A 24-year-old Chinese man who spent the last five months of his life living in the mountains after a painful breakup now looks at least twice his age and is called “uncle” by people older than him.

Remember Brandon Miles May, the 35-year-old man who looks half his age? Well, today we’re featuring his exact opposite, a young man who looks twice his age, not because of some rare genetic disorder, but simply because he has been exposed to the elements in the mountains of northern and western China. The unidentified man rose to fame in his native country after a video in which he showed his ID to the camera to prove he was in his early 20s went viral on social media. When referred to as ‘uncle’ by the person shooting the video, the balding, rugged-looking trekker says that he is only 24, and proceeds to hold up his ID card to the camera to show that he was born in December of 2000.

Read More »

Enzo, a 4-year-old boy from Aubervilliers, France, miraculously survived a 43-meter fall from his 16th-floor apartment with only a scratch and no fractures, and no one understands how.

The unusual incident took place on May 26, in a high-rise apartment complex in Aubervilliers, central France. Enzo, a 4-year-old boy diagnosed with autism was in his room when his father, Ji, heard him crying. As usual, he hurried to check on his son and calm him down, but as he tried to enter Enzo’s room, he realized that the door was locked. This had never happened before, and the parents suspect that the boy accidentally locked himself inside which caused him to panic. By the time Ji managed to break down the door, Enzo’s crying had stopped and the room seemed empty. Seeing the window open, the man horrifyingly realized that he was too late.

Read More »

Polmard, a small farm in Saint Mihiel, France, produces the world’s most exclusive meat using a process called hibernation. It allows the meat to be stored and cured for up to 15 years with no loss of quality.

Alexandre Polmard is a sixth-generation farmer, breeder, and butcher in a family that has been producing beef cuts since 1846. However, the business rose to prominence in the 1990s, after Alexandre’s grandfather and father invented a new and revolutionary meat treatment they dubbed ‘hibernation’. Cold air is blown at speeds of up to 120 kilometers per hour over the meat in a -43 C environment at the farm’s state-of-the-art laboratory in Saint Mihiel and this allows the meat to be cured for over a decade, with no loss of quality. If anything, the longer the curing time, the higher the quality, and the price, with one kilogram of 15-year-old hibernated rib steak selling for an eye-watering $3,200.

Read More »

A Vietnamese woman has been dubbed a “sleepless mutant” because of her alleged ability to shun sleep completely. She claims to have remained awake continuously for the last three decades.

49-year-old Nguyen Ngoc My Kim is known as “the seamstress who never sleeps” in her home province of Long An, a nickname she gladly accepts because it apparently suits her. Every time Miss Kim’s reputation attracted the attention of the media, she confirmed that she hadn’t slept in several decades, adding that the complete lack of sleep hadn’t affected her health at all. However, the Vietnamese seamstress has always been quick to point out that she wasn’t born with the ability to function without sleep, she conditioned herself to stay up late ever since she was a little girl. At first, she would lose sleep because she loved reading late into the night, and later, when she started working as a seamstress, she worked late in order to complete her orders. At one point, she didn’t feel the need to sleep at all, so she didn’t.

Read More »

A Japanese man recently shocked the internet after announcing that he managed to save 132 million yen ($640,000) over the last two decades with the goal of retiring early from his stressful job.

The unnamed 45-year-old man took to social media to announce that he had finally achieved FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) after dedicating the last twenty years and ten months to this goal. In the early 2000s, he managed to secure a stable but very demanding job where he was constantly required to work overtime, sometimes past midnight. He had a decent salary of around five million yen ($32,000) per year, so instead of quitting his job and looking for something less stressful, he decided to push through all the hardships and save as much money as possible so he could retire early. However, the level of frugality he endured throughout the last two decades left a lot of people wondering if his efforts were worth it.

Read More »

A UK woman recently admitted to exaggerating her physical disability claims in order to receive bigger benefits, all the while competing in over 70 running events.

Sara Morris was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2005, but four years ago she applied for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) by exaggerating the extent of her symptoms in order to claim £20,000 ($25,800) that she was not entitled to. According to the evidence presented in court, the 49-year-old woman from Stoke on Trent claimed that she experienced difficulties getting out of the bath unassisted, lacked proper balance and didn’t have the power to stand in front of the gas cooker. Morris also said that she felt so anxious when leaving the house that even a short trip to the pharmacy put her on edge. She was thus able to receive £2,292.63 in benefits per month, while also participating in dozens of 5K and 10K running competitions.

Read More »

A Russian man who had experienced pain and discomfort under his ribs for the last nine years was shocked to discover that he had a 9 cm glass shard embedded in his liver.

The 53-year-old unnamed man told doctors at the Kirov Regional Clinical Hospital, in Russia, that he had long experienced sharp pain and discomfort on the right side of his body, under his ribs, but he never bothered getting it checked out. After finally deciding to seek medical help for his problem, he underwent a CT scan which revealed a sharp object stuck in the right lobe of his liver. When doctors asked what the object might be, the patient told them that he had no idea, as he had no history of trauma, nor could he remember an incident where a sharp object could have entered his body. After operating on the man laparoscopically, surgeons removed a 9-cm-long glass shard from his liver.

Read More »

Pan Xiaoting, a 24-year-old Chinese streamer specializing in mukbang (eating large quantities of food for viewers’ enjoyment) recently died during her livestream due to consuming too much food.

China cracked down on mukbang streams and videos in 2020, in a bid to reduce overeating and ‘shameful’ food waste, with offenders risking fines of up to 10,000 yuan ($1,400). However, mukbang streams are still incredibly popular in the Asian country, with thousands of people putting their lives at risk by stuffing their faces with insane amounts of food for views. One such streamer was Pan Xiaoting, a former waitress turned professional mukbanger, who lost her life earlier this month during one of her streams after her body just gave out due to overeating. The autopsy showed that her stomach was filled with undigested food and her abdomen was severely deformed.

