Her name is Santa Muerte, the folk Saint of Death, and she is the skeletal figurehead of one of the fastest growing religions in Mexico and Central America with an estimated 10-12 million followers. Devotees have begun incorporating the controversial saint into Day of the Dead celebrations in recent years, as both are thought to originate from the Aztec goddess Mictecacihuat, or Lady of the Dead, who reigned over a festival of death every year in August.

Santa Muerte, the personification of death, is typically portrayed as a skeletal figure draped in robes and veils similar to those of the Virgin Mary. She is often depicted carrying a scythe. Her appeal, according to devotees, lies in her non-judgemental nature, as death brings a fundamental equality to all people. It is also widely believed that she will grant favors and wishes in return for vows or offerings. She is most often associated with protection, healing, and financial well being, and is the only female saint of death in the Americas.

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Cape Town-based magician and illusionist Russell Fox is attempting to set a new Guinness World Record by walking 32 km barefoot across broken glass. Fox, aged 43, is endeavouring to do it in under 29 hours (the current record).

Aside from earning himself a mention in the record books, Fox hopes to raise funds for the South Africa-based charity Nosh for Josh foundation for those affected with Autism, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and Muscular Dystrophy. Fox himself suffered from epilepsy‚ ADHD‚ Tourette’s and dyslexia as a child, so the foundation is close to his heart. Fox’s chief goal is to send children living with the listed disorders to India for Stem Cell Therapy Operation at the NeuroGen Brain and Spine Institute.

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An 87-year-old British pensioner has developed an oddly patriotic condition in which he hears an auditory hallucination of England’s national anthem playing in his head on a loop.

Ron Goldspink of Bilton hopes to meet Queen Elizabeth when she visits his town next month to tell her that he has heard the anthem even more frequently than she has. He suffers from a rare condition called Musical Ear Syndrome (MES) and mainly, which affects those suffering from hearing loss, causing them to develop non-psychiatric auditory hallucinations. The cause and mechanism  of MES are currently unknown, but researchers believe it occurs when there is a lack of auditory stimulation. Sensory deprivation causes the brain to begin manufacturing sound, hence why it is common among people suffering hearing loss. Although it is still underreported, MES is believed to affect approximately one in 10,000 people aged over 65 in the UK.

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Bangladeshi film star Shakib Khan, one of the country’s highest acclaimed actors, is being sued by an auto-rickshaw driver for using his business phone number on-screen in one of Khan’s recent films. The plaintiff claims that ever since the film launched, he has since been inundated with phone calls from the actor’s female fan base, which caused significant disruption to his life.

The film, Rajneeti, was released on June 25, 2017. During a scene with his onscreen love interest, Khan recites his character’s phone number. Although a common trope in Bangladeshi films, in this particular circumstance the number was not fake or made up. It was the real-life phone number of Ijajul Mia, an auto-rickshaw driver from the Jatrapasha village, in Baniachang Upazila, and the scene made the man’s life a living nightmare. A few weeks after the film’s release, the phone number had already been widely shared among Shakib Khan’s fans, and in a five day period in July Mia claims to have received over 500 calls from women seeking the popular actor.

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Ever dream of immersing yourself in a giant tub of used KFC cooking oil that would leave you smelling like your favorite fried chicken? Well, thanks to this fried drumstick-shaped bath bomb, now you can.

KFC recently teamed up with Japanese novelty retailer Village Vanguard to create one of its most outrageous products yet – bath salts shaped like a cooked drumstick that makes your bathtub look and smell like one of the fast food restaurant’s vats of used frying oil, and leaves you smelling like fried chicken after a bath. Who would want to reek of KFC chicken, you ask? Well, the fast food chain is really popular in Japan, and we all know how much they love crazy things over there, so the unusual bath bomb is practically a guaranteed hit.

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Mass hysteria has broken out in the small southeast African nation of Malawi, where rumors of real-life blood-sucking vampires have become so widespread that groups of vigilante vampire hunters resort to murder to protect their communities.

At least 9 suspected vampires have been brutally murdered in Malawi since mid-September, including two men in the country’s second-largest city, Blantyre. According to police, both were stoned, and one was set on fire. Police have arrested over 140 people in connection with a vigilante group that has been targeting individuals accused of being vampires and sucking the blood of the innocents.

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People have been losing their minds over the pumpkin pie created by Simon Davies, the chef at Chicago’s Alinea restaurant, and for good reason. It looks like jell-o on a pie crust, but he insists that it’s an actual pumpkin pie, just not the kind we’re all used to.

Davies posted the first photo of his bizarre crystal-clear pumpkin pie in late September, and people have been talking about it ever since. The general reaction can be described as a mix of surprise, confusion and anger, as people try to wrap their hands around this pumpkin pie that sort of looks like the traditional Thanksgiving dessert, but is totally different, at the same time. Most of them just can’t accept that it’s not simple jell-o on a buttery pie crust, but a condensed distillation of actual pumpkin pie filling that tastes like the real thing.

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Ada Keating, a 98-year-old mother of four, recently moved into a care home in Huyton, Liverpool, not because she couldn’t take care of herself, but to look after her 80-year-old son Tom.

