenage years, and eventually managed to use it as a way to make living, traveling the world and showcasing his somewhat repulsive ability to the world. The Macclesfield-born Englishman currently holds the record for most farts released in one minute, but is also known for performing popular songs by farting, and various other revolting tricks.

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A Japanese YouTuber recently sparked controversy after apparently cooking and eating a piglet that he had raised on camera for the previous 100 days.

In May of this year, a Japanese man started a peculiar YouTube channel named “Eating Pig After 100 Days“. True to its name, the channel was all about raising a small piglet for 100 days, before cooking and eating it. The idea was intriguing enough to attract a decent audience of over 100,000 on the world’s most popular video platform, but few of its followers actually believed the man behind the project would actually go through with it. After all, what kind of monster would slaughter and eat the adorable piglet that won the hearts of so many, right? Well…

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Located near the Dallol crater in Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression is Gaet’ale Pond, a small pool of water with a salinity of 43%, making it by far the saltiest body of water on Earth.

To put into perspective just how salty Gaet’ale actually is, you should know that the Dead Sea, the world’s most famous hypersaline body of water, has a salinity of 33.7%, while the world’s oceans have an average salinity of 3.5%. The water in this small pond is so overly saturated with iron salts that it feels greasy on the hand, as if it were oil. The locals in this part of Ethiopia sometimes call it “oily lake”, because of how oily the water feels. But some call it “killer lake”, because of the toxic gases emitted through the surface of the water, and the perfectly preserved carcasses of birds and insects on its shores are warning of the danger of getting too close to the water.

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“Middlemist’s Red,” also known as the spring rose, is widely regarded as the world’s rarest flower, as just two of these precious plants exist, one in New Zealand and another in the UK.

Named after John Middlemist, who collected it in China in 1804, the Middlemist’s Red camelia was always a rare flower that could only be found in the stately English homes of well-off families who could afford to buy them. Middlemist himself donated his specimen to Kew Gardens, but it somehow vanished, along with the others throughout London and the whole of the UK, with the exception of one place. By 1823, the Chiswick House & Gardens, a stately home in England, became the only place in the UK where a Middlemist’s Red could be admired.

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