Read More »

A 36-year-old man has become known as “China’s most stubborn man” after taking the national college admission exam 16 consecutive years in an attempt to get accepted to the prestigious Tsinghua University.

Tang Shangjun took the gaokao, China’s notoriously difficult college admission exam, in 2009. He scored a mediocre 372 points out of 750, much too low to get into his dream school, Tsinghua University. He was unwilling to compromise, so he spent the next few years studying harder and taking the gaokao. By 2016, his score had improved to a respectable 625 points, more than enough to secure admission to several universities in his home province of Guanxi, but still not good enough for his chosen majors at Tsinghua. So he kept at it, year after year, ignoring all other universities, but never quite reaching the level required to get into his desired faculties at Tsinghua University.

Read More »

35-year-old Brandon Miles May has been making a name for himself in the online anti-aging community because of his unusually youthful looks which he attributes to a healthy, balanced lifestyle.

Looking at Brandon Miles May for the first time, you’d probably mistake him for a teenager, but he is 35 years old. We’ve seen such shocking discrepancies between age and appearance before, but it was usually due to some rare hormonal disorder. In Brandon’s case, he never mentioned such a condition in any of his TikTok videos, instead attributing his incredibly youthful looks to his anti-aging regimen, which includes a balanced diet, minimal sun exposure, and at least eight hours of sleep per night.

Read More »

Durandal, a mythical sword that had been lodged in a rock wall in the French village of Rocamadour for the last 1,300 years, has suddenly disappeared, presumably stolen.

Durandal was often described as the French equivalent of the much more famous Excalibur, King Arthur’s legendary sword. Legend has it that an angel gave Durandal to the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, who in turn entrusted it to his faithful knight, Roland. It is mentioned in the 11th-century poem The Song of Roland, which claims that its magical power came from containing the tooth of St Peter, the blood of St Basil, and the hair of St Denis. Roland is said to have tried to break his trusty sword after being wounded at the battle of Roncevaux Pass, to keep it from falling into the hands of the Saracens. However, Durandal was indestructible, so instead he hurled it towards the sky, and the sword landed in a giant rock, where it allegedly remained ever since. Until recently, anyway…

Read More »

A 17-year-old Chinese student from a rural vocational school who shocked her country by ranking 12th among 802 participants in an elite math contest is now facing accusations of cheating.

Math contests are a big deal in China, but it’s very rare for such competitions to capture the attention of an entire country like this year’s Alibaba Global Mathematics Competition. Organized by Alibaba’s DAMO Academy and the Alibaba Foundation, the contest is free to enter for math enthusiasts from around the world, but it is usually dominated by math majors from prestigious institutions such as Harvard, Oxford, and MIT. However, this year, something extraordinary happened. Not only was 17-year-old Jiang Ping the only girl in the top 30 after the first round of the competition, but she was also the only one whose studies didn’t focus on math. The unlikely math genius studies fashion design at a rural vocational school in Jiangsu Province, and only studies advanced mathematics as a hobby.

  Read More »

A Japanese couple known for uploading wholesome family videos on YouTube sparked controversy after filming their 2-year-old daughter crying inside a locked car on a hot day for about 30 minutes instead of getting her out.

At the end of May,  ラウなのファミリー (“Rau-nano Family), a YouTube channel that documents the daily life of a Japanese couple with their three children, uploaded a video titled 炎天下の中…2歳娘が車に閉じ込められました (“Under the blazing sun… my 2-year-old daughter was locked in the car,”).  The shocking title hints at the couple’s goal of grabbing attention and boosting viewership, but while the video managed to do just that, they didn’t anticipate the criticism coming with their new-found fame. That is surprising, to say the least, as the controversial video shows the father of the family casually filming his 2-year-old daughter as she cries desperately for about 30 minutes after accidentally getting stuck in the family car on a hot summer day with no windows open.

The disturbing video, which has since been removed from the Rau-nano Family YouTube channel, shows the head of the family placing the older daughter, two-year-old Nanoka, in the backseat of the family’s Toyota, and preparing to do the same with her younger sister. It is at this moment that Nanoka, who is holding the car keys as her father handles the little sister, accidentally locks herself in the car.

  Read More »

A 90-year-old Chinese woman unknowingly used an old hand grenade to crack nuts and hammer nails for two decades after finding the unexploded ordinance in a field one day.

The woman, surnamed Qin, told Chinese reporters that she was working on her farm in Xiangyang, Hubei province when she found this strange “metal lump” with a wooden handle. Convinced it was a makeshift hammer, she took it home and used it to pound all kinds of tough objects, from nuts to metal nails. It was only last week when a team of men working on demolishing her old house noticed the hand grenade that the retired woman learned she had been gambling with her life every time she used it. And she used it a lot, as police reported that the grenade’s wooden handle had become smooth and glossy from years of use, while the metallic head was full of dents.

Read More »

A French woman is taking telecom giant Orange to court for “moral harassment and discrimination at work,” accusing the company of paying her for 20 years without giving her any tasks.

Laurence Van Wassenhove was recruited as a civil servant by France Telecom in 1993 before the company was taken over by Orange. Her original employer knew that she was hemiplegic – partial paralysis of the face and limbs – from birth and suffered from epilepsy, and offered her a position adapted to her medical conditions. She worked as a secretary and in the HR department until 2002 when she asked to be transferred to another region of France. Her request was approved, but her new workplace was not adapted to her needs, and an occupational medicine report confirmed that the position was not suited for her. Despite this, Orange allegedly failed to make any adjustments to her job, preferring to pay her full salary for the next 20 years, without giving her anything to do.

Read More »