Tom Keating became a resident of the Moss View retirement home in 2016, when it became clear that he was no longer able to care for himself. His mother Ada joined him after about a year, when it became apparent that he would require additional support. The mother and son, originally from Wavertree, share a special bond, as Tom never married and had always lived with Ada. Tom was a painter and decorator at HE Simm building services before his retirement, while Ada was an auxiliary nurse at the former Mill Road Hospital. They lived together in the family home for most of their lives, and now do so again, in a retirement home.

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Meet Mahdi Gilbert, the 25-year-old Canadian magician making waves in the world of magic. He practices card manipulation and sleight of hand, a common skill set for a magician, but what sets him apart is his lack of hands.

Standing at four-feet-six inches, Gilbert’s left arm stops at the elbow, and he has an articulated appendage on his right arm. Gilbert was forced to reinvent magic for himself, individually recreating all of the techniques used in his illusions. “I had to become self-sufficient from an early age; there’s (sic) no magic books written for me,” Gilbert said in an interview for the documentary Our Magic.

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Pisonia Brunoniana is a species of small flowering trees native to tropical regions from Hawaii to New Zealand, and as far west as India. The pisonia tree has soft brittle wood with large glossy leaves and a dark secret. If you search among its roots and branches, you’re likely to find thousands of delicate bones and tiny mummified corpses. It is this macabre feature that gives the tree its creepy nickname – “the birdcatcher tree”.

The pisonia tree produces long seed pods coated with a thick sticky mucus that entraps insects and the birds tempted to feast on them. The ensnared insects look like easy pickings to unsuspecting birds, but if they’re not careful, they can easily get entangled in the sticky seedpods themselves. Too many seeds caught among their feathers can weigh the birds down and prevent them from flying off the tree. If they’re not picked off by a passing scavenger, the birds are doomed to a slow death by starvation. Often, the birds die without ever escaping the pisonia’s branches, which means their withered corpses are left dangling like some strange fruit or a creepy Christmas ornament. In what can only be described as a vicious cycle, birds of prey tempted by the trapped birds sometimes also get entangled in sticky seeds and become trapped themselves.

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A small school in rural India is gaining attention over the fact that all 300 students are ambidextrous. Data shows that only one percent of the global population is ambidextrous, but the ambitious founder of Veena Vandini School, in Madhya Pradesh, is aiming to change that, starting at a local level.

Former soldier and Veena Vandini School founder VP Sharma stated that he was inspired to focus on ambidexterity training by India’s first president Rajendra Prasad (in office from 1950 to 1962) who was ambidextrous. “I read in a magazine that Dr. Rajendra Prasad India’s first president used to write with both hands. This inspired me to give it a try,” Mr. Sharma said. “Later when I launched my school at my native village, I tried training the students.”

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Have you ever found yourself looking at the floor of your car and thinking ‘damn, this rubber mat would make an excellent skirt’? No? Well someone at luxury fashion brand Balenciaga definitely did, and not only did they make the car mat skirt a reality, but they made sure it was appropriately priced – $2,300.

While it might look like the brilliant minds at Balenciaga simply took a run-of-the-mill car mat and stitched it into a dress, they actually put a little more work into it. The controversial clothing item is actually 50% lambskin, instead of plain rubber, although it does have neoprene backing for a “utilitarian aesthetic.” But apart from leather replacing rubber – at least for the most part – the skirt actually looks just like a coiled car mat. So much so that British homeware retailer Argos recently stated that it was inspired by one of the car mats they sell.

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A sprawling 10-acre desert ranch in Arizona, aptly named Stardust Ranch, has come onto the market for $5 million (USD). Located in the scenic Rainbow Valley just outside of metropolitan Phoenix, the ranch includes a 3.436 square foot house, an in-ground pool, and allegedly a constant stream of extraterrestrial traffic.

Owner John Edmonds has grown tired of fighting off aliens, and recently decided to put it up for sale. Edmonds claims that over the past 20 years he has been abducted multiple times, and has had medical experiments performed on him by the aliens. He also alleges that his wife has been the subject of extraterrestrial abuse on several occasions. He originally purchased the property as a preserve for rescue horses who are unwanted or have experienced abuse. Allegedly the horses have also been molested by the aliens, with several turning up mutilated.

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An English adventurer recently got to experience what most of us have only seen in the 2009 Pixar animated movie “UP” – flying 8,000 feet above ground while tied to colorful party balloons.

The Adventurists, an adventure company based in Bristol, England, offers unusual holidays to those seeking extraordinary experiences. Past projects have included, among several others, a rickshaw runs across the Himalayas and a motorbike race across the planet’s largest frozen lake in Russia. Every adventure raises money for charity, and in the past 12 years they have raised over £5 million. For their latest fundraising project, the company has taken inspiration from the critically acclaimed 2009 Pixar film UP, tying a lawn chair to 100 balloons and getting a crazy adventurist to sit in it at 8,000 feet above ground.

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Four sophomore students at the University of Hefei, in eastern China, recently proved that you don’t have to spend a small fortune on a designer dress to look stunning. You can make it yourself, for free, using only plant leaves.

Photos of the four students’ stunning leaf dress have been doing the rounds on Chinese social media for about a week, and people still can’t stop gushing over them. And who can blame them, really? Just take a look at what these kids were able to do with about 6,000 leaves, some thread and mountains of patience.